My own emphasis added at the bottom...

Leo Kowalski, 92, Retired Elevator Operator: "

You’ve lived in Williamsburg almost your entire life. How’s the neighborhood changed?

Oh boy, it’s lousy sir. Very lousy. They think they own the neighborhood.

Who's they?

They ride on the sidewalk. Bicycles all over the place. Motorcycles. Motorscooters. Whatever. They walk about with phones in their ears. Like a bunch of cattle.

Do you have a cellphone?

I have a phone, but I have a regular phone in the house. I don’t have this phone where you walk. Telephone man says they’re going to go deaf. It does something to your ear. I don’t know how true it is…

I heard they can give you brain cancer.

Yeah? Gives you brain cancer? You don’t have one do you?

I do have a cell phone. Pretty much everyone has one these days. It lets you go places and still make arrangements… but let’s go back to talking about the neighborhood.

Well, look at these lovebirds over here. On the corner smoochin’. You’re not supposed to do that. It’s a distress to the other people. And look at these people [walking by]. Two babies. Next time they’ll have three.

And you see what they got coming up the road here right now? You never seen this before. Carrying babies on their shoulders. I don’t say nuttin’. It’s none of my business.

What’s wrong with carrying a baby on your shoulders?

Suppose the baby falls off and cracks her skull open? And then what?

Has Williamsburg changed in positive ways?

It’s changed a lot. You got people that shouldn’t be here if I had anything to say about it. They got rings here and here. On the belly button. Maybe on the ass for all I know. I don’t know how they got here in the first place. They probably don’t even have a job. A lot of them walk on the street here and the girls put their hands in the boys pocket. Right in the back of their pocket! To see if they got any money.

And we never had these holes [in clothes] either. Never! Not when I first came over. One buys a hole and they all gotta. And then when they don’t have holes they’re carrying shopping bags.

Okay, maybe I should be asking you what you don’t like. What is it you don’t like about Williamsburg? Not just Williamsburg, but New York.

I don’t like the coloreds grabbing the white people when the white people should be sticking together. They want to mix chocolate milk.

"

(Via Gothamist.)