The San Fran-Brooklyn Love Connection
Did you know there are places to live in the United States aside from Brooklyn? Neither did we, but according to an article in the Style section of yesterday’s Times, there’s a place in California called San Francisco that is something of a sister city to Brooklyn. Or, as the piece puts it, “there is…
Did you know there are places to live in the United States aside from Brooklyn? Neither did we, but according to an article in the Style section of yesterday’s Times, there’s a place in California called San Francisco that is something of a sister city to Brooklyn. Or, as the piece puts it, “there is a young, earnest population that is beating a path between artsy, gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn and their counterparts in the Bay Area, especially East Oakland and the area south of Market Street in San Francisco, or SoMa.” So what do the two places have in common aside from loads of creatives? Local eyesores (Emeryville mud flats and the Gowanus Canal); good breweries (Anchor and Brooklyn); literary do-gooder establishments (Dave Eggers’ 826 Valencia and 826NYC); and a shared ethos: “If there is an aesthetic credo to Brooklyn and the Bay Area, it is Do It Yourself, which connotes more than using an Allen wrench from Ikea. D.I.Y. can mean everything from wearing locally designed T-shirts to attending concerts staged in someone’s warehouse apartment, to riding a bike to work.”
Sisters in Idiosyncrasy [NY Times]
San Francisco photo by Dizzy Atmosphere; Brooklyn photo by rsguskind.
The MTA can’t lie to, steal from, cheat or maltreat people in San Francisco. That alone is a big difference between living there and living here.
” San Francisco…where the young retire”
William S Burroughs
The difference between SF and Brooklyn is that in SF when you ask someone what they do, you might get a response like, “I’m a wind surfer.”
I have to go to SF for work, and deal with the people there. not my favorite. find them so leftist that they become fascists.
also, while parts of the city are certainly gorgeous and the waterfront is lovely, it is scary and dangerous in many parts for the average person in a way that NYC just isn’t.
NYC is, as someone already posted, a world city, SF is an also ran.
i can however, see some of the comparisons. just went to the new wine tasting bar/restaurant Bridge Urban on Broadway near the water in Williamsburg, and the first thing I noticed was that it seemed like a place in SF. BTW, if you haven’t heard of it – it is super cool. It’s the tasting room for a North Fork winery and only carries NY state wines.
San Francisco is not a very good scene for singles.
It is a very couple-y place.
Same situation in Portland, Oregon (which I LOVE).
Both those cities are notorious for lacking a real singles scene.
Just something to note.
“Riding bikes while drinking Gorilla coffee and pulling your stroller and talking on your cell and listening to Vampire Weekend on your ipod. That is Brooklyn. SF is full of freaks who like the fog. Which are you?”
Yeah right. SF is full of yuppies, more than Brooklyn as a whole. They dress like shit over there too…..
“We live in SoMa, which is the Brooklyn of San Francisco.”
Which part of Brooklyn do they mean? Brooklyn Heights? Boro Park? Carnarsie? Williamsburg?
“SF is Manhattan, Brooklyn is more like Oakland.”
I agree. I was born, educated and trained in S.F. and raised in the East Bay. I always made that parallel and then moved straight to Brooklyn in the 90’s. In the BET American Gangster documentary about Oakland drug lord Felix Mitchell, Davey D from Brooklyn said the same thing. Nice thread for a change.
SF is like Brooklyn in many positive ways. Both cities are foodie havens with greenmarkets and great “cheap eats” (although nothing here compares to the 3$ Mission burrito!). I got around both cities solely by public transit (riding the 33 Stanyan up and over 18th Street was like an amusement park ride). Real estate is a popular topic in both places. One main difference was that I did spend more time outdoors and near the water on the West Coast, but I could be exploring Gerritsen beach here if I were more intrepid. Yes the DIY lifestyle is very popular in SF, but I lived there 10 years ago and everyone worked as nonprofit dogooders so we were all poor. Brooklynites definitely seem more ambitious, or maybe it just feels that way because I’m 10 years older!