From the West Village to Fort Greene, With Few Regrets
This weekend’s real estate section in the Times has a story that’s likely to resonate with many ex-Manhattanites who’ve moved to Brooklyn and find the living across the East River a whole lot easier. The article is about Hali Lee and Peter von Ziegesar, a couple with three kids who uprooted from the West Village,…
This weekend’s real estate section in the Times has a story that’s likely to resonate with many ex-Manhattanites who’ve moved to Brooklyn and find the living across the East River a whole lot easier. The article is about Hali Lee and Peter von Ziegesar, a couple with three kids who uprooted from the West Village, where they’d lived for 15 years, to Fort Greene. The pair bought a house (a former crack den, actually) on South Portland Avenue in late ’05 and say that while they miss a few things about the city (chief among them their old proximity to the Village Community School on West 10th Street, which their kids still attend), Brooklyn has presented a number of quality-of-life advantages. The perks, according to Ms. Lee, include an environment that doesn’t feel like a high-end mall, as the Village did; a space where their brood’s noise doesn’t disturb the neighbors; their new borough’s down-to-earth population (There are mixed-race couples, and black people here who aren’t nannies); and the fact that their kids can now go play on the sidewalk and in the backyard.
In a House, You Can Make All the Noise You Want [NY Times]
Photo by lunalaguna.
To sum up…
I agree with:
9;02, 9:54, 10:01, 10:03, 10;14, 10:55, 11:00, 11:12, 12:09, 12:10, 12:11, 1:43, 1:54, 2:12, 2:44, 2:59, 3:09, 3:17, 3:22, 3:33, 3:44, 3:55, 4:12, 4:21 and 4:19.
I disagree with:
9:17, 9:33, 9:45, 9:59, 10:01, 10:46, 10:57, 11:23, 11:27, 11:56, 12:01, 12:22, 12:49, 12:55, 1:02, 1:11, 1:23, 1:54, 2:08, 2:19, 2:34, 2:48, 2:59, 3:15, 3:44, 3:57 and 4:18
I believe
10:27, 3:01 and 3:15 to be asshats.
I find
9:34, 12:32 and 2:41 to exhibit fucktardian tendencies.
I like
12:54’s hat
I laugh every time
11:18 “plays” the piano when drunk
I am VERY attracted to:
12:53, 2:48 and 3:14
I find
8:34, 11:46, 1:47 and 2:02 attractive, but in a kind of “ugly” way, if you know what I mean.
What does “stroller central” have to do with anything?
4:31:
IT’S H-U-M-O-R by the way. I was joking.
URRRRGGGGG
On nannies, it’s a job. A decent one. With a good quality-of-life factor and it’s one of the few jobs a newly emigrated women can get. Why force feelings of shame on these women who are surely very happy to have this kind of work? That’s your own personal issue.
“4:03 is an asinine ass whose mother is a racist and whose father is a bourgeouis pig banker lawyer doctor type who can’t spell grammer.”
It’s G-R-A-M-M-A-R, by the way.
4:05pm. Sorry, except for your first comment (which granted, was racist and should have been removed), most of those comments wouldn’t really qualify as “smut”. Yes, at the worse they were called clueless, smug, people with trust funds trying to prove they were cool. That may be (and is probably) dead wrong, but it isn’t the worst name calling by far. And, here are some of the positive comments – – I also have better things to do than to make this list comprehensive.
“I thought it was a sweet story.
Actually, I thougth they seemed like a very nice family.
OR maybe she would’ve laughed. I think she would’ve just laughed, judging from her acerbic wit in the article.
They happen to sound like the kinds of people — funny, relaxed, honest — who are cool neighbors. They’re not pontificating about their roots in brooklyn or pretending they’re so close to their community. They just said: we wanted room and a place to yell and scream, and since we come from the West Village, that area better be pretty nice to look at cause that’s what we’re used to.
As a Black woman who always gets mistaken for a neighborhood nanny, I was not offended at all by Ms. Lee’s comment. I know exactly what she meant. If you do happen to be a nanny there is no shame in that but when you are not, it can be tiresome when people assume that you are. My husband early on in his career was always assumed to be an orderly instead of a physician. I am happy that they are happy in Brooklyn.
I thought this was a lovely story and this family seemed like nice folks whom I am happy to have as neighbors. Why is it our business where they got their money? ”
Well now we know why most schools in NYC aren’t good enough. Because nobody will admit they need fixing!
Look, 4:16’s point to 4:09 had nothing to do with the disagreement between 4:03 and 4:10. My point is that, if 4:10 and 4:09 are right, which I think 4:16 was trying to disprove in a backhanded way, then 4:03 is an asinine ass whose mother is a racist and whose father is a bourgeouis pig banker lawyer doctor type who can’t spell grammer.
I really enjoy living in ft.greene because of it’s diversity. I don’t think the woman’s comments in the article about black nannies was racist. She was just making a point and she is right. That’s one of many reasons I like the neighborhood. It’s not stroller central like PS or BH.