WILLIAMSBURG — In the often confusing and occasionally funny landscape of neighborhood names, one real estate broker wants to sub-divide the neighborhood even more.
Northeast Williamsburg, anyone?
Located at the Lorimer, Graham and Grand Street stops and with the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and Grand Street as its borders, a Corcoran real estate agent who also lives in the area, started a branding campaign with subway ads at the three stops this January.
"It's a really special village [within] Williamsburg," said Lyon Porter, who has lived there since 2002.
"It has mom and pop shops mixed in with new businesses," he said. "It's just very special."
The housing stock is unique from other parts of Williamsburg as well, Porter said, highlighting its quiet, residential streets, mostly lined with townhouses, that range in price from $1.5 to $2.5 million.
"It's a real enclave. It's real neighborhood," he said. "It deserves it's own little distinction."
Porter shied away from hokey nicknames that he thought wouldn't seem authentic, he said.
"Everyone just gets it whether you've been there for 80 years or 4 years," he said.
An unscientific survey of people around the Graham Avenue stop revealed varying degrees of skepticism at the new neighborhood name Northeast Williamsburg.
"I don't know why you have to divide it anymore," said Scott Cameron, 36, owner of Charter Coffee House, a new coffee shop on Graham Avenue near Ainslie Street.
Anthony Delia, 40, a a part-owner of Napolitano Pharmacy on the corner of Graham Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue grew up in the area said he has no intention of calling the area "Northeast Williamsburg."
"I've always thought it was Williamsburg...just Williamsburg," said Delia, who moved to Long Island a decade ago when he could not longer afford to live here. "I feel like they're trying to categorize it [and then] collect on it."
"It is a little bit frustrating," he said.
