[11] In the 21st century, the city provided zoning changes and tax abatements to corporate developers which shifted the area from a creative, slow growth revival to an economy that was dominated by high rises and chain stores.

[12][13] Despite the rise in the cost of living that followed, and the loss of the original creative community that had rejuvenated the district, a new contemporary art scene and vibrant nightlife emerged that catered to new residents.

[30] During its period as part of Brooklyn's Eastern District, the area achieved remarkable industrial, cultural, and economic growth, and local businesses thrived.

[citation needed] Refugees from war-torn Europe began to stream into Brooklyn during and after World War II, including the Hasidim, whose populations had been devastated in the Holocaust.

But the population explosion was eventually confronted with a decline of heavy industry, and from the 1960s, Williamsburg saw a marked increase in unemployment, crime, gang activity, and illegal drug use.

The storefronts and vacant warehouses in Williamsburg were already being adapted into creative clubs like The Green Room, El Sensorium, Fake Shop, Mustard, The AlulA Dimension and Galapagos Art Space.

[citation needed] The rezoning represented a dramatic shift of approach from an emphasis on a creative, locally based economy in the 1990s to one largely dominated by corporations.

Alongside the construction of high rises, many warehouses which served as centers for creative community-building events like the Cats Head, Flytrap, El Sensorium and Organism, were converted into expensive residential loft buildings.

The conversion of the former Gretsch music instrument factory garnered significant attention and controversy in the New York press primarily because it heralded the arrival in Williamsburg of Tribeca-style lofts and attracted, as residents and investors, a number of celebrities.

The New York Times reported this proved to be the case in Williamsburg as well, as developers largely decided to forgo incentives to build affordable housing in inland areas.

Because Hasidic men receive little secular education, and women tend to be homemakers, college degrees are rare, and economic opportunities lag far behind the rest of the population.

[88] The highlights of the feast are the "Giglio Sundays" when a 100-foot (30 m) tall statue, complete with band and a singer, is carried around the streets in honor of St. Paulinus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

In the past, Southside United HDFC has held Puerto Rican Heritage as well as Dominican Independence Day celebrations, and currently operates El Museo De Los Sures.

[111] The mid-century tension between the Hasidic and Modern Orthodox Jewish communities in Williamsburg was depicted in Chaim Potok's novels The Chosen (1967), The Promise, and My Name Is Asher Lev.

[112] One contemporary female perspective on life in the Satmar community in Williamsburg is offered by Deborah Feldman's autobiographical Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.

In the 1990s a generation of interdisciplinary artists known as the Brooklyn Immersionists began to focus their fusion of art and music in Williamsburg's streets, rooftops and industrial warehouses near the waterfront.

Local arts media that began a discourse on neighborhood involvement in the early 1990s included Breukelen, The Curse, The Nose, The Outpost, Waterfront Week, Worm Magazine and (718) Subwire.

Taking over most of the Old Dutch Mustard Factory on June 12, 1993, Organism drew in more than 2,000 people according to Newsweek,[122] and was described by Suzan Wines in Domus Magazine as a "climax to the renegade activity"[120] that was emerging in Williamsburg in the 1990s.

In the 1990s a large number of experimental media groups and street theater troupes emerged in Williamsburg which deliberately situated their screens and interactive performances in social and physical environments.

These Immersionist groups included the Floating Cinema, Fake Shop, Nerve Circle, The Outpost, Ocularis, The Pedestrian Project and Hit and Run Theater.

Low rents were a major reason artists first started settling in the area, but that situation has drastically changed since the late-1990s when the City of New York began rezoning the district in favor of large developers.

[12] Russ Buettner and Ray Rivera point out in the New York Times that beginning in 2001, it wasn't the creative community or working class entrepreneurs, but rather the billionaire, Mayor Michael Bloomberg who "loosened the reins on development across the boroughs".

'"[12]Free market dynamics like that exercised by individual home buying and selling, does describe what occurred when the City of New York its corporate welfare program in the late 1990s.

Subsidization of corporations is not free market gentrification by definition, and in theory can be avoided by future communities attempting to keep creative local culture and businesses alive.

[45][46][47] On July 1, 2011, the United States Postal Service (USPS) split the 11211 zip code, due to a "large increase in population and in the number of companies doing business in our area".

[145]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Greenpoint and Williamsburg is 0.0096 milligrams per cubic metre (9.6×10−9 oz/cu ft), higher than the citywide and boroughwide averages.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said that people in the neighborhood ignoring the order could be fined $1,000, and that religious schools and day care programs might be closed down if they did not exclude unvaccinated students.

The Leonard branch contains a tribute to Betty Smith, the author of the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, whose main character, France, frequently visited the library.

[204] The project garnered large community opposition from the Latino and Hasidic Jewish residents of southern Williamsburg, located next to the site of the proposed incinerator.

[208] David Dinkins, who ultimately won the 1989 mayoral election, campaigned on the stance that the Brooklyn Navy Yard incinerator plan should be put on hold.