In Defense of Park Slope
“But overall, this is a neighborhood that makes New York living startlingly desirable. The park is close and lovely — getting cleaner and better all the time. Subway access is fairly spectacular (less so on weekends). Many mom and pop businesses are still intact. There’s decent coffee, good produce, and community theater. On a sunny…
“But overall, this is a neighborhood that makes New York living startlingly desirable. The park is close and lovely — getting cleaner and better all the time. Subway access is fairly spectacular (less so on weekends). Many mom and pop businesses are still intact. There’s decent coffee, good produce, and community theater. On a sunny Saturday, the farmer’s market at Grand Army Plaza is as life-affirming as a place can be.
Most of all, it feels like a real neighborhood. Friends bump into one another. They chit-chat. They have impromptu picnics. Small boys climb trees! This is one of those neighborhoods that has kept a whole generation of would-be surbanites from becoming suburbanites. That’s a good thing, no?”
— David Shenk writing in The Brooklyn Paper
Sam — “Access” to the subway is great… the problem is just what happens when you actually want to *go* somewhere.
🙂
Hate to change the topic, but this was my favorite line:
“Subway access is fairly spectacular”
HAS THIS GUY EVER TAKEN THE F TRAIN????
Sounds like you are too straight though, cmu.
No dice.
>what does one consider an “interesting” person nowadays?
– can’t be white
– can’t have kids
– can’t have any sort of traditional job that would classify them a yuppie
– can’t be young (they’re all hipsters you know)
– can’t be an artist (they’re just hipsters with trust funds)
Hey, I’m 4-1/2 fifths interesting! Who knew? Something new to hit up women with…
so what is rich and what is middle class and what is working class and what is poor?
and what do stats show as ‘diversity’ in park slope?
I read that only 1 in 5 households have children.
Forget whatever self-serving definition of diversity you want to employ…. the opening “Yeah, if you’re white.” comment is just part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Park Slope (or X location) is gentrified and the majority of the gentry are white. That’s fine. What is NOT fine is “Yeah, if you’re white.”
So, this means (a) Blacks, Hispanics, Asians or other non-whites can’t be gentrifiers, magically, or (b) living with white people is undesirable because you will be, what, oppressed?, or (c) something else self-defeating and the result of internalized racism.
This is a FULLY gentrified neighborhood. Yes, poor folks still live there as section 8 or rent control, but that’s a hold-over remnant of what is signed, sealed and delivered. It’s all about ECONOMICS and has nothing to do with color. If you want to get into why whites are richer than blacks, that’s a WHOLE different story. *** If you are wealthy and move to Park Slope, you will be very comfortable!! I don’t care what color you are. If you are white and earn $32,000 a year… not so much.
No, I’m not assuming its all rich, rent stabilization is everywhere in NYC. But its diffcult for me to imagine Park Slope having the same economic diversity as most neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Having said that I’m now realizing I’m falling on my own sword. Just having people rich enough to buy $3million dollar houses in PS means you have a whole bar of the economic diversity bar graph their which doesn’t exist in other Brooklyn neighborhoods, except BH.
FRSG – I think you misunderstood armchairwarrior – he/she was talking about the meaning in America attributed to the term “diversity”, not what american diversity is compared to diversity in other countries.
“if people want real diversity try economic diversity american type of diversity is very perverse. ”
Cant believe I am in such agreement with Rob – PS is far from economically homogeneous – not having abject poverty is far from being economically diverse (i.e. rich, middle class, working class).
BTW – what country are you proposing has such wonderful economic diversity in its living arrangements (or for that matter cultural diversity)
quote:
“try economic diversity”
PS is not gonna fare well by that yardstick.
actually you’d be shocked just how many apartment buildings in park slope have section 8 tenants, rent controlled tenants, and stabalized tenants. but i think you are assuming that the entire neighborhood is rich, which is totally untrue.
*rob*