Hipsters wage war on Duane Reade

The New York Times featured a story Friday about the scourge permeating the hipster neighborhoods of Brooklyn: Duane Reade.

Apparently, a second version of this chain establishment is opening in their artist enclave/former-crack epidemic crime zone. And this is just too much for the trustafarians to bear.

The Times lays it down:

For many residents it signaled that dreaded chain stores — symbols of all things corporate and uninspired — were about to breach the industrial neighborhood turned bastion of the young, do-it-yourself and arty.

Arty? That's a word, I guess. Odd how these 'residents' will happily take the L Train to Manhattan everyday, where there are - i dunno - maybe just a few Duane Reades. Also, what is there position on Starbucks? Tell me these kids like bodega coffee. I'm sure their anti-corporate crusades stop at the point of Cappuccino convenience.

The hipster outrage has boiled over into the most unlikely of places - Facebook. Check out the overly dramatic page I'm Boycotting Duane Reade to Save Williamsburg. This aggression will not stand. There will be blood in the streets.

At least the irony of this situation wasn't lost on one local resident:

If you're worried about gentrifying the neighborhood, maybe you should convince you and your friends to MOVE THE FUCK OUT so rent prices can go back to normal and Puerto Rican families and Hassids can move back in without having to sell a kidney.

Maybe the hipsters could a lesson from Rosebank, Staten Island, where the residents unified against a new Walgreens. This was less of an idealist Sisyphean struggle against corporate greed, and more of a localized 'support your local business' initiative.

They built the Walgreens anyway, but locals don't shop there. It's hard to take over the neighborhood when you don't have many customers.

Aim low, Brooklyn. This is not '60s Haight Ashbury.