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.
We don’t live in Park Slope, but were over there on Saturday visiting some friends of ours, and we ended up going out a few hours early to enjoy the beautiful day.
I just want to say, that no matter how you feel about Park Slope, it never ceases to amaze me how GORGEOUS the neighborhood is.
Each street teaming with flowers, trees, cute shops and simply stunning architecture.
The Park was lush, people were out playing frisbee, having picnics, laying around with friends…all the restaurants on 7th and 5th seemed pretty bustling and we even happened to notice a bunch of people taking pictures and gasping at the beauty….and this was on 7th avenue…probably one of the least beautiful streets we saw…
We had an amazing day in Park Slope.
10:46 They certainly didn’t come here when it was drug infested and crime ridden, so don’t make it out like they don’t care. They are paying a premium for it, but of course they can afford it.
“This past Saturday, I’ve never EVER seen so many people on 7th Avenue. One out of every 10 people were seemingly on vacation from Germany or the U.K.
Seems the neighborhood has been invaded with European tourists this year. ”
Those aren’t tourists, they live there. Go to the playground any given day and easily half the people are speaking french or german. I’m surprised I haven’t seen an article about it, but it’s pretty clear a lot of young european families are taking advantage of the weak dollar and buying places in the slope.
10:51 — well, not sure where you are looking, but Park Slope has been taking over the frickin world. The hippies were NOT living btw 4th and 5th Avenue since the 1960s (or 1990s). I have no problem with the co-op. I like my enemies all in one location (preferably making each other labor).
10.47 – many first generation immigrants from the 30s through the 60s swept the sidewalks in front of their houses in brooklyn. I still see old italian ladies doing it today in East Williamsburg and a polish gent who does the same in Greenpoint. I’ve seen them scrub the sidealk with a broom and bleachy water too. Its not a new phenomenon, it just died out with the careless and irresponsible.
Thank you 10:34. I’m another person who was pushed out of what used to be the middle-class, rent control and sketchy era of the UWS. No one remembers what it used to be like. I was born in 1972 and grew up in the West 80/90s. In case you weren’t there, Bed-Stuy 2008 is cleaner and safer than Columbus Ave 1976.
No one “owns” their neighborhood. We are all renters in some manner. Eventually, in time every area either gets better or worse, and then the old folks from the hood either sell out to make quick cash, or sell quick to save their butt from crime.
But, now I own in Ft. Greene. I saw the writing on the wall (and a familiar vision of gentrification – restaurants and cleaner streets) and so I put my money down before it was too late. I’m here to stay.
There was some rally outside Albee Sq. mall this Saturday and some angry member of the ‘community’ was screaming about saving what they had created in Ft. Greene. I guess drugs, crime and the nick-name ‘murder ave’ are worth saving for some. I moved to that area in 1994 and can tell you that he ‘improvements’ to downtown Brooklyn were made by the new residents, not the last generation.
Remember, Ft. Greene (and all neighborhoods) used to belong to some other another ethnic group (unless you belong to the Wappinger Indian tribe). Someday, you too will move.
Why didn’t the ‘community’ buy the Ft Greene houses when they were $75,000? Why are the ones who did buy sell out so quickly if the ‘community’ is so great? That’s because this is New York. Get ready to move.
Steven Johnson, “I imagine there’s some horror fantasy fusion: the well-off Park Sloper and co-op member who is obsessed with his kids. Oh, wait, I just described myself.”
Mamma mia…
10:47:
Not sure what part of Brooklyn you live in, but in Park Slope there has been a hippie set cleaning the sidewalks and getting involved in the neighborhood since the 1960’s.
How do you think the Food Co-op came into being?
i hope this is the end of this crap.
union hall won out last week over the crazy neighbors, then there was the park slope parking thing, now this article. it’s been all over the news lately. last week every entry on curbed.com was about park slope, it seemed.
i think park slope is on the up and up.