Quote of the Day
When we (a young white family) moved to Clinton Hill in the early 1990s, within days we’d been welcomed by our (black) neighbors, invited to barbecues, spent time talking on stoops and watching each other’s children play on the sidewalk, etc. When I moved to Park Slope, I found that the mostly white families mostly…
When we (a young white family) moved to Clinton Hill in the early 1990s, within days we’d been welcomed by our (black) neighbors, invited to barbecues, spent time talking on stoops and watching each other’s children play on the sidewalk, etc. When I moved to Park Slope, I found that the mostly white families mostly keep to themselves. To this day, I’m on a friendly “hi, how are you?” basis with my black neighbors on my North Slope block whereas the white neighbors seem to think I’m crazy if I say hello to them on the sidewalk! Talk about cultural differences.
— by Park Sloper in Do Generalizations About Harlem Hold for Brooklyn Nabes?
“They never sit on their stoops after work and have a beer,”
What time of day do you think people earning $500K get home?
The slope has changed a lot since I moved here 25 years ago, but GKW and northsloperenter’s posts have it right: the less welcoming people are the newer transplants from Manhattan. Mostly wealthier, and closer to the Park, they just don’t know how life is in Brooklyn, and stick with the attitudes they arrived with. They never sit on their stoops after work and have a beer, nor do their kids play with each other in the street under an adults watchful eye. Fortunately I moved downhill to a more old-timer Brooklyn block, of every ethnic group and social level you could imagine. We all say hello to each other, shovel each others walks in winter, and have long conversations out on our stoops while the kids play. Maybe the newer folks will catch on that this is the pleasant urban life they came looking for, and in time will fit in better. Who knows? Maybe in a few years they’ll be the ones complaining about the unfriendly people who don’t say hello.
Yeah, I feel like I run into neighbors on the street all the time in the neighborhood.
Being a PS resident for a while, hard for me believe anyone here would “think it crazy” to say hello, but I’ve found that exaggeration is the soul of blogging.
On my own block, most everyone says hello to each other, we joke that you have to allot 10 extra minutes in summer to leave the block.
‘stoner, your link to the original thread is borked because your html is incorrect – the link starts with hthttp instead of http.
i would agree with the manhattan vs everywhere else opinion. When I lived in park slope everyone in the building I was in (8 unit brownstone) was friendly but the most friendly where either from brooklyn or another state. I grew up in the south and everyone waves and says hello on the street. A good chunk of black people in brookyn came from the south thus explaining how friendly they are on the street.
it also seems that the coldest most uninviting people I have dealt with in brooklyn are the old school white residence.
I love my black neighbors, they have better weed than my white counterparts.
“I think it has to do with Manhattanites vs. more old time brooklynites – brooklyn neighborhoods are like small towns and manhattanites come with the anonymity frame of mind. I was like that when I first moved to bkln 10 years ago. It takes a while to get it.”
There is something to this.
My old building in Manhattan had over 80 apartments and probably over 200 tenants. You need a little anonymity to keep from (1) going mad and (2) having 200 people into your business.
My building in Brooklyn has 4 apartments with 9 tenants (incl. children). Quite a change, and it does take some getting use to.
I think it has to do with Manhattanites vs. more old time brooklynites – brooklyn neighborhoods are like small towns and manhattanites come with the anonymity frame of mind. I was like that when I first moved to bkln 10 years ago. It takes a while to get it.