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]
“Oh yeah? I KNEW you were gay!! I’m STILL pissed that you couldnt’ come out and tell everyong what was pretty clear to some of us. You’re a coward!”
Well your girlfriend sure didn’t know when I was banging her out by the bleachers.
Girls are so dumb. Even now I get hit on ALL the time.
Sorry my coming out a little late was such a burden on you.
“This column is why I don’t like Brooklyn anymore. I’ve moved out the of borough and won’t be back.”
Then why do you read Brownstoner.
Miss something?
“five years from now there will be no price differentiation between Prospect Heights and Park Slope.”
There’s a difference?
“The guys on the college football team didn’t even know I was gay.”
Oh yeah? I KNEW you were gay!! I’m STILL pissed that you couldnt’ come out and tell everyong what was pretty clear to some of us. You’re a coward!
any cannolis left?
12:06 you confuse cultural insensitivity with bigotry. case in point, to say that “gays are inherently disordered” is insensitive but not incorrect as homospaines are ordered to reproduce through the male/female union is insensitive but not bigoted
“5 years, demographically speaking, there will be no difference between Park Slope and Williamsburg.”
Try 5 days from now.
If you look at the Census data, Williamsburg…or parts of it anyway, now has more married folks with children than in Park Slope.
Park Slope is known for a vocal legion of parents, but they actually only make up 25-30% of the neighborhood.
It is a misnomer that everyone who lives in Park Slope is a parent.
It’s one of those things that have been spun by the “media” and all the lemmings just believe whatever they read.
“This column is why I don’t like Brooklyn anymore. I’ve moved out the of borough and won’t be back.”
Great, we don’t want you, anyway!
I’m in the media also, and the writing isn’t that bad. Not exemplary, but not bad, either. I’ve seen far worse. To me, she looks, sounds and behaves and like many Brooklyn gentrifers (and Brownstone posters). She seems to share the same observations and perspective. The surprise is that she’s from Manhattan, and not someplace in the Midwest. But then again, the majority of Manhattanites seem to know very little about Brooklyn.