Photo by J. Smith for GPTMC

The Hipster Initiative of Philadelphia (HIP) successfully campaigned to change the name of their Northern Liberties neighborhood to “New Williamsburg.” The name change reflects the recent press coverage deeming it Philly’s version of the oft-revered Brooklyn area. The influx of comic book stores, artist studios and cute little coffee shops to the neighborhood has attracted hoards of artists and musicians that make up the “creative class.”

Initially, area hipsters took umbrage at the new moniker, but eventually came around. “Even though Philadelphia is the birthplace of independence,” says resident DJ Ben Penn, “we’ve decided the fight is futile. Everybody knows Philadelphia can’t claim hipsters or creative types as our own. We’ll go ahead an annex ourselves to our big neighbor to the north.”

An official renaming ceremony will take place today, April 1, 2008, with performances by Dr. Dog, The Capitol Years, the A-Sides and Pink Skull. RJD2 will spin.

For more information, visit the official HIP website.

We were pretty excited when the rumors about Transformers II filming in Philadelphia were spreading. It’d be a great thing for the city. An increase in tourism, interest for future filming, an opportunity to be destroyed by giant robots from space… It was a straight up win-win situation.

With the announcement of Cloverfield 2: Sixth Borough set to start filming in Philadelphia at the end of the year, Philadelphians have yet another reason to be excited.

Inside sources say the plot won’t stray far from the original and there are plans to keep true to the jittery handycam-style footage. The film supposedly opens with a clique of young, hip party-goers, dancing away with their camcorders at Making Time. When the creature strikes, rising out of the Schuylkill river, they are forced to take to the streets and seek refuge, joined by a rag-tag team of bicycle messengers, DJs, BYOB chefs, and the King of All Philly Bloggers, Joey Sweeney. Brilliant!

For more information and a trailer, visit the official Cloverfield 2: Sixth Borough website.

It’s a project for the ages. It was announced this morning that John Freeborn and the creative minds over at Space 1026 are planning a large art installation that will circle the whole of Philadelphia, using only milkcrates.

Freeborn, author of Big Kids / Little Kids, is well known for his milkcrate art, often creating large pieces using only these plastic cubes. This grand artistic experiment will take approximately four to five months to complete, as Freeborn and 1026 collect crates and raise funds for the movement. Freeborn estimates that the project will require approximately 4.2 million milkcrates and 300 artist interns to complete the epic plastic wall. The cost? $1 billion.

When asked about the project, Freeborn said, “Philadelphia has the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Betsy Ross House, Rocky and Iron Chef Morimoto, but what it doesn’t have is a giant wall of milkcrates. It came to me in a dream. We need a giant wall of milkcrates to protect us from crazies. Plus it’ll look cool from space.”

For more information or to donate, visit milkcratesaroundphiladelphia.com