Jason Sheftell, writing in the Daily News:

I’m not a Williamsburg fan. I think it’s a failed living experiment where the community board, the city and real estate developers poorly anticipated the area’s potential and rushed to build as opposed to carefully thinking out what to build. Some of the new construction condominiums are so ugly they look as if little children have placed rectangular and curved blocks on top of each other.

I’ll grant him the “failed experiment”, but the community (and community board) did not support the rezoning as it was enacted. If you look back 10 or 15 years to the 197-a plans that the community prepared for Williamsburg (and Greenpoint), the vision there was a lot different than the rezoning we got.

Likewise, Greenpoint has more than its share of ugly new condominiums (hell, Miss Heather has developed a whole cottage industry based on the Belvedere franchise of ugliness). And if you think “Greenpoint’s charm lies in its low-slung homes made of wood”, take a lot of pictures now, because Karl Fischer and company are on the loose there as well.

Lastly, if your idea of tranquility is Manhattan Avenue between Nassau and Greenpoint, you need to readjust your Zen.