• Gut Renovation

Gut Renovation, a new documentary by filmmaker Su Friedrich, opens March 6 at Film Forum and takes a hard look at the changes that Williamsburg has undergone since the implementation of new zoning laws in 2005. Friedrich, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1989, has meticulously recorded all the changes happening in her neighborhood, from each new development that went up to all the small businesses that closed. The project is not only a personal one, but also one that has a wider scope, serving as a warning that what happened in Williamsburg could—and quite possibly will—happen to all of Brooklyn, and New York City at large. I had the chance to talk to Friedrich about this film, and about what she sees for the future of development in New York, and whether or not that future is impossibly grim.

What brought you to Williamsburg to begin with?

Oddly enough, a takeover in another part of a city. My partner's former girlfriend was living in a really funky loft with two artists in downtown Brooklyn, and the entire block was taken over by Chase to build their headquarters. And so Chase bought out these guys and they had to leave. So, they started looking for a place and they found this place in Williamsburg and then Cathy [my partner]'s former girlfriend wanted to take a floor and couldn't do it by herself, so she involved Cathy and then I got involved. So, that's how it happened. Although, I knew a couple of close friends who were artists who already had moved to Williamsburg, in like '85 or '86, so I knew people who were living over there already.

When did you first start thinking of making this film?

Pretty much right after the rezoning. It really was like, go to the corner, get the newspaper, see the banner headline about the rezoning, tell my partner, Oh my god, it happened. And then within a week, we started to hear jackhammers and see the blue plywood walls going up. And it was like, you know, they were ready. They came. Here they are. At first, I just thought, I'm going to make a record. It's essentially free to shoot video. I'm just going to go out on my bike, I'm just going to go around and make a record. But I soon realized how emotionally involved I was in this process and that I really wanted to take it very seriously.

Seeing the development that you tracked is like watching a horror movie unfold, in a way. It all seems to spread like a virus.

I wanted it to feel like that! I had a lot of trouble figuring out when I was editing how to give the viewer a sense of the space of it. Because in a way it's kind of massive but then it's also quite contained and I had started by putting big red numbers on each building, but that wasn't clear enough, and then I decided to use the map to animate it, through the film. It was a good way to get people to understand the scale and the spreading of the development.

A lot of the major changes happened following the 2005 rezoning laws, and that's what the film focuses on, but what did you see happening in the intervening years, leading up to 2005? What kind of changes did you see taking place?

That's a lot of years to talk about! Well, let's say in the first years—the mid '90s—it seemed like more artists that I knew were moving into the neighborhood, into industrial spaces. And there were a few more shops opening up on Bedford. You know for a long time there were only two restaurants or one more would open up and everyone would be really excited, you know. So there was some change happening but it sort of went along in a fairly level way for awhile and then it seemed to really snowball in the later '90s. There was more being said in the media about how this was the trendiest neighborhood in the world, you know, it's the new bohemia and all that kind of stuff. And I think when we started seeing people talking about Williamsburg as a phenomenon is when we started getting nervous. Because once people are starting to sell a place, you gotta be worried. There wasn't a lot of building going on before 2005. Here and there was a little something, or there would be things like this little building on 7th that's glass and steel, but it's only three stories. But that came up before the rezoning. And we noticed that and thought it was a different kind of structure for the neighborhood. So we noticed stuff happening but certainly nothing like what happened after the rezoning. Prices were going up, more shops were going in, and there were lots of people who worked with the community board, working to create a plan for what could happen with Williamsburg, which was then scuttled by the city and they did what they did. So there were people, like housing activists working in the neighborhood, who could sense what was going to happen, but I think for the most part, the population in the neighborhood—including us—wasn't aware of the big plan, behind the curtain, and then boom! There it was. It all happened.

Do you think there was ever a point where it could have been averted? Where the rezoning could have been scuttled?

I don't know. It's a 120-page plan, this thing called 197A, which was about what to do with the neighborhood, about schools and garbage collection and all the issues that a neighborhood has, and I don't understand enough about the working behind the scenes at the city council or the city planning office, but it seems like it would have taken that community group to get virtually everyone in the neighborhood aware and basically lying down in the street or something. I mean, what would it have taken for that to not have passed the city council? I mean, I don't know. People ask me this, you know—Why weren't people out in the streets? Why weren't there demonstrations?—and I think that once it's set up so that there's a small group who is determined to make these changes happen, and once they vote, once they've done that, it's done.

So, basically, even lying down in the streets will really only lead to the protesters being picked up and moved?

Mmhmm. And also, let's say, we can all think, "We'll vote in a different mayor, one who isn't so rapacious about development." So that'd be good. And if, in the next election, we can bring in a whole new set of people who might not support that kind of development, that might contain the problem or lesson the problem. But we also have this precedent of Robert Moses who worked entirely outside of the workings of the city government and did everything he wanted. And as often as people lay down in front of his tractors, he just rolled over them. Jane Jacobs had some successes with him, but there were just so many parts of the city that were just wiped out by him and his highways.

Do you think it's even possible at this point to vote in a mayor who isn't so keen on development? The direction that this city has gone in, certainly under Bloomberg but also prior to that, seems to be unstoppable. The whole idea of New York now, the idea of safety and progress going hand in hand with development and wealth, seems so firmly established. So how do we change that trajectory?

Well, all these politicians are obviously getting elected by getting a lot of money from people, so once they're in they're beholden to a lot of people. And it is really frustrating to see that happen over and over again. We now have this incredible income disparity, much huger than has ever existed before, and even if the government makes some effort to start taxing the rich more, still to get back from that disparity is going to take a long time, if it happens at all. And in the meantime, you have New York City filled with extremely rich people and extremely poor people and very few people in the middle and so that circumstance makes it possible for Bloomberg and these developers to continue doing all this. And so it's very hard. You know, I don't want to be a pessimist, I don't want to be a doomsayer, but I look out at this and I think, Wow. This city has been transformed very profoundly and, I think, permanently in a way that has made it lose its character. The character that I, living here for 35 years, love.

Right. And you can't ignore what's going on in some of these neighborhoods that always seemed untouchable.

You know, part of the reason for making the film was so that people could say, "Uh-oh. Is that about to happen where I live?" This happened—it just spun out of control. It was so much bigger than anybody thought. And it is a permanent and massive change and what if every other neighborhood in New York had that happen to it? So, it's a bit of a cautionary tale, I think, to people who live in other parts of the city. Which is sort of the most you can do. You know, I have no prescription on how to make that not happen again, just to say that we should be aware of what's happening.

Where do you see New York going in the next ten years?

I don't know. I think it's going to be quite altered, and I think, not necessarily for the better. I was talking to someone recently about Bloomberg and they said, "C'mon, Su. He's done some good things. Think about the bike lanes." And, I thought, that's true. I mean, I'm a big biker, it's good to have all these bike lanes. But I would say that part of his impulse for making the bike lanes is to make the city greener and easier to bike in, but it also makes the city nicer for those people who want it to be "nice." So it serves his purpose of sort of suburbanizing New York and so, I really don't know. I'm going to stay here. I love New York. But I think it's in a very scary point of change right now and I don't see the change being stopped.

Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen