slope-strollers-05-2008.jpgMaybe 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.


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply

  1. 5:15: are you missing a chromosome?

    “so as not to offend the protected nature of the hood”

    so you don’t do what you want in life because of what other people think…?

    VERY healthy….

  2. Park slope is a little to yuppified, I do live there and I love the park, restaurants and the general feel of the hood.

    I am looking to buy and I can afford the Slope, but I can see the Burbs comparison that the Times suggested. I am not sure the Slope would want me in the Hood, I bet Willy B would be happier to have me and open beer drinking and my motorcycles (too bad I hate hipsters), but I will most likely purchase outside of the Slope so as not to offend the protected nature of the Hood.

    I would never describe Park Slope as Cool (bear in mind I am young and enjoy late nights and being a little rowdy) I would describe Park Slope as Beautiful and Comfortable!

  3. “Heather, you are the perfect storm of daveinbedstuy, Jerri, Nokilissa, Polemicist and me all rolled up into one.”

    She’s nothing like those people. She’s funny and has some interesting insight.

  4. I live in Prospect Heights, but a couple of my new favorite restaurants in Brooklyn have opened on 7th Avenue in Park Slope recently…

    Barrio (mexican) and Moim (korean).

    Best Korean I’ve had in the city including Koreatown.

    And I’m Korean.

    Barrio makes a MEAN Watermelon Mint Margarita!

1 4 5 6 7 8 23