Written August 2014. Above is the view across across to Manhatten from Brooklyn’s Bushwick Park.

By night, the roof of an ex-industrial warehouse in Brooklyn is a great place to survey the skyline of Manhattan. There is absence of skyscrapers in this part of town, and view across to the East river sweeps unobstructed. Across the water, buildings that have crystallised the American dream to the world light the clouds from below. The iconic Chrysler building, Rockefeller centre, and Empire State building all rise above the already dazzling heights of mid-town Manhattan. Further south, the financial cluster of downtown and the new monolithic rise of the city’s freedom tower. And in between, the vast steel structures of the Williamsburg and Brooklyn bridges. Above us, a series of planes rumble overhead, tethered to the glide path of autopilot that takes them into land.

I’m not here to survey the city though. This is simply a side product of our vantage point. I’m on the roof of a loft party. My view is punctured by a bright stage light trained onto the middle of the roof. Underneath it twenty-somethings pound out 3 chord loops and teenage grunge. In a moment the drummer will take to the spotlight solo, to power-grab his way through a self indulgent karaoke set. This will be followed by a teenager that nobody in residence seems to know, spitting out an impressive succession of improvised rhymes as his friends whoop and cheer under a cloud of the weed on the sidelines. Aside from some of these words the music isn’t very good. But that doesn’t seem to matter. If you’re a Brooklyn based hipster, it’s in your nature to put up with any music away from the mainstream – regardless of quality.

Earlier that evening from the hostel we’d heard the sound of drums and vocals echo through this former industrial estate. From chatting to the people in the area, there was no such thing as a private party. You wait patiently until the door opens, and then head right in. We did just that. The sound was straightforward to trace, and the party was even easier to get into. Arrows scrawled in biro onto A4 paper directing us to the door, and at the buzzer, a drunken yowl to welcome us up. Four flights of a graffiti ridden stone stairwell later, the view opens up on the roof. City lights, spot lights, drums banging, vocals howling.

In a corner of the roof $3 beer is sold out of plastic cups. We chat to the host and owner of the flat below. Thick rimmed glasses, downtrodden hair, a new age top that looks bizarrely like a carpet. She works locally and has lived here for a few years, observing the gentrification of the area around Morgan Avenue subway station. It was in the mid-90s, when the industrial buildings sat vacant, that planning permission was given to turn some of the blocks into flats. But given the initial disrepair, lack of amenities, and uneasy silence on the streets, the students and artists came in first. The nearby coffee shop, bike shop, and two organic food shops that reside around the corner eventually followed. All hipster boxes ticked.

I talk to others, and while perhaps no one else was brazen enough to just walk in off the street, connections are tenuous and rarely overlap. A hotchpotch of characters at various levels of intoxication. And so, as we break the makeshift football table in the flat we decide that there’s nothing else for us here. We go to a nearby venue called Bossa Nova Civic Club. Trance like music, with the volume turned up to nauseating levels on the small dance floor. Multiple speakers pointed inwards to a confined space. Aside from one girl – dressed in tight running gear, and throwing herself through the crowd on the dance floor with a level of energy suggesting ecstasy – no one is really dancing. At least the drinks were okay.