Gentrification is pretty much everywhere you look these days in Brooklyn, New York City and really any urban area, but you might feel it needs a better marker than a cupcake shop or a coffee shop or a characterless million dollar condo building or an influx of people trying not to be racist while they dance around the question of whether a neighborhood is safe.
If you feel that way, now you can put a big yellow marker on everywhere you think gentrification is happening, with this 1,000-foot roll of yellow caution tape that says “GENTRIFICATION IN PROGRESS.” Sure it’ll run you $60, but just think of how mad yuppies in their million dollar condos will be when they have to knock this down from the front door of their building every single morning until you run out of tape.
Unlike regular yellow caution tape, which will run you $19.99 on Quill.com, the “Gentrification in progress” tape comes imbued with meaning. $40 worth of it, we suppose. The tape is the brainchild of street artist GILF, who told Bowery Boogie she’s been wrapping it around “buildings owned by slumlords, and corporate businesses that were taking over spaces that once housed small businesses” in order to keep people from moving through those spaces, like gentrification does to the communities it hits. Obviously using this to make your point will be less permanent and less likely to get in trouble than writing “Gentrify here” on the side of a building. On the other hand, if someone finds out how much this costs, they’re liable to laugh at you and call you an asshole for not just buying a $5 can of spray paint.