Random
What Do You Mean When You Say “Brooklyn”?
When I visit Brooklyn, there is Brooklyn, and then there is the idea of Brooklyn I have before I visit Brooklyn, and then there is the idea of Brooklyn the people I’m visiting in Brooklyn have of Brooklyn, and then there is the idea of Brooklyn the people I tell I’m visiting Brooklyn have of Brooklyn, and there are the Brooklyn streets and the Brooklyn people and the Brooklyn buildings, and Manhattan is across the river, and there is the idea of Brooklyn as part of New York City, and there is the idea that Brooklyn isn’t a part of New York City, because New York City is Manhattan, and when I read Edward Falco I visit a Williamsburg where it is not safe to walk the streets, and when I visit Williamsburg it is very safe to walk the streets, even alone at night, and when I walk through a neighborhood full of Hasidic Jews walking on a Saturday, the people I’m with tell me how it is to live in a neighborhood of Hasidic Jews walking on a Saturday, but I don’t know anything about what it’s like to be a Hasidic Jew walking on a Saturday, and when I’m with people who like to talk about literature, Brooklyn is a place where everyone talks about literature, but when I’m not with people who like to talk about literature, no one in Brooklyn is talking about literature, and when I read about Brooklyn in newspapers I hear stories about Brooklyn trends, such as it’s cool to have a potbelly, but when I’ve been in Brooklyn, I’ve never met anyone who believes it’s cool to have a potbelly, and what I’m wondering is: What is Brooklyn?, and: What does a person mean when a person is saying Brooklyn to me?, and: If I only visit Brooklyn but never live in Brooklyn, do I know very much about what Brooklyn is?, and: If I lived in Brooklyn but never visited other places, how would I have any idea of what Brooklyn might be without having other places against which to compare Brooklyn?, and: If I grew up in Brooklyn, would Brooklyn be Brooklyn now or the Brooklyn I knew then or both or neither, and: If I didn’t grow up in Brooklyn but I lived in Brooklyn, would Brooklyn be Brooklyn now or the Brooklyn I imagine from then or both or neither, and: If I’ve never lived in Brooklyn, but I frequently visit Brooklyn, is Brooklyn the Brooklyn I visit or the Brooklyn I imagine Brooklyn to be when I’m not there or the Brooklyn I imagine Brooklyn used to be or the thing I think Brooklyn can do for me or the thing I think Brooklyn is doing for other people or none of these things or all of these things?, and: Why is it always I’m wanting to think about my idea of Brooklyn and never I’m thinking about my idea of the place I really live, which seems too out-of-the-way and inconsequential to mean anything to anyone, or even to mention to anyone I meet in Brooklyn, and what does that say about my idea of Brooklyn?
When I say “Brooklyn” I mean Fort Greene, Cobble Hill, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and surrounding hoods. When I say “the sticks” I mean Greenpoint. When I say “Mad Max wasteland” I mean Bushwick. When I say “hell on earth” I mean Williamsburg.
What about Flatbush or Brownsville or Gravesend?
Should I have instead asked, “How do you refer to the Brooklyn neighborhoods that aren’t filled with well-off Whites?”
Sounds like you should move back to Manhattan!
Flatbush is still part of proper Brooklyn, but we are getting close to the edge. I don’t think I’ve ever had cause to say Brownsville or Gravesend before.
Sounds like you are self-conscious about living in a neighborhood that, if a just God existed, would split it off, burn it to the ground, sink it into the sea, and wipe it from the memory of humanity except as a cautionary wives tale in the mythology of future generations.
the flatlands?
the flatlands?
Queens?
I, for one, can say without reservation that I would be more interested in the place you really live and I don’t even know where that is. I am also sure I am not alone in this.
Since this is a post about Brooklyn it is a requirement that white people crawl out of the woodwork to complain about white people in Brooklyn and how white people have “shoved out” all the Puerto Ricans in Brooklyn. (Puerto Ricans are the de facto group of people that have been wronged the most according to this internet outrage). So please, bring it babies.
I fucking love Brooklyn, myself. I’ve lived here for a decade and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the U.S. I have advised my associates that when I die I want my ashes spread across this lovely borough of ours.
To quote the Village Voice’s Robert Sietsema who paraphrased Samuel Johnson: “Brooklyn doesn’t need your approbation. He who tires of Brooklyn tires of life.”
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It’s tough to say what we think when we think about Brooklyn. I wish people who lived in Brooklyn would be more comfortable talking about the really interesting fact that they live in Brooklyn. But they are generally very modest about it.
Brooklyn is cool.
I used to teach ESL to Russian students who told me, “I live in the Brooklyn.”
Or “I live in Bronx.”
I used to teach ESL to Russian students who told me, “I live in the Brooklyn.”
Or “I live in Bronx.”
I seriously laughed out loud when I saw that this was written from someone from Los Angeles.
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what’s so bad about w’burg?
Obviously you haven’t read the First Encyclopaedia of Tlön
Yeah, I love Oakland. All the queens.
This right here is why living in Brooklyn makes people ashamed to live in Brooklyn.
only the dead know brooklyn.
Brooklyn is diverse: it’s a fact! The question “What is Brooklyn?” is really the question “What part of Brooklyn?” which is really the question “What specific part of what Brooklyn neighborhood?”
It’s not so different from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in this respect. Or, say, Bowling Green, Kenttucky: the there there is a function the social identity of who’s doing the talking.
Brooklyn is diverse: it’s a fact! The question “What is Brooklyn?” is really the question “What part of Brooklyn?” which is really the question “What specific part of what Brooklyn neighborhood?”
It’s not so different from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in this respect. Or, say, Bowling Green, Kenttucky: the there there is a function the social identity of who’s doing the talking.
Brooklyn is diverse: it’s a fact! The question “What is Brooklyn?” is really the question “What part of Brooklyn?” which is really the question “What specific part of what Brooklyn neighborhood?”
It’s not so different from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in this respect. Or, say, Bowling Green, Kenttucky: the there there is a function the social identity of who’s doing the talking.
My Memphis library card got revoked, so I never got around to it…but I’d be more interested in the First Encyclopedia of Actual Memphis, anyway. (And I don’t care much for Memphis.)
My Memphis library card got revoked, so I never got around to it…but I’d be more interested in the First Encyclopedia of Actual Memphis, anyway. (And I don’t care much for Memphis.)
R.A.M.B.O is the only hood left where no one lives. Abandoned Brooklyn is Brooklyn.
Great post Kyle. Brooklyn always seems to be the word and not the place, mostly because it is a word heard more than experienced as a place (yet this is most likely the case with every place). Like any person or place whose name dominantly precedes their presence everything must be experienced before the utterance of the place but nothing really is, thus the place recedes into its own humble cove or breaks out in an attempt to clarify its traits. I’m thinking of the infamous Wayne’s World quote “Hi, I’m in Delware” and how that line estranged and dulled Delaware simultaneously, whereas Brooklyn is heard so much, as a word, not even as a destination, that it cannot enclose its own options within its name. Unlike some cities where at least a few images can be summoned and one can attach themselves to how they experienced that city, Brooklyn is too sprawling and somewhat content with its indefinably disparate veins to allow cogency. It’s not an easy place to experience, it’s like an olive oil tasting.
But Kyle: this post couldn’t have waited until Thursday? (Joking.) Brooklyn is a too-sprawling place, yes, that has come to mean something culturally in recent years and I’m not sure what that is. Which speaks to this post. Oft-quoted stat: if Brooklyn were its own city, only NYC, LA and Chicago would have bigger populations. Brooklyn is also one of the most populous counties in the US, and the most populous borough of NYC. That it is indefinable under the rubric “Brooklyn” is no surprise, as it has been this way for a very long time, although I think the same might be said of other boroughs as well. Particularly Queens, which is very diverse.
[Replying to myself]
This is an interesting, though imperfect, first-person, balanced, honest eyewitness take on the much-bandied and cringe-worthy “gentrification” discussion, in summary, by a native:
“…this is hardly an academic treatise on the changing demographics of New York. I barely have time to figure out where I fit in here anymore, much less analyze every last newcomer to see if they get my admittedly NY-chauvinistic FDA rating. Who am I to arbitrate what is real, legitimate, authentic, or simply “New York?” I’ve been proven wrong many times recently, and I pray that their part of the mosaic makes us all richer somehow.”
[Replying to myself]
This is an interesting, though imperfect, first-person, balanced, honest eyewitness take on the much-bandied and cringe-worthy “gentrification” discussion, in summary, by a native:
“…this is hardly an academic treatise on the changing demographics of New York. I barely have time to figure out where I fit in here anymore, much less analyze every last newcomer to see if they get my admittedly NY-chauvinistic FDA rating. Who am I to arbitrate what is real, legitimate, authentic, or simply “New York?” I’ve been proven wrong many times recently, and I pray that their part of the mosaic makes us all richer somehow.”
What was the use of my having come from Oakland [delete: Oakland, insert: Brooklyn] it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.
I have no business writing/quoting that. I’ve not come from Brooklyn. In fact, I went to Brooklyn for the first time only a year ago. But my idea of Brooklyn is very much so tangled and romanticized: sleeping on a friend’s couch, long and pleasurable conversations with people way smarter than me, hour-long subway rides into the city, hotdamn, that place is a dream.
I agree that Williamsburg makes me kind of ashamed to live in Brooklyn, but luckily you can avoid it pretty easily.
c2k, I think that you make a fine point with “has come to mean something …” as this seems to be behind all that is unspeakable or definable within/from/about Brooklyn. It does mean something, too many things, but what? and will this what ever surface or does it even matter if it does? Probably not, but it is the what behind the oh-so-many why’s and thus the what behind perhaps the original post and perhaps every post in response to the post.
I think you should’ve misspelled Brooklyn precisely 1 time in this block of prose. Maybe you did. I think I was looking. Then again, I think I started looking around the middle of this block, so it’s possible I missed your 1 misspelling of Brooklyn if it happened somewhere near the beginning. But I enjoyed reading this. It made it want to sing and drop my singing into a beat, like the sunscreen song, except it would be about Brooklyn.
I think you should’ve misspelled Brooklyn precisely 1 time in this block of prose. Maybe you did. I think I was looking. Then again, I think I started looking around the middle of this block, so it’s possible I missed your 1 misspelling of Brooklyn if it happened somewhere near the beginning. But I enjoyed reading this. It made it want to sing and drop my singing into a beat, like the sunscreen song, except it would be about Brooklyn.
then, man, you just ain’t livin’!
my cousin named her newborn baby brooklyn. she lives in seattle.
There’s this deli down by the Ft. Hamilton subway that sells these Italian cookies that I used to eat as meals because I was young and such meals were still allowed. I don’t know what bakery those cookies were from. I’ve failed to find any cookies that good again.
That’s the Brooklyn I think about.
There’s this deli down by the Ft. Hamilton subway that sells these Italian cookies that I used to eat as meals because I was young and such meals were still allowed. I don’t know what bakery those cookies were from. I’ve failed to find any cookies that good again.
That’s the Brooklyn I think about.
walking in brooklyn in the middle of the night as a tourist, thinking about gentrification and the salaries inside all those apartments and the bianchis chained up outside and feeling ten times as safe as walking in the equivalent in my poverty-stricken city in the midwest made me feel so tough
Brooklyn feels simpler when you’re born here, but it doesn’t really make any more sense.
I once wrote a character who picked a fight in a bar when he heard another person make a remark about Zimbabwe, and he pretended to be offended because he wanted the fight, so he said “What did you say?” “What”?” “What did you say about Brooklyn?” “Nothing, I was talking about Zimbabwe.” “That’s what I said. Brooklyn. You talk about Zimbabwe, you talk about Brooklyn. You talk about Mongolia, you talk about Brooklyn. You talk about anywhere, and you talk about Brooklyn. And if you insult Brooklyn, you insult me.” which is one way to look at the place.
“What can he know of England, who only England knows?” Rudyard Kipling
love Brooklyn. visited it a few times before, and I’m about to move there over the summer. I’m gonna be down in Bensonhurst.
is there any problem with the response?