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You guys are going to have a field day with this one: Some recent arrival who writes about Brooklyn for the Hartford-based Examiner tries to stereotype summarize some of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods (those that don’t qualify as places that scare me,” that is; Cringe!). A few of our not-so-favorite out-takes:

Brooklyn Heights: “Basically a Manhattan neighborhood that happens to be on the other side of the river.”
Windsor Terrace and Kensington: “The few ungentrified (read: affordable, or, in the words of a white friend who lives there, no white people) areas left in Brooklyn that are still somewhat downtown Manhattan accessible.”
Clinton Hill: “Still affordable without being crappy.”
Prospect Heights: “A no-man’s land between Park Slope and whatever lays beyond.”
Crown Heights: “Blacks + Hasidic Jews + other = race riots.”

Xenophobic much?
Getting to Know Your Brooklyn Neighborhoods [Examiner]
Photo by sept1


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  1. Like Darth Vader said, “All too easy.”

    I suppose this is how people from out-of-town view us. There is definitely a learning curve to living here, that’s nothing to get hammered for. But in one of the comments on that site someone writes it reads like it was written in 20-30 minutes.

    Some places have a zero inferiority complex towards New York; we never cross their mind. Other places like Connecticut obviously do not. I dated a woman from Connecticut once and basically the fact that I lived in Brooklyn alone was good enough for her.

  2. Prospect Heights as no man’s land? It has amazing train access (B,Q, 2, 3—two stations worth!)What about the main branch of the Library, The Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Museum and Grand Army Plaza? Vanderbilt Ave has several great restaurants and many cool and hip bars. The neighborhood has also been calendared for land marking….
    I guess to each their own, but the writer has clearly never visited any of the neighborhoods that they wrote about.

  3. I think we may be over-reacting to this little article. It was obviously meant to be an arch, Paris Hilton-ey sort of fluff piece. I think we Brooklynties have tougher skin.
    I liked the sentence that Clinton Hill was accessible to manhattan by stagecoach but not so much any more. I mean, why bother being upset?

  4. Certain people simply shouldn’t be writers. Our beloved Rob has admitted to living in Park Slope and never going to Prospect Park, I believe. I think he even said he hasn’t been outside a 5-10 block radius or so from his apartment. How can you have lived on 5th Avenue and never taken a 20 minute walk over to Smith Street?? I don’t know, but I digress.

    Some people just don’t seem to want to know about their neighborhood or about Brooklyn.

    And that’s TOTALLY cool…but they shouldn’t be writers!!!!!

  5. Journalists these days have absolutely no credibility throughout most of the media. They will write articles like this peppering them with anecdotal incidents and conversations with people that never actually took place. A lot of “experiences” being used in this type of pithy filler is simply made up by the writer to embellish his or her story. Its all so obvious as well. Its as annoying as when the likes of Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera and Ann Curry put on a “stern” face and pedantically inform the public of something that they think is new news and you better pay attention to it.

  6. I must admit, at first I was upset at the way our neighborhoods were described and how poorly this article was written. As I read it twice and digested the contents, I actually feel sorry for the writer because she is totally clueless when it comes to the borough that she calls home and that is quite sad. There is more to Brooklyn than Carroll Gardens, perhaps she should make CG her subject until she is capable of writing about other nabes. She should try visiting and get a feel for the nabes and not rely on movies and old news clips.

  7. Ech, horrible. What is the Examiner? Clearly not run by any editors with any journalism or life experience. I have never seen such a hack piece as this. Makes Hamptons Life and the neighborhood grocery circulars look like Woodward and Bernstein.

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