Hipsters may be getting priced out of Williamsburg, but that hasn't stopped anyone from ridiculing the neighborhood for its perceived hipness.
The satirists have taken to eBay, where an anonymous seller is auctioning a "sample of air from the COOLEST neighborhood in the world… Williamsburg, Brooklyn!" as Brokelyn first reported.
The sample, for which the opening bid was $40, is now priced at $20,100. (You can thank bidders m**J and e**e for inflating the price.)
The seller prefers to leave the sample's exact origin a mystery. It may have been collected at Enid's, the Wythe Hotel, the set of "Girls," or "that store on Bedford Ave. that only sells fedoras." But it's definitely from within the boundaries of that beautifully palindromic zip code 11211. The seller is also willing to collect air from 11249, which includes the Williamsburg waterfront, but don't ask for 11237 — Bushwick's sole value is Roberta's pizzeria.
Williamsburg air in a Ziploc bag or a mason jar "makes a perfect gift for that hip trendsetter in your life or a conversation piece to decorate your luxury loft," the seller says. Sure, $20,100 might be seen as a little steep for some rarefied oxygen and nitrogen molecules, but that price tag only mirrors the rising rent prices in the neighborhood, as developers build more expensive condos for migrating Manhattanites.
The auction wraps up Monday. May the bidder with the fastest fingers and keenest penchant for parody win!
