The Next New Brooklyn
We’ve been told Philadelphia is the new Brooklyn, or Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, and sometimes we’ve been told that Manhattan is the new Brooklyn. New York Magazine reprised the latter argument. Prices are falling in brownstone Brooklyn, they say —″Statistics from Streeteasy.com show 38 percent of townhouses suffering price cuts in recent months, averaging…
We’ve been told Philadelphia is the new Brooklyn, or Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, and sometimes we’ve been told that Manhattan is the new Brooklyn. New York Magazine reprised the latter argument. Prices are falling in brownstone Brooklyn, they say —″Statistics from Streeteasy.com show 38 percent of townhouses suffering price cuts in recent months, averaging an 11 percent drop”—and the market is softening in Manhattan. Given the choice between similar prices in two boroughs, apparently some people are saying, “I’ll take Manhattan”—not that we know any of them. Not to worry. Even if fewer Manhattanites have been scouring the borough for deals, all’s well here. “Brooklyn now has its own momentum,” they report. “There are far more pro-Brooklyn partisans than there used to be.” Anybody out there witnessed this move-to-Manhattan phenomenon?
Manhattan: The New Brooklyn? [New York Mag]
View of Downtown Manhattan. Photo by drunkcat.
To me it all same city and sounds so provincial to discuss moving to/from Brooklyn/Manhattan/Queens etc is worth discussion. Are NYers lives so narrowly defined and whole sense of being is attached to what boro they live? I hope not.
Slappy – The vast majority of those “kids in Williamsburg” would be in the East Village if they could afford it.
Benson is absolutely correct judging from the many reminiscences I’ve heard from old-time residents of Windsor Terrace (which back in the day was simply called Park Slope, according to many of them). By ‘old-time’ I mean the 1960s and earlier. Folks like the Hamill brothers have recalled for the record a world of “Italian blocks,” “Jewish blocks,” and “Irish blocks,” and God help you if you wandered too far afield from your tribe; in many areas, the parish was a far more relevant boundary than the “neighborhood” and certainly was a more important element of one’s self-concept than some meta-“Brooklyn.” Aside from the Dodgers, there seems to have been surprisingly little that united Brooklynites beyond the Hollywood stereotype of dese, dems and dose. As a “recent” immigrant (1983), I was in the first wave (unless you count proto-gentrifying pioneers like the Ortners in the 60’s and 70’s) in a wave of rent-hike and townhouse-price refugees from Manhattan, and I vividly recall the excited esprit de corps we felt as we explored and embraced our adopted borough. We felt like “Brooklynites” perhaps more than the old old-timers, who viewed the snapping up of worn brownstones by young professionals as a sort of madness. This was only a decade after the concussion of white flight, and we all got plenty of flack from older Brooklyn-born Jersey transplants who considered themselves lucky to be “outta there.” I guess my point is that the notion of a Brooklynite is pretty darn mutable over time.
Benson–I wholeheartedly agree with you that silly acronym neighborhoods are preferable to impenetrable ethnic enclaves that encourage the kind of xenophobia your historical examples represent.
don’t let him bother you, slappy. benson has a habit of being obnoxious and “comporting” himself through know-it-all pronouncements in the most offensive way possible. You’ve just join the growing list of those benson deems not worthy of posting 🙂
I grew up in the Bronx but moved to Brooklyn years ago and I love it. Although my experience isn’t firsthand, I love hearing about life in Brooklyn- the ups and downs. All part of life and certainly not limited to just Brooklyn. But I moved here from a pit stop in Manhattan (which I loathed living in) because I fell in love with the brownstone neighborhoods and the great mix of people. To me Brooklyn just seemed so much more classic NYC than Manhattan. the Bronx always holds first place in my heart but I love living in Brooklyn.
Bennylava: you made me laugh out loud! (I do like the picture, however.)
I was in Manhattan for 7 years before moving to Brooklyn a year and a half ago. I have absolutely zero desire to move back. Brooklyn is most certainly home for me.
All but one of my friends from Manhattan have since moved to Brooklyn, and I don’t sense that any have interest in moving back. A couple do have interest in moving from Williamsburg to Ft. Greene or the Slope, but none want to go back to Manhattan.
I’m sure there are instances here and there, but this sounds like another desperate NYMag piece to me.
Is Manhattan that hard up, that now they’re trying to convince people that there are a significant number of folks moving back?
Upper West Side townhouses START at 5 or 6 million and go up towards 8 and 10 million closer to Central or Riverside Parks.
I find the story pretty fluffy, at best.
Slappy;
I am 50’ish, and that is as much personal information as I’m going to give out. Let’s look back on the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s:
-do you recall the Crown Heights’ riots?
-do you recall the marches by Al Sharpton on Bensonhust, after the murder of a black fellow (whose name escapes me) who wandered in there to buy a used car?
-do you recall the boycott of the Korean green grocer on Church Ave, and the death threats that were handed out?
In all of these cases, the underlying issue was “turf”, which was usually defined by ethnicity. If anyone from these areas referred to Brooklyn, they did so in the context of their own tight, homogenous village, in which outsiders were not welcome.
Did anyone in those days say “Let’s go explore Bed-Stuy (or Benshonhurst, or Red Hook, or Sunset Park, etc.) and see what it has to offer?” If you are honest with yourself, you will know that the answer is “No”.
You seem to be offended that folks are creating new neighborhood names by using acronyms or citing historical references. While I agree that sometimes this can be silly or overdone, I’ll take it any day over the situation that used to exist,where neighborhood names were synonomous with boundaries that one did not cross.
Similarly to several people on here I am a lifer. I was born in Brooklyn (Sheepshead Bay) and have lived in the borough as an adult since 1995. I can’t imagine living anywhere else frankly. I think I sit somewhere between Slappy and Benson on the “waiting for Brooklyn” scale as I clearly enjoy the new energy and beautification that has taken place in Clinton Hill but am highly sympathetic to the people who maintained the neighborhood over the years in very trying circumstances. I do think that Clinton Hill has been fairly successful at incorporating new people while leaving room for the old timers but I am sure there are people who disagree with that assessment as well. Anyway, I love Clinton Hill and I am staying for the long haul.