Our Borough, Ourselves
For the past month the Observer’s been running a weekly column called “Brooklyn, the Borough.” Each installment is a first-person account written by Nicole Brydson, who grew up in Manhattan and did some time in Greenpoint and Hell’s Kitchen before recently settling in Prospect Heights. In grand old Observer fashion, the column sorta reads like…
For the past month the Observer’s been running a weekly column called “Brooklyn, the Borough.” Each installment is a first-person account written by Nicole Brydson, who grew up in Manhattan and did some time in Greenpoint and Hell’s Kitchen before recently settling in Prospect Heights. In grand old Observer fashion, the column sorta reads like “Sex and the City,” but instead of bed-hopping and social climbing the focus is one woman’s quest to identify herself via her new borough. Here’s what Brydson’s learned so far:
Lesson 1: Finding the right neighborhood is tough. Williamsburg=”hupsters.” Park Slope=”pretentious mommy-daddy colony.” Fort Greene=”just about perfect,” but a little too pricey. Prospect Heights=True love, at the right price.
Lesson 2: It’s possible to decorate on the cheap. Getting gear from Lowe’s and IKEA is all well and good, but how ’bout that beige carpet from the sidewalk? “So far, no bed bugs!”
Lesson 3: Gentrification is a bitch. “I feel destined to simultaneously be gentrified and gentrifying, but to most people I just look like the new white girl on the block.”
Lesson 4: Don’t expect sanity from a real estate agent who asks you to sign a lease on the hood of her Jag.
Looking forward to more!
Escaping Hupsters for New Prospects [Observer]
An Electric Boyfriend Works the New Apartment [Observer]
Destined to Be Gentrified and Gentrifying [Observer]
My Angel Gave Me Hell [Observer]
The only way that will happen, 12:12 is if the parents in Prospect Heights do something about the schools and clean up some of the petty crime (and more than occasionally…more severe than petty) that is still quite prevalent in PH.
5 years, demographically speaking, there will be no difference between Park Slope and Williamsburg.
five years from now there will be no price differentiation between Prospect Heights and Park Slope.
And pass the mini bagels… any scallion cream cheese?
and I know that we are supposed to be focused on the reporter but I must comment that I find it amusing (in a sad sort of way) that a gay man would criticize an (hypothetical) mother for trying to reinforce the self-esteem of a child who is ‘last’ (and most likely somewhat ostracized).
“Try harder next time [pu$$y]!!”
Why would you assume because someone is gay, they would come in last or be called a pussy? I don’t understand that. Never been called a pussy in my life. The guys on the college football team didn’t even know I was gay.
You sound like a bit of a bigot.
People, FOCUS!!! Don’t turn on each other. This is the first time I feel the strong need to defend Burg “hupsters,” Slope moms, unsafe Bed-Stuy, and all the other stereotypes she disses. FOCUS!!!
11:52’s comment makes no sense. I read it three times and still don’t understand it.
ANYWAY, the problem with these types of articles is the the writer/reporter. This woman IS herself a stereotype, yet she does nothing but fill her column with lazy, cliched descriptions of what she sees in Brooklyn. She has ZERO power of observation and no ability to parlay what little she does see into a meaningful narrative.
11:55. More evidence that Brooklyn is over and why it is time to get out.
11:37 – you really have terrible reasoning skills – obviously the “trophy for last place” was a smack AT park slope mothers (stereotype)
and I know that we are supposed to be focused on the reporter but I must comment that I find it amusing (in a sad sort of way) that a gay man would criticize an (hypothetical) mother for trying to reinforce the self-esteem of a child who is ‘last’ (and most likely somewhat ostracized).
“Try harder next time [pu$$y]!!”