Brooklyn: The Land of Milk, Honey & Celebrities
The New York Observer devotes quite a lot of ink this week to the County of Kings. In addition to analyzing the borough’s laissez-faire relationship with its celebrity residents, the article notes that the borough has become many people’s first choice as opposed to just a cheaper alternative for those priced out of Manhattan: Gentrification…
The New York Observer devotes quite a lot of ink this week to the County of Kings. In addition to analyzing the borough’s laissez-faire relationship with its celebrity residents, the article notes that the borough has become many people’s first choice as opposed to just a cheaper alternative for those priced out of Manhattan:
Gentrification has finally achieved what cracks, gangs, graffiti, bankruptcy, budget busting, Giuliani, the smoking ban and global terrorism could not: It has rendered Manhattan utterly uninhabitable. These days, the Upper East Side and the Lower East Side have both become the forward positions of what can no longer be reasonably called the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. No point in dressing in rags and belting out lyrics from Rent, because every block of the East Village looks like frat row at the University of Michigan. Brooklyn presents itself as a happy medium between surviving in Manhattan and sequestering oneself in the suburbs, between continuing to live like a college kid and sniffing enough carbon monoxide in your garage to become a happy zombie. In Brooklyn, New Yorkers can rehearse their adulthood without committing to it; can play in their brownstones without feeling trapped inside of them. And Brooklyn is no longer Failure-ville. Even the celebrities—people who dreamed of making it long ago, who came to Manhattan to get famous—show proof of their success in Brooklyn. It is the dream.
Welcome to Schnooklyn [NY Observer]
Brooklyn is already turning into Manhattan. This Observer writer has the typical Manhattan blinders on that they really do Brooklynites an injustice by overlooking this. Higher rents, higher prices, more crappy chain stores, more frat types, more trendies and self-conscious hipsters, and more dirt and congestion. Fewer eccentrics, less down to earth types, less patience when walking down the street.
I look at all that is happening in Brooklyn, and it kind of makes my inner arguments against moving to the Queens, SI, or the burbs kind of weak.
I agree with the last post. I’ve lived in Brooklyn since I moved to NYC in 2000. I chose it not because of price (could have afforded Manhattan and still can), but because I preferred it to other areas in Manhattan. I’m not sure why people feel so offended by this article or have the need to defend their choice of where they live. Brooklyn’s great. If you like it, good for you, I’m happy for you. I also like Manhattan, I don’t see the point in getting offended at the article.
Wow, Brooklynites really do take themselves seriously! I guess I will be the lone voice in saying I found this to be harmless fun. I mean, ISN’T Brooklyn a happy medium between Mahattan and the suburbs?! The Sesame Street stuff or not totally growing up…whatever. I think the reactions above are so defensive to be almost embarrassing.
I’m sure it’s an innocent typo…just like my “Brooklyn is on it’s way” really should be “its way.” Anon 11:43 am.
Sorry, that was a typo. Thanks for the snark, though.
my biggest fear is that people who pretend to live here will continue to spell Fort Greene “Fort Green”.
I thought that one of the more interesting observations in the piece came from someone who was drawn to Brooklyn by ‘Sesame Street idealism’. That certainly rang true to me. Firstly, because my visual conception of New York from a childhood lived elsewhere was that it was all brownstone stoops, parks, sidewalk hopscotch and muppets. It wasn’t until I visited as an adult that I discovered that that was more Brooklyn than Manattan (‘cept the muppets of course). Secondly, because Sesame Street always portrayed this MLK, Jr. ideal of racial integration, which again is more to be found in certain Brooklyn neighborhoods than elsewhere–I know it isn’t always a reality, but it is enough so that my interracial family feels a lot more comfortable in Fort Green than in any of the Manhattan, Chicago, New Haven and San Diego neighborhoods we’ve lived in.
My biggest fear, actually, is that the money, power and fame flowing into the borough will ruin the Sesame Street characteristics of the place. I sure hope not.
But apart from that you liked it, right?
this is just re-cycled drivel that pops up every so often on days when the news cycle is slow. Rehearh adulthood? Yeah becuase signing a contract to buy a place is so much more adult simply because you live on the other side of a river. What a bunch of bunk. Where do they find horribel bags of recssive gene traits to “write” articles like this.