Old-Timers Complain About Newcomers' Lack of Brooklyn Cred...
How annoying were these two letters in the Times a few days ago? The whole schtick about needing to have lived in Brooklyn your whole life to feel attached to it or have an opinion about it is getting really old! Clearly we’re not the only ones who feel that way. Reader feedback here.
How annoying were these two letters in the Times a few days ago? The whole schtick about needing to have lived in Brooklyn your whole life to feel attached to it or have an opinion about it is getting really old! Clearly we’re not the only ones who feel that way. Reader feedback here.
“IMO there’s more talent in this list than there is currently in Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint COMBINED.”
someguy-
I notice that everyone on your “talent” list who anyone has ever heard of left Brooklyn as soon as they could. Now that we have everything all renovated for you, perhaps you’d like to contact them to see if they’ll move back?
According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn
the Hungarian population of Brooklyn is more than twice that of the French.
Az igen! Itt vagyunk!
So I wanted to follow up on my previous post with a rant.
Even though Brooklyn is so well-known culturally because of the movies made here, the celebrities born here and the”ambassadors” that have traveled the world (yes, including those scruffy GIs in WWII), one thing that has always rankled me is people just don’t realize that most of Brooklyn are minorities living in working-class to middle-class neighborhoods.
It’s not all about Brownstone Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Coney Island, folks.
Check out the data and neighborhood map of Brooklyn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_neighborhoods_map.png
http://www.brooklyn.com/map.php
How much media coverage is extended to minority neighborhoods unless they are going through demographic transitions like Prospect Heights back in the ’90s and Bushwick and Crown Heights today? In my previous post I spoke about the stay-behinders that chose to stand firm and improve their communities. How well known is the effort that was done in Fort Greene and Crown Heights versus Park Slope?
*off the soapbox*
– Roland
Hey sjtmd, I agree 100% with you. I’m also a lifelong Brooklynite (creds: also born in Crown Heights, moved to Flatlands as a young boy, then to Prospect Heights as a teenager and then to Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill as a single man,and now moving next month to Ditmas Park with my new family).
Note this is all strictly my opinion, but here goes:
Brooklyn fell on hard times during the bleak economy of the ’70s (i.e., Pres. Ford to NYC: “Drop Dead”); this incidentally also coincided with the much-documented “white flight” to the suburbs. (A few reasons I can think of for the “white flight”: emboldened minorities that started to settle in white-majority neighborhoods, massive housing project construction and relaxed immigration laws that allowed large populations from the Caribbean, including my parents, to settle in areas such as Crown Heights.)
The Renaissance of Brownstone Brooklyn started back in the ’80s with those hardy people who stayed behind or pioneered into areas like Park Slope and Fort Greene. They renovated, restored and revitalized down-at-the-heels communities to the landmark neighborhoods we know today.
As the word got out these brownstone neighborhoods were good places to raise families, it attracted singles and families who couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan. Maybe they told family and friends who lived in other states or countries that if you want to move to NYC, you really want to LIVE in Brooklyn and just commute.
So my point is that we really should owe some gratitude to both the long-timers and the transplants (at least the modest ones) who put in the sweat equity (and continue to do so!) that has transformed these neighborhoods.
But now that I got this out of the way, see my next post in where I do have a legitimate rant.
i love brooklyn old timers. they have awesome stories from the “good ol days” – typically involving being victims of random acts of violence and finding dead bodies near the waterfront.
I’ve lived in Brooklyn considerably longer than the first letter writer has been alive but, having grown up in Queens, I guess I don’t make her cut. Do I mind? Nah! Screw her! [Is that enough of a Brooklyn attitude? 🙂 ]
“I thought you said you moved to Bay Ridge primarily because it’s cheaper”
amongst other things….
I hate these just-posted-today posters trying to get blog cred on here when us oldtimers have been posting for 3 years or more.
Seven Deadly sins by Gender:
WOMEN:
1. Pride
2. Anger
3. Jealousy
MEN:
1. Lust
2. Sloth
3. Gluttony