“Welcome to Colony 1209 on Brooklyn’s new frontier.”
“Here in bohemian Bushwick, Brooklyn, you’ll find a group of like-minded settlers, mixing the customs of their original homeland with those of one of NYC’s most historic neighborhoods to create art, community, and a new lifestyle.”
“WE ALREADY SURVEYED THE TERRITORY FOR YOU. Once you’ve discovered the burgeoning art scene, cutting-edge eateries, historic mansions, yoga studios, and parks, you’ll feel like a Bushwick native in no time.”
Luxury apartment building Colony 1209 has pretty much asked to be hated on, protested against, and finally mocked in a short film, The Pioneers of Bushwick. Not because we didn’t expect any luxury buildings to grow in Bushwick (let’s be real, it was bound to happen) but because of its tone-deaf marketing language, which uses vocabulary similar to that used to describe the colonization of America. And that is leaving those huge tax breaks aside.
And so a group around Flux Forward’s Collaborate:Create Cycle 6 residency has created a short parody video featuring explorer Davey Boone who “visits the Bushwick territory to survey the land to determine if it’s prime for colonization. During his travels, he encounters several characters of the new frontier: homesteading Europeans, a seasoned pioneer woman determined to make it on her own, two Black freeman still searching for the lost promises of the American government, and, of course, natives,” reads the description of the video.
The video is pretty funny; of course, it’s a laughter through tears.
Is it time for Colony 1209 representatives to finally maybe consider taking down their offensive marketing language, and show some respect to the existing Bushwick community? We’d like to say, yesterday was already too late.