Priced-Out Brooklyn Bar Wrapped in 'Gentrification in Progress' Caution Tape

Photo by Phil Buckler

WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — Local street artist Ann Lewis, or Gilf, has taken it upon herself to wrap beloved Williamsburg bar Nita Nita, shut down Sunday in the face of an explosive rent increase, in custom “Gentrification in Progress” caution tape.

“Sometimes you gotta go out with a bang,” the artist wrote on her Facebook page. ”Thanks for all the memories Nita Nita!”

Bar co-owner Samantha DiStefano told Patch over the phone that she and the Nita Nita team had nothing to do with the tape.

“I didn’t even know about it,” she said. “It happened overnight.”

Asked for her thoughts on the installation, DiStefano said she doesn’t really care either way, seeing as it’s too late to keep her bar open.

When bar owners went to renew their lease this year, the building’s landlord asked for three times their previous rent, DiStefano said.

“We couldn’t even come close to that,” she said.

(A spokesman for Flatiron Real Estate Advisors, LLC, which manages Nita Nita’s old building, confirmed that rent had increased but refused to talk numbers.)

Nita Nita has served as a dependable, laid-back, somewhat under-the-radar neighborhood chill spot since opening in 2006 at Wythe Avenue and North 8th Street in far-west Williamsburg,.

“We’ve seen so many changes in the neighborhood since then, but through it all we strived to be a friendly, low-key spot serving up stiff drinks and great eats,” the bar’s ownership posted to the Nita Nita website in recent days. ”But with our lease almost up and a threefold increase coming up on our rent, staying open is just not an option.”

On Saturday night, Nita Nita hosted one final send-off party.

“It was amazing,” DiStefano said. ”There were so many people here, and so much love and so much support. It was packed for hours and hours.”

A friend of this reporter who attended the party confirmed: ”It was really crowded and boisterous. Loud. Lots of energy. Tons more people than usual.”

Nita Nita will be missed for its “idyllic” backyard, dimly lit and crawling with vines, the friend said.

But most of all, she said, the bar will be missed for its picklebacks.

Gothamist reporter Nell Casey, who first noticed Nita Nita’s caution-tape transformation, pointed out that the same “Gentrification in Progress” tape was recently wrapped on trees outside the Brooklyn Museum by activists protesting a real-estate summit inside. And before that, for more than a year, Gilf herself has reportedly been biking around Brooklyn and Manhattan, guerilla-taping all her favorite shuttered locations.

Of this latest hit, Gilf said in a statement sent to Gothamist:

“I have a very personal connection to Nita Nita. I was so disappointed to find out that it was closing. It was such an amazing community of people. There are so many discussions around gentrification and nothing is black and white, but what I will say that when the market dictates a tripling of the rent to $24,000 / month for a 1,000 sq feet the only businesses that can afford that are massive corporations.”

UPDATE: Steven Ancona, president of Flatiron Real Estate Advisors, LLC, said over email that the bar’s rent increase was based on ”fair market” calculations.

“The Williamsburg market obviously changed a lot since they opened and we of course have no control over it,” Ancona said.

Going forward, he said, 146 Wythe — which he called a “prime corner location” — will be expanded to a larger physical size and leased to “a terrific tenant who will join the other great restaurants and shops on the North Side of Williamsburg.”

Although Nita Nita’s owners have vowed to open a new bar in a more affordable building elsewhere in Brooklyn, DiStefano told Patch she hasn’t had any luck finding a new space yet.

“We wish the owners of Nita Nita the best of luck at their next location,” Ancona said.

He added that anyone interested in leasing the newly vacated ground floor of 146 Wythe could contact him at sja@flatiron-rea.com.