Quote of the Day
I’ve lived in Bklyn all my 54 years, attended public school, etc, etc. When the face of Brooklyn becomes Chase; Rite Aid; CVS; Bank of America, etc., you’re right, “it’s not what I think it should be”. Change is great, but when Gage and Tollners becomes TGIF Fridays, it’s not for the better. When Applebee’s…
I’ve lived in Bklyn all my 54 years, attended public school, etc, etc. When the face of Brooklyn becomes Chase; Rite Aid; CVS; Bank of America, etc., you’re right, “it’s not what I think it should be”. Change is great, but when Gage and Tollners becomes TGIF Fridays, it’s not for the better. When Applebee’s is packed across the street from Juniors which is empty, Brooklyn’s narrative is becoming as bland as the suburbs. I’ve seen lots of great change in Bklyn. The Heights of my youth had boarded up brownstones and dangerous welfare hotels, but it also had a vibrant Montague Street with local usefull businesses. So, let’s all put our i-pods on, go to an ATM on every corner and look at our cell phone screens while we cross the street.
— by jebby in Park Slope Can’t Measure Up to Marine Park
If any of you longtime Brooklynites would like to contribute your observations to a theatre project about the changing face of Brooklyn, please, please, please email me at: jordanfyoung@gmail.com.
Here’s what it’s all about:
BROOKLYN AT EYE LEVEL is a theater project that explores large scale development and community change in Brooklyn, focusing on the proposed Atlantic Yards Project and its surrounding neighborhoods. This fall a company of actors and director Steve Cosson will be conducting interviews and immersing themselves in community life. The company will be speaking to representatives from all sides of the various issues in an effort to understand a wide diversity of perspectives. At the same time, a group of artists including playwrights Lucy Thurber and Carl Hancock Rux, composer Michael Friedman and the dance company Urban Bush Women will work with neighborhood residents to explore the changing face of central Brooklyn.
This first phase of work will culminate in a week of performances at the Brooklyn Lyceum, December 4th – 7th. Ultimately, the research will form the basis for a full-length play . BROOKLYN AT EYE LEVEL is a project of The Civilians, a company the specializes in creating original theater from investigations into real life. Similar projects include “This Beautiful City,” which premiered last year at the 2008 Humana Festival of New Plays and will be produced this winter at the Vineyard Theater in New York, and *Gone Missing *which recently enjoyed a seven-month Off-Broadway run at the Barrow Street Theatre.
For more information: http://www.brooklynateyelevel.org, http://www.thecivilians.org
people have been moving to NYC in mass from the suburbs since it was built. Many of the great artists, musicians and writers who are tied with new york where not born here.
also as for changing brooklyn, the popluation of Asian Americans went from 110k in 1990 to around 206k in 2007
I think it very much depends on where you live and how you fit into the profile of your neighborhood… I live in Kensington, where the mom and pop restaurants basically don’t have seating, and 99 cent stores and nail salons will really only take that “brooklyn neighborhood experience” so far. On the other hand, I can’t stand the tres chic overpriced exotic salad fare of Carrol Gardens or the slope’s 5th avenue either. I think the old timers (like my parents) fondly remember good and affordable – if boring – food and stores; it was their childhood that made it great, not the stores themselves. I’m hoping there’s a nice middleground between applebees and juniors (which are both atrocious if you asked me). Places like Williamsburg have the right idea – homegrown or recently imported talent and entrepreneurs – but they have the luxury of being surrounded by kids who like to try new stuff and who have a lot of dough. I think part of the problem is backwards-looking folks who are reluctant to try the new in more staid neighborhoods – that creates exactly the right environment for the chains, which are nothing if not reliable (that’s their selling point we all know). So everyone go try that new spot – even if it stinks you helped foster an environment where people might see a success and decide to try for themselves, with better results.
Also, once commercial rents get more affordable more mom and pop types will decide it’s worth a shot at their own place, even in a tougher economic climate.
wine lover, I remember when Kasia’s — the Polish home cooking place — opened and it was a genuine big deal. Then a few years later the L Cafe opened; a cafe! So now Williamsburg has “tons of orginal stores and restaurants and coffee shops and bars and music venues etc…. there is no starbucks, and only one small bank on bedford ave.” Neighborhoods change and Williamsburg will continue to do so.
And yes, the food at Junior’s does not live up to its institutional status.
DaveInBedStuy, You called it, or made it happen!! Now, please turn your attention to saving the big 3 US auto companies and killing Atlantic Yards. Stay strong!!
Some of us who grew up in the suburbs honestly like the city part of the city and have zero interest in going to TGI Fridays.
Just, you know, for the record 🙂
well that’s what you get when you get a massive inpouring of suburbanites into big cities (no offense suburbanites).. you can take the blah blah out of the suburbs but not the suburbs out of the blah blah blah. for better of for worse the homogenization of every big city is also partly in part with the advent of internet culture.
-Rob
Anyone who’s grown up in brooklyn says in some form or another….brooklyn today, is not the same brooklyn from my youth.
I do it all the time and I’m in my…oh, never mind about my age.
You can feel nostalgic matter how old you are.
juniors is TERRIBLE. bad food and overpriced.
i live in williamsburg, and it is not bland. there are tons of orginal stores and restaurants and coffee shops and bars and music venues etc…. there is no starbucks, and only one small bank on bedford ave. brooklyn still has wonderful unique places, just not in every neighborhood.