by Gina Cariño
Home >> Postcard from Brooklyn
New York City is not just Manhattan. The Big Apple has five boroughs. Brooklyn was always the borough that was far cooler than Queens, closer than Staten Island, safer than the Bronx, and like them all, second-class to THE city, the isle of Manhattan.
But Brooklyn’s important. If it hadn’t been annexed to New York City in 1898, it would now be the fifth largest city in the United States, population-wise. There’s also the statistic that says that one out of ten (or is it six?) Americans can trace their roots back to it. Revolutionary War skirmishes were fought in Brooklyn Heights. Incidentally, Brooklyn may not be Manhattan, but the Brooklyn Heights promenade offers, hands down, the best available view of downtown Manhatttan.
During the time that my family frequented Briones, in the early 70s, Brooklyn was getting trendy, or getting trendy again. With Manhattan getting so expensive, young people were reclaiming the lovely townhouses, mostly brownstones, that prosperous Italian and Jewish families had built at the turn of the century. Brooklyn Heights was first to “re-gentrify.� Since gentrification smacks of Jane Austen, I prefer to say “yuppify.�
But yuppies were not alone in raising or re-raising the status of Brooklyn. Artists found cheap lofts in Williamsburg and writers flocked to Park Slope. Park Slope is home to many many contemporary writers including Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Paul Auster, to mention only those I’ve read. Any Paul Auster fan has in their imagination walked their dog in Prospect Park. Any Paul Auster fan knows that Brooklyn is hip, and that it’s hick not to know it.
As a matter of fact, writers always abounded in Brooklyn. Norman Mailer was brought up in Brooklyn. So was Henry Miller. Joseph Heller was born and raised in Brooklyn.
Or Brooklyn inspired writers. Walt Whitman wrote of the Brooklyn waterfront in his classic poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.� William Styron’s novel Sophie’s Choice is set in Flatbush, just off Prospect Park. Arthur Miller’s play A View from the Bridge is also set in Brooklyn. The bridge is, of course, the Brooklyn Bridge, the oldest and most gorgeous of New York bridges.
Not to mention movies like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and She’s Gotta Have It.
Finally, Prospect Park may not be Central Park but it was designed by the same Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux who did the latter. And the Brooklyn Museum (located off Prospect Park) may not be the Metropolitan Museum of Art (located off Central Park) but it dared to show shocking contemporary works from London’s Saatchi Gallery, defying Mayor Giuliani. Brooklyn’s naughty, Brooklyn’s cool.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2007-04-19 10:00:00 +0200
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My first and only time in New York was last year. I was one week in May with my husband, my sister and my brother-in-law. I enjoyed very much there and it looked like to me a very nice city.
My brother-in-law has a friend who works there and has a sailboat. One day we did an excursion in the sailboat for the river Hudson from New Yersey to the bridge of Brooklyn. We enjoy a lot.
I liked New York so much that I want to return.
Great article Gina.
I have never had the opportunity to visit New York but having seen it as the backdrop for many films and TV series I think I have a feel for the place.
I am also a big fan of Paul Auster who recently received the “Prince of Asturias Award”. A wonderful writer/director who is a child of Brooklyn.
If you want to find out more about the place, I would recommend two of his films “Smoke” and “Blue in the face” along with one of his more recent books “Brooklyn Follies”.
For more info, check out Paul Auster
Eamonn
Hi everybody!
Really, I get into a muddle about the way of cities in the USA, I only see Brooklyn in films but, Gina, thanks for your description. Well, the Brooklyn Brigde maybe is the more known for me.
Gina,
Do you ever stay home?
I have been to NY twice, and I always stayed whith Manhattan, there is so much to see. So next time we shall also visit Brooklyn.
One of the things that surprised me the most was that there was almost a policeman in every corner.
Regards,
Cristina
Good post Gina!
I visited New York eight years ago, and It’s was fascinating: so much life in this city….But I just could explore Manhatan and the Brookling Bridge…
Next time Brooking will be my objective too…
One comment to finish, I didn’t know Brookling was a name for a person, is it very extended? I only thought It was an eccentricity of Beckam’s. (I thing one of their children is called Brooking).
regards,
Begoña.
Paul Auster’s novel The Brooklyn Follies starts like this: “I was looking for a place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn.”
The closest I have ever been to Brooklyn is halfway across the bridge. It’s the only borough I’ve never been to; next time.
Brooklyn brings to mind a lot of things, sure, but to me it is, more than anything, the home one of my favorite American accents. In Brooklyn you can have a “cuaffee” in the morning and a “Muatini” at Happy Hour.
My favorite thing to hear, though, in that Aunt Billie voice, is “whatevuh.”
I remember taking the subway to Brooklyn on a crisp winter morning, crossing the bridge on foot and warming myself up with a nice wan ton soup in Chinatown, Manhattan.
Hi Gina,
after hearing you speaking about Brooklyn, you feel like going there. But I think my flying phobia is too big and NY is so far…
I have also realized that I am almost an illiterate in American culture. Maybe I should play less the guitar and read a bit more.
By the way, it is a very short song, but your voice sounds very well and perfectly tuned. Maybe we can make a duo the next time you come to Madrid.
JC
Only if you can dance like John Travolta, JC! Can you?
I loved it in Brooklyn. I hate getting up early but I was happy to DO IT in Prospect Heights. We would walk Luna, the Great Dane we were staying with. In Prospect Park, dogs are allowed to run around without a leash until 9. That’s why we went early. I wanted to watch Luna have great fun with her gang, and especially with her best friend, a fat white bulldog named Oats. At about 9:15, I would put on Luna’s leash again. I would walk her, but I didn’t want to clean up her mess. Dad did that. I miss Luna. I want a dog.
Hi all!
I´ve never been in EE.UU. but I’ve got two place in my mind, if I go at some time: New York and California.
I’ve always seen EE.UU. like two countries: one of this, formed by east and West coast, with open mind people, in contact with culture and knowledge about whole world, an another the rest of the country, more closer mind and isolated.
New York is a place of meeting, with an atmosphere that favoured the exchange of ideas, with people around the world.
About Brooklin, it is a pity most of people know it for racial confrontation, violence or Mafia, becouse like Gina said, Brooklin i’s very charming and got a lot of things to offer us.
Regards!
Oscar,
You should have a bulldog. They are low maintenance. You should call him Brooklyn. I will help you convince your mother.
The Bulldog for Oscar campaign starts NOW!
My brother lived in Fort Greene, Brooklyn for a couple of years. He lived in a nicely renovated second-floor apartment of a brownstone, on the best street in a predominantly middle-class, black neighborhood. He says that it was in Fort Greene that he first really experienced NEIGHBORHOOD in New York City, because there, he sensed (because it surrounded him) the strength and safety of the black community. Quote: ”...a deep, stoic, shared awareness of one another and heritage… The strongest, most positive, kinships I saw in America were the ones I watched around me… at Fort Greene.”
Uffff….(this isn’t an English “word” is it!??) ...Brooklyn. Together with “The Bronx”, “Detroit” and “Cincinnati”, Brooklyn has to be for me one of the most evocative names in the (American) English language…or at least, on the map!
I didn’t know that there were so many favourite writers from the borough…but the two Spike Lee films you mention in your article Gina were brilliant I thought. The image of kids playing in (here we go with the transatlantic translations!...) the water fountains in the long hot New York summers…the locals sitting out on the (??) “stoop” or doorstep…”torking” or drinkin’ soda…as Eamonn said there are some images that have appeared so many times in so many films that perhaps the experience of actually visiting those places can never do justice to.
As for the Brooklyn Bridge…wooof…
Hi, Gina,
I went to New York two years ago, and it is one of the cities that have most liked to me. New York is big, very big in all the senses. Everywhere you go, you can find something that you know, because you have seen it in some film or you have read about it in some book.
I stayed in Manhattan, but I visited the other boroughs, Staten Island and his famous ferry, Bronx and his graffitties and his danger, Queens and his mansions and the elevated subway, and of course Brooklyn, with the most famous bridge of New York.
I passed walking the bridge from Chinatown to Brooklyn, in a sunny and frozen day of january, and I could take several pictures of Manhattan. But the best pictures were those that we took by nigth, with ligths, of the sky-line most famous in the world.
In Brooklyn I could appreciated this cool and yuppie ambience that you are discribing in your postcard, but I could also know something that surprised very much to me. It was the contrast with the Jewish ortodox people, the clothes that they wore, and the way that they live. It was like to trip to the past in the most modern city in the world. And this is the thing that I like from New York, the extreme contrast. There nobody is strange.
Maybe, with this contrast, and with this richness, it is possible to find there writers, film makers, books, theater’s plays, and all things relationed with the culture.
Other thing that I will never forgot it was the snow storm that retard our trip’s retour for one day (27 hours waiting at the airport). But it is other thing that I can tell about my trips…
Conchi Calvo
Hi!
I envy you.
I’ve never been in USA and I have been only in a few countries in Europe, but all of you have visited a lot of cities and beautiful places.
Thank you for the letter. It’s a way to feel the atmosphere of these far countries that I’ll never see.
Hello Gina,
Thank you very much for your nice description. I have never been in Brooklyn. I stayed in New Yourk once, but it was only to take a plane to Orlando (what a beautiful place!, above all because I love Attraction Park of Walt Disney).
I only knew Brooklyn in the movies or in the books, but when I was to New York, I’ll try to visit it.
Best regards, Conchi Fdez.
Hi!
I was in NY city for a week in november 2005, the Shopping Week.
I will not forget the half an hour walk through Brooklyn Bridge. It was a cold and sunny winter morning. When we arrive to the other side, the view of Manhattan was amazing. We couldn’t resist the temptation to eat a “super Muffin”, with hot chocolate on the top of it, in a cool coffee shop around there. Great day !
Hi Gina! This article brought back memories of my life in Brooklyn. I first lived with my aunt Rory in her Bay Ridge apartment (1984). Then on to Brooklyn Heights (yuppie town) with Italian brother and sister (the Sconamiglios). Then back to Bay Ridge (towards the Verrazano Bridge) with AIG co-worker and family friend Ray Schnabel. I would get off the “R” train and walk endlessly through the neighborhood soaking up the culture and watching people, in and out of Italian markets, the new Chinatown, and delicatessen shops. Each neighborhood had its own brand of smell. Those were the days!—Chuchie
Dear Gina,
And what about dem bums, the Dodgers? At one point in Brooklyn’s not too distant past the baseball team was the most central and unifying “event” in the whole area.
I now have a daughter living and teaching there, as well as a niece and her family. The niece was born in Manila. On my own birthday.
Best,
Peter