Metro

W’burg has art attack

The last of the starving artists who colonized Williamsburg two decades ago and began its transformation into the hipster capital of New York could soon find themselves out on the street.

“The people like us who made Williamsburg cool are now the ones being given the boot,” said David Opdyke, 43, who moved into 338 Berry St. in 1995 and lives in the former noodle factory with his wife and their two young children.

Opdyke and his neighbors in the building — including dancers, painters and other artists — are fighting mad about the brush-off they got from a judge in an eviction dispute with their landlord.

Most of the seven-story building is already vacant.

All that’s left is 10 large lofts filled with dozens of pioneers who moved to Williamsburg in the mid-1990s, when it was still isolated, crime-ridden and full of factories.

They paved the way for the subsequent hipster invasion — which sent property values skyrocketing.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the residents of the building’s work-live lofts signed agreements with the previous landlord allowing them to stay until 2011.

But in 2010 the state revised the Loft Law — to put such artist-occupied spaces under rent stabilization.

The Berry Street tenants claim the legislation supersedes their agreement. But Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Bert Bunyan two weeks ago sided with the current landlord, Mona Gora-Friedman, who wants to show them the door.

She finds the artists unpalatable, they claim, because they’re standing in the way of converting the building into luxury condos.

If the decision stands, the artists appear to have two alternatives: Leave their beloved Billyburg and trek east to Bushwick, where many of their fellow painters and sculptors have been driven.

Or try to get enough money together to move into the expensive new legal artist lofts that are being built in their current hood.

Andrea Haenggi, a dancer and artist who has been in the building since 1994, said she and the other tenants have put too much time and money into the building to be abruptly tossed aside.

“We used our skills as dance teachers, artists, architects, parents to help make the building and the community safe and desirable,” she said.

The tenants – who’ll be back in court April 24 after appealing Bunyan’s decision — were never protected under the original Loft Law of 1982 because that version only offered rent-stabilization protection for city lofts already used as residential space during the early 80s.

The Berry Street building remained fully industrial up until the early 1990s. So when the city drove up property values in 2004 by rezoning the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront for high-rise condos, the building’s previous owner tried to evict the tenants.

Instead, both sides compromised and the tenants signed an agreement in 2004 to be out by April 2011.

The 2010 Loft Law revision qualified the Berry Street lofts for rent-stabilization protection – but it was too late. Bunyan determined the new law didn’t contain language allowing for it to override the tenants’ 2004 agreement.

The tenants and other critics disagree, saying the decision violates the spirit of the law.

Gora-Friedman purchased the building in 2005 for $12 million. Her lawyer David Brody said “a major reason” why she bought the building was the signed agreement that it would be cleared out by 2011.

“She’s done everything she’s been required to do by law,” Brody said.

However, critics contend the Loft Law is still filled with holes that unfairly hurt tenants. Local politicians like state Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn) have even proposed revising the law again.

Opdyke’s wife, Kimberlae Saul, 41, said, “We have two kids, ages 4 and 8, who are firmly rooted here. We all benefit from our live-work lifestyle: We see our kids more, and they see us at work.

“I have to do everything I can to make sure that my kids don’t lose their home and their neighborhood!”

Top photos: Stephen Yang. David Opdyke, 43, with his children Quinn Opdyke, 8, left, and Zoe Opdyke, 4, are being pushed out of this Berry St. building (right)