Magazine Explores Hipsters Intrusions Into Insular Hasidic Community

This week's New York Magazine carries an interesting article titled Clash of the Bearded Ones: Hipsters, Hasids and the Williamsburg Street. The lengthy article focuses on Williamsburg's Bedford Avenue bike lane as a symbol of the intrusion of modern hipsters into the insular New York Jewish enclave of Satmar Hasidim. These excerpts give the flavor of the article:

For a full year, the city seemed to ignore the hipster-Hasid war. Then, on December 1, 2009, came a sudden announcement. The Department of Transportation—under Janette Sadik-Khan, the bike-friendliest commissioner it’s ever had—was going to rip up "a small portion" of the lane.... Just about everyone’s assumption, including that of more than a few Hasids, is that Michael Bloomberg had needed the Satmars—who tend to vote enthusiastically and in a single block—in the upcoming election and that this was an easy bone to throw them.

On December 1, a crew of municipal workers descended on Bedford, sandblasting the lane and its stenciled biker figures off the asphalt. The next day, a group of three bike activists ... hit the street with aerosol cans and handmade stencils. According to Ben, more than a few Satmars saw them paint. "As they walked by, I made sure I said hello, explained to them that we’re not vandalizing the street, and asked if they wanted to help," he says. "At first, they were a little standoffish, but a couple of guys had a sense of humor about it."

.... Baruch Herzfeld, 38, is a classic macher and motormouth with a foot in both the Hasid and hipster worlds.... His real bread and butter is some sort of telephone-card business, which finances his largely nonprofit bike shop with the awesome name Traif Bike Gesheft—Unclean Bike Business. For South Williamsburg’s Hasids, Traif Bike Gesheft functions as a semi-secret window onto the larger world and a clubhouse of mild transgressions. Herzfeld rents bikes to Hasids at no cost, just to get them to venture beyond the neighborhood....