28 August, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I went back to my old neighborhood in Brooklyn today. I haven’t visited Brooklyn since I moved away six years ago. It’s hard to believe that Park Slope has become so trendy, with movie stars such as Heath Ledger living there. When I lived there, people in Manhattan still turned their noses up at the thought of Brooklyn. It was becoming more gentrified when I lived there and there was definitely a sense of class warfare between the working class people who’d lived there for generations and the urban professionals who were pushing them out. One day someone painted “Fuck You Yuppies” on the side of our local coffee house and the owners left it up for at least a year.
When I lived in Brooklyn I was working full-time as a magazine writer. It was the life I thought I wanted — living in New York, working in the media. But I wasn’t very happy and decided on a drastic change — to move to New England and get my MFA in creative writing. It was the right decision. It set me on a different path, the path I’m on now. Walking around Brooklyn today I didn’t feel a sense of nostalgia. I was just happy that I’ve moved on.
Brownstones on Carroll Street, where I used to live:
Seventh Avenue in Park Slope (on this very dreary day):
Taking the subway to Brooklyn:
[tags]Brooklyn, Park Slope[/tags]
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funny – somehow i missed this post when i was travelling, but i lived in ‘da slope for 6 years, corner of prospect park west and 15th street. it was just beginning to get a bit more upscale when i left in 98 (steve buscemi was the only resident star!) but it sounds waaayyy more posh now. too posh for me to ever live there again, though i still miss it a lot…
