Beating a Busted Bugaboo?
Maybe there’s more to the Park Slope stroller mafia debate than points about how it shows how white people are jealous of other white people or assertions that negative stereotypes come from I-don’t-wanna-grow-up hipsters. Maybe, as Lynn Harris posits in yesterday’s Style section, Slope bashing is an elegy for a former New York: Brooklyn was…
Maybe there’s more to the Park Slope stroller mafia debate than points about how it shows how white people are jealous of other white people or assertions that negative stereotypes come from I-don’t-wanna-grow-up hipsters. Maybe, as Lynn Harris posits in yesterday’s Style section, Slope bashing is an elegy for a former New York:
Brooklyn was supposed to be Manhattan’s little burnout brother. When I arrived in New York, Brooklyn was the place you could reliably feel superior to, if you thought about it at all. New Yorkers don’t hate the Upper East Side in the same way because that’s old money, old news. But Brooklyn? There’s the feeling that yuppies in Park Slope are washing away Brooklyn’s grittiness and making it more like Manhattan, said Jose Sanchez, chairman of urban studies at Long Island University, Brooklyn. Brooklyn was supposed to be different. Park Slope, to some, now represents everything that Brooklyn was not supposed to be. That’s why our feelings about Park Slope are linked to our feelings about our entire city: our overpriced, chain-store city run by bankers, socialites and, it seems, mommies. The artists are fleeing and your friends, it seems, have become Park Slope pod people. (And they’re coming for you, too.) It’s starting to feel as if there’s nowhere left to hide. And that if we lose Brooklyn, we lose everything. Though actually, if you could keep hating Park Slope, that would be great. Maybe if it really falls out of favor, I’ll be able to afford to stay.
But maybe all press is good press.
Park Slope: Where Is the Love? [NY Times]
Photo by redxdress.
Here’s a perspective from a Park Slope dad:
This whole thing results from a collision of different people’s visions and choices. I for one moved to Park Slope specifically to breed: when the wife got pregnant, it was “Park Slope here we come.” It was, in essence, a consumer choice–lifestyle-niche self-selection. Many people find this attitude obnoxious, but let’s face it: as David Brooks and others have pointed out, that’s how class and consumer culture are shaping American society today. Park Slope is a brand that attracts a certain market segment. The basic problem, of course, is the misfit of consumer niche-thinking and actual brick-and-mortar communities: one can choose not to shop in a certain store, but it’s something else entirely when a neighborhood one lives in becomes populated by and identified with a market segment to which you do not belong.
“granola eating, COOP members, with annoying bumper stickers and political signs in their windows”
I LOVE all those things. You just sold me. Nothing wrong with being a little radical in these days when 99% of Americans are sitting in front of the tv rotting while watching American Idol.
What exactly is wrong with wanting to be active , liberal and have some convictions???
I’m appalled at so many of the typical suburban American mentalities on this thready. Some of you people literally have not at all been changed by this city. It’s as though you moved here, but retain all of the horrible qualities of closed-minded, conservative small town America.
duane reade corner of flatbush and 7th ave.
also if park slope is suburban than the majority of manhattan is super suburbantastic
think the picture of the dumpy broad pretty much sums up Park Slope. home of the uglies. if you moved to NYC to be fabulous, stay away from the frumpiest area ever.
I tell people not to move to PS all the time – but definitely not b/c of “suburbanization”
-how can a neighborhood that is walkable, has virtually no chain stores and like 4 different train lines be considered suburban? – There are FAR FAR more suburban chain stores in almost every Manhattan neighborhood.
I tell people not to move to PS b/c it HASN’T changed all that much – too many granola eating, COOP members, with annoying bumper stickers and political signs in their windows. Essentially too many people who have a High School mentality (like the author) that divides everyone into stupid categories like “hipster”, “frat boy”, “stroller mom” etc…..
Park Slope has always (last 30 years) been this way and it still is and frankly it is annoying…..
I only WISH PS had changed – I need a Duane Reade and a Pottery Barn very badly
Bethesda, Bellevue and Newton are all very nice places as well.
Park Slope is a more urban version of all three of those places, however.
And I don’t “make fun” of the Christian right or Muslim terrorists. I think you need a thesaurus. Making fun of and completely hating are two different things.
If anyone here legitimately HATES Park Slope, then you are no worse than either group mentioned above. It means you lump people together, make stereotypes and hate groups of people instead of individuals.
Park Slope is 70,000. If you hate each and every one of them, I’m scared to even know how much you must hate yourself.
All press is good press.
Love,
-Park Slope
Park Slope doesn’t have chain stores. Park Slope still has artists. And there aren’t as many strollers clogging the sidewalks as all that.
But I agree about the “limousine liberal” community in Park Slope. Voting one way but with attitudes and lifestyle that’s very different from the way they vote. Nobody who cares about the poor buys a $1,0000 stroller, sorry. Nobody who is actively teaching true liberal progressive values to their children should be engaging their children in competition over material things. Or should be letting their children see them concerned with how superior they are to other people. The values are just all screwy.
I know plenty people who grew up very wealthy who were still taught good values. I myself grew up wealthy and was taught not to be status obsessed – and that was with Republican parents. I feel like I see nobody caring about these lessons for the next generation. I go into my neighbor’s houses and the kids own every single toy ever manufactured. Why? Guilt? What is it?
Well 11.46 for a number of reasons.
How about a little self reflection. The whole idea of jealousy is very dumb witted- much like our president who first uttered those ridiculous words.
I just move here a few months ago, and I can tell you that everyone I talked to told me not move to Park Slope. Can jealously really be the reason for all those people from Brooklyn & Manhattan?
Park Slope has just hit a nerve for those that against the suburbanization of the city. It’s not just Park Slope but Park Slope is a very easy target. Park Slope is just New York’s version of Bethesda, MD or Bellevue, WA or Newton, MA etc etc.