The Transparent SUBWAY CONTROVERSY :

after being asked by a few nieghborhood residents and business owners about what, if anything, the Warriors plan to do about the Subway Sandwich shop that is planning to open on Bedford and N5, Warrior Eve sent out this email:

Hello All! Subway Sandwiches is planning to open on Bedford and N5th
This is a quick survey to see how many of you :
A) dont want a Subway Sandwiches to open up on Bedford
and
B)would be willing to come to a protest about it to show to the media
and all of NYC that Williamsburg aint no chainstore kind of place.
If the answers to these questions are both yes, please respond to this
email (eve@williamsburgwarriors.org) and write the word "YES" in the
subject line.Thank You for your participation,
The Williamsburg Warriors

within hours her message box filled up with 'YES' subject headers.

she also recieved this email:

A bit ironic, no?
There's a McDonalds on Broadway & Havemayer, and one on Meeker & Kingsland.
Do you think anyone will pass special zoning laws to restrict chainstores to
major thorofares like the aforementioned? Actually, that would make more
sense. Look at Grand St., east of Union St.. Plenty of it there.
While Subway is hardly anyone's idea of haute cuisine, what exactly is the
problem? Soho wasn't a chainstore kind of place either...look at it now.
Ditto for Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, etc., fortunately to a lesser
extent.
Williamsburgh is now unaffordable in terms of being able to rent an
apartment or buy a home, so is this an issue of aesthetics, or class?
Protest the opening of a subway? What about all the upscale shops in WB and
Greenpoint that are only patronized by tourists and affluent white kids, and
seem to be of little interest to the Latinos & Poles who lived in the
neighborhoods before they were "discovered."
I wholeheartedly support your efforts protesting rampant development and
promoting affordable housing, but I think the Subway issue is a red herring.
You seem to be concerned with only a small section of Williamsburgh, the
trendy streets identified by the trendy media as such.
Sorry to rant, but people will decide to eat there or not, and if not, then
they will close up shop and move elsewhere.

and promptly resonded with the following email:

Dear ____,
You mentioned "Do you think anyone will pass special zoning laws to restrict chainstores to
major thorofares like the aforementioned?"
Well obviously not.
and just cause we are pro affordable housing does not mean that we are pro crappy processed food and homogenous corporate aesthetic...
so, if lots of people want to get together and show their disdain of what subway represents in order to deter other chainstores from moving in (a precedent has been set successfully in a small town in California and in Port Townsend, Washington) , and apparently they do since I've already gotten 16 YES emails in since I sent this thing out like 20 minutes ago..., then I'm all for helping organize such a feat.and by the way, one of the main reasons that i believe mixed income neighborhoods are the healthiest is because people from BOTH sides of the spectrum expose each other to things they wouldnt otherwise experience.
I do appreciate your frankness. do keep it coming, challenges get me going.
Eve
PS- if you'd like to start a big press ruckus about how poor people are practically forced to eat really crappy food- I'm all for it. lets go get broadway and havemeyer too!

Then Warrior Eve thought to herself "gee, I've lost my tact. I hope I didn't come off rude" And then she thought "But I meant every damn word. even the part about being challenged, I like to hear all sides! I really do! I want to understand!"

The next day a friend sent in this email:

Hey
I just wanted to respond to your rally call. I kind of
think that there are better things to be spending your
time protesting than a chian store. Are there not many
stores in the neighborhood that are already chains?
Take for instance:
Tastee Freeze
Ny Muffin
The cell phone stores
Beacon's closet(two stores)
Salvation Army
C-town
These are just a few I could think of off the top of
my head. All these places are large enough to have
more locals than just here in the little ol' WB.Subway
is a franchise and is owned by local business people
that usually are linked to community interest in some
way.
Just Thoughts.
Do you think that the people that gave their lives in
the sixties would be proud of your efforts when
thousands of Americans are dying in Iraq for personal
profiteering?
What about the whole power plant developers trying to
stop the rezoning? A possible ally for a spell?
Stopping Doctoroff for good?
Gettinng rid of Bloomberg?
Protesting the Supreme Court nominee since if he gets
in there women WILL lose the choice of abortion?
Just some thoughts. I think I will spend my efforts
elsewhere in this "fight" but hey give Jared Fogle
hell.
warrior on,
___________

And then Warrior Eve's MOM sent this message to Warrior headquarters:

I thought Subway was supposed to be healthy.  Some guy lost a whole bunch of weight by eating there instead of other fast food places.  Be sure before you kill the wrong bad guy.

"hmm..." Eve thought aloud.
And then lo and behold, another email...

hey eve,
what good is it to protest the subway joint now,
when they're obviously going to open up? it's not a
proposal to open the store up, but rather the FUCKING
SIGN is already there, so it's too late to keep the
chains from coming, that ice cream place and now this.
i don't want them there just as much as you, but
obviously we have no effect on big-money businesses
such as these.
so you might get people to do a protest, and then
afterwards everything rolls along unimpeded, just as
it would w/out protest. i'm not trying to talk you out
of it, just stating what i see to be the facts.
best, ________

At this point, Warrior Eve checked her email box again to see just how many people had responded to her 'Subway Survey." She found a resounding 51 "YES!" subject headers since she'd sent the thing out just 24 hours prior.
She re-examined the "dont protest subway messages" and then examined the reasons She'd personally be in to protesting the Subway:

A)members of the neighborhood have asked the Warriors to organize a protest
B)the Warrior organization initial mission was to protect their very unique neighborhood from losing its uniquness and becoming a homogenous ANYTOWN, USA
C)she thinks it is important to show the country that there is a resistance to cookie cutter culture.
D)she believes in community based planning.

Then she considered the reasons not to protest:

A)we've already been rezoned, why bother fighting anything anymore?
B)the owner of the franchise is probably a nice person just trying to live the american dream
C)she's going out of town soon so there's not much time to organize
D)she should spend her time making money so she doesnt get anymore overdraft fees.

After all this thought she decided that it is now time to call on the great Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping for some advice.
Here are a few points from the Reverand Billy:

A)Subway is a franchise resturaunt and oftentimes these franchises are owned by first generation immigrant families so its not as bad as say, something like Starbucks...But
B)it could be considered a "gateway drug" to the transnational logo branding that fortunately has not taken over that small area you are speaking of....Williamsburg will change a great deal if we allow transnational corporate imagery to enter the area and overwhelm the storefronts. It will subtly turn us into consumers who passively accept the bad practices of these corporations.
C)the more you know about the human beings who are involved on the ground of something, the more your action will become specific. Find out who owns this franshise and find out how this franshising works.
D)a really articulate resistance to a Subway will give the community more power in the future when the neighborhood will inevitably have to protest the really bad ones coming- the community can show that it does care about (and study) what is happening there, and the community can draw a line and make a definition of what it will accept and which transnational corporate chainstores need not apply.

Gee, thats gonna be a lot more work than just getting a bunch of people together to say "we dont like you!"

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If you've got an opinion on the matter you can contact warrior eve at eve@williamsburgwarriors.org

WARRIOR ON,

THE WILLIAMSBURG WARRIORS