Actress and native Brooklynite Rosie Perez called into yesterday’s show and a debate started about when you can call yourself a real Brooklynite. Listeners weigh in on the question: Is it how long you’ve lived there? Do you have to have been born there? What makes a Brooklynite?
Comments [101]
Real Brooklynites know who we are. We were born and raised here. Saw our borough become infested with yahoos who could not afford Manhattan. You don't know your neighbors or where your neighborhood really begins and ends. (Especially Park Slope) Pretty soon the Slope will include most of Sunset Park and down to the docks and the wannabees will keep coming and paying whatever we feel like charging them so they can say they're from Brooklyn. So we laugh at them and take their money.
Oh, please, I don't mean to be too critical, but why do people from Brooklyn all have a chip on their shoulder and have to justify their common man experience of the world, putting down people who have lived a different experience? Do yourself a favor and visit places outside of the state of New York. You are so smug in your "we're not Manhattan" attitude. The rest of use don't really care. We just want to enjoy the range of experiences NYC offers. No need to be the Pit Bull of the party.
You are a Brooklynite if you just plain love it and you want everyone else to love it to. I am always talkin' up Brooklyn and my city friends just don't get it. They always say "Why would you want to live in Brooklyn" (with that snotty tone) and I just smile.
I probably would have left New York a long time ago if I had not found Brooklyn. The minute I came across the bridge I fell in love. So a true Brooklynite is not about birth but about a recognition of how amazing a place it is. It is the person who says with pride and conviction that they love it and that they don't want to leave. Whaaaa? You goin' argue with love? Fuhgeddaboutit!
-an Alabama girl turned Brooklynite
why should Jay Z be banished from the boro he always bigs up..like biggie he takes brooklyn everywhere he goes..even if he lives in the burbs somewhere..he cannot live in BK if he wanted to ..the wolfs would be at his door every day..as for the atlantic yards..its needs to be scaled down ...however we need jobs..tax revenue(if you know what that is), and greater brand equity..fck rooting for the knicks if we got the BK nets. yeah thats the citys team but we got our own..like the BK Dodgers..BROOKLYN WE GO HARD
If you have taken a dollar cab the whole length of Flatboosh!!
If you know that there are other hoods besides Williamsberg, Greenpoint, and Fort Greene (and actually been to them!), you're a real Brooklynite.
If could appreciate Coney Island's low-end charms (when it still existed), you're a real Brooklynite.
If you can walk into DiFara's and arent repulsed by the "grime", you're a real Brooklynite.
It's not about length of time, it's about attitude. Emo pansies from the cornfields who I know will be on the first flights out of town if the economy worsens, are not real brooklynites (or NYers).
A real brooklynite knows that Macdonald Avenue used to be called Gravesaned avenue, knows that the last trollies were on Coney Island Ave til 1955 and knows how to curse out other drivers in at least 4 languages( choose amongst-Spanish, Italian, Yiddish, Arabic, Russian, Jamaican English and Brooklynese.
It's not about how long you've lived there - it's about appreciating the different pockets for their history and character, and supporting efforts to improve upon those qualities, as opposed to erasing them and erecting starbuck's and chrome phalluses in their place. It's about respecting the ethnic and economic diversity. It's about living in or moving to Brooklyn because of these long-standing characteristics - you value and respect the history of Brooklyn's physical and architectural landscape and haven't moved their to watch it be systematically converted (ie destroyed) so it mirrors the Manhattan skyscraper landscape that you couldn't affordd.
And it definitely isn't about the new Nets stadium. Jay Z should be exiled from Brooklyn for his investment in this project.
"Spread love; it's the Brooklyn way."
This is hilarious! of all the other Boroughs look which one we are spending so much time talking about...BROOKLYN!!! Quite funny.
A nickname on the basket-ball court.....
"Dirk" from FT greene pk
You don't need a time machine "jh" my grandma has lived here 50+ of her 85 years and she is NOT a real Brooklynite either. The difference is I don't think she cares about all this nonsensical bru ha ha!
I've been in NYC 16 years (most of them in Brooklyn), originally from NC. I have a name for the kind of native New Yorker who called in whining about all the "fake" New Yorkers from "the sticks": urban hillbillies. So often, they are far more small-minded and parochial than people I meet who were drawn to this city for a reason. More often than not, I know my way around the city better than they do, because they have no curiosity about their native city, and are absolutely clueless as to why it's such a great place.
to: jh [84]
Right on.
Hating the Yankees
Let's face it people, there is a difference between LIVING in brooklyn and BEING a brooklynite...like there is a diff' between LIVING and BEING alive...it comes down to who is involved and contributes to the betterment of their neighborhood and society - volunteers and such... giving
Jesse #33,
People in southern and eastern Brooklyn do not have access to subways. That might have something to do with their driving through those areas.
I wish I had a time machine so I could tell some of the commenters' parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, "You're not a REAL Brooklynite!"
Brooklyn is NOT a state of mind Doctor! I beg to differ, It is a real live experience.
Kelly you are not an outsider, you are a transplant or how about New Brooklynite?
Happy to say I've been a Brooklynite for 18 years, and I've had a fried panelle sandwich AND calamari on an roll. And curry goat roti, which might be the real litmus test.
you have to spill blood to be from brooklyn. i will always be from brooklyn even though i moved to washington heights years ago. i will always be from coney island. was born in east new york. moved to coney when i was two. left there for college, moved back for a year and a half, visited my family every week for years up until this very month. my father passed away this year at coney island hospital. i still have one cousin in brighton beach. still have blood there.
This is how I measure weather one is a "real" anything, ie. American, Jew, etc...
Love of a place is one thing, but more powerful is shame. If something bad happens in Brooklyn, like racial violence, do you feel a little embarrassed or ashamed? It's easy to profess love for a place, but if you're not embarrassed by the negative then your love is not genuine.
Taking your landlord to housing court.
Going to Brooklyn College.
Being banished from the Park Slope Food Coop.
Right on Erica, K. Kilgallen and whateva to Dubya!
Additonally, I pay taxes, participate in my community association's Board of Directors and in our many activities. I also participate actively in 2 political clubs; attend cultural activities in Brooklyn like music, BAM, movies, concerts--Celebrate Brooklyn; go to jazz clubs; church and other activities.
BROOKLYN IS A STATE OF MIND; BROOKLYN IS WHERE IT'S AT. WE USED TO SAY YOU NEED A PASSPORT COME TO BROOKLYN!
Have you seen Danny Hoch's brilliant "Taking Over" at the Public Theatre? Very thought provoking piece. Real Brooklynites are those who have been there through the tough times and stick around to be part of their community and should not be now priced out of their neighborhoods.
Many will tell you that if you are a Yankee Fan, You cannot also claim to be a true Brooklynite. Mutually Exclusive!
I'm with the Israeli called - you're a Brooklynite if you love Brooklyn and move here as a result. I've never lived in another Borough and I don't want to.
But, gotta say, listening to some of these listeners is a real turn-off. It seems by some people's perspectives, you can only be a real Brooklynite if you are ignorant and parochial. If that's the real case, then erase my 10 years. I don't want to be a Brooklynite from that Brooklyn. I'll be a Brooklyn Advocate instead.
This is an absurd conversation. I'm a Brooklynite because my zip code is 11201. I pay the taxes that pay for the self righteous outer borough Brooklynites to send their children to public schools. I'm a Brooklynite because all the "Brooklyn heartland" types blow their horns in front of my building as they make their way to the Brooklyn Bridge.
This sounds a lot like the Real America-Other America conversation the Fox News wingnut types were having during the election. You're not a Brooklynite because you never leave Brooklyn. You're a Brooklynite because you've been other places and you choose to come back.
Everything south of Prospect Park is Staten Island. It's the same provincial attitude.
For me, having gone to elementary school in Brooklyn is the qualifier for "Brooklynite". OR you are a parent of an adult child who went to elementary school in Brooklyn.
I am 26 years old and feel like I am one of the few people in my neighborhood who actually grew up here. I was out at a bar in the neighborhood a few months ago and was talking casually with some people there who I had just met. I asked where they were from and one said "Brooklyn". I got excited because it's so rare these days and when I asked him what school he went to, he said, "oh, I'm not from Brooklyn like that". You have to have pride in your P.S...
I'm a little hurt by all the born and breed Brooklynites who dismiss all of us who have moved to Brooklyn in the last 10 years. I love Brooklyn, work hard to explore every neighborhood down to the Rockaways, volunteer locally, and make it a point to shop at the local stores not the box ones. I am part of my community, not an outsider of it.
This conversation sounds like the Palin comment about "Real Americans." When she made that remark, there was controversy. Why is this any different?
You can take the boy out of Brooklyn but, you can't take Brooklyn out of the boy!
I grew up in the old rough Park Slope of the 70's and moved to the East Village in my 20's. My wife and I tried to find something in Brooklyn but couldn't afford it! (Where we wanted to be anyway)
I always joke, "It took me twenty years to get out of Brooklyn, now they won't let me back in!"
If your not from nyc, your not a ny'er you just live there.
period.
Can't people give some love to Queens? Anybody? We are also on the East River. You'll find us on the map just north of Brooklyn...
You're a Brooklynite when you can trick a cabbie into taking you to Brooklyn before they can drive off, running over your toes in the process.
If being a "real Brooklynite" means being intolerant and provincial and xenophobic, I'm fine just living here without the honor.
I am raising Brooklynites. I am put off by the attitude (displayed by a caller) that anyone who moved here is "from the sticks" and lives in Brooklyn Heights etc., etc. I NEVER was able to afford those neighborhoods.
All this "real Brooklyn" talk reminds me of Sarah Palin's "real America" crap.
Brooklyn has many different parts just like Manhattan does. People are different at these part just like Upper East Siders are different from people from downtown Mahnattan
It is exhausting as someone who loves Queens to hear Brooklynites talk about Brooklyn. I like how in Queens people identify themselves with their neighborhoods be it Astoria, Forest Hills, or Flushing.
I did actually live in Brooklyn for one year and I do think its different for people who live in deeper Brooklyn than those who live in the downtown area. Cars become necessary if you live in Bensonhurst.
If you write BKLYN instead of Brooklyn on your return address on an envelope cause it saves time.
You're a real brooklynite if you don't feel the need to qualify yourself as a brooklynite. (And I'm from Bayonne which has more in common with the southern parts of Brooklyn than places like Park Slope or Williamsburg).
#11 - "hustpeh"? A Brooklynite would tell you it's Chutzpah.
What makes you a real Brooklynite?
If you can't imagine living anywhere else.
If you wouldn't move to Manhattan even if you could afford it, then you're a real Brooklynite.
A real Brooklynite:
If you have family that is still outraged over the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. There were many Brooklynites who feared the bridge would make the 4th largest city in the US a subsidiary of New York. As, indeed, happened when the 5 boroughs were incorporated into New York City some 15 years later.
ALternately, if your family remembers that Brooklyn was named for a Dutch region of similarly hilly country: Broken Land.
Wow a lot of hate out there for us that happen to live in a nicer part of Brooklyn.
PS When you know a lot of the baggers by name your a real....
New York City in general is a place where people move to get better oportunities and make their lives better. When my grandparents immigrated (to Brooklyn) that was their goal and I guarantee you that despite the fact that she wasn't born here, my grandmother absolutely considered herself a Brooklynite!
brian, why trivialize this issue? the point is that folks who live 2 subway stops from manhattan cannot and should not presume to speak for all bklyn residents. they are not representative and their mass transit experience is not typical. folks who can afford to live in brooklyn heights, etc are seriously privileged and they need to acknowledge that...
It's easy...A *real* Brooklynite knows how to play stickball!
By the looks of it, to be a 'true' Brooklyn-ite, you need to be... a Spartan.
suffering, sacrifice--masochism even--is what defines all the previous callers Bklyn identity.
tssk, tssk.
all you hedonists and sissies, move back to Manhattan!!
: D
What makes a real brooklynite?
My parents moved to brooklyn after college in the early 70's - they grew in the bronx and went to college in the city. We've lived in parkslope ever since. So how can you tell a real brooklynite? We say "the city" we talk about manhattan.
I haven't lived in Brooklyn for 30 years but I'm a Brooklynite cause I got jacked up enough times in my youth to earn being a Brooklynite for life!
the people who care enough to label themselves "real brooklynites" and get so angry about it...they must be real...
Real Brooklynites really like to say "OK."
[Which may derive from a military abbreviation meaning "zero killed." Fun fact.]
Since my parents moved around when I was a child, I never had the opportunity to be a "real" anything. I guess that's why when some natives get in a pissing match over any city/state/country/region, it amuses me. Carry on!
You had to be at a game at Ebbit's Field. Nuff' Said
Brian,
I was born in Brooklyn in the early 80’s and lived through my formative years. I was removed from BK to finish growing up outside NYC. Now, as a twenty-something ‘hip-ish’ person… I constantly notice an ‘extreme’ difference from the places in Brooklyn I once knew and the places I’ve come to love. If you’ve never seen the onion-like layers of Brooklyn as it changes of time and locations, YOU’RE NOT BROOKLYN!
Conversely, there are some Brooklyn-ites who are sooo deep in Brooklyn, they are so closed minded, that they don’t realize how similar Brooklyn ites are to regular people.
I'm a native of Brooklyn so don't have anything to prove but I think 2 things make a transplant a Brooklynite:
1.Being part of a diverse urban neighborhood community (try that in Manhattan)
2. I agree with the 1st caller, making it through the hard times...so soon we will all be Brooklynites again.
Elizabeth (currently from Bed Stuy)
My grandfather settled in Brooklyn in 1917. My father grew up in Flatbush and attended boy's high during the 1930's and '40's. As a babyboomer - brooklyn has always been a part of my life, visiting grandparents in the 60's and close college friends who live in Clinton Hill. Brooklyn is in my DNA even though I've never lived there.
I've been living in Brooklyn for a year now, and while I'd like to dismiss the idea that you need to be born and bred in the borough to call yourself a real Brooklynite, I kind of have to agree. I was born and raised on the Upper West Side, and I kind of look down on people who are not originally from the City trying to comment on life here. If you weren't born here, you have to live here at least 20 years to earn a right to call yourself a New Yorker. So, though I love my new borough and I now hate coming to Manhattan (though I gotta do it for work), I will cede the point - I am not a Brooklynite, just a born and bred New Yorker. Still, its only fair to toll all crossings. People in Queens, which the first commenter pointed out has much worse access to Mass Transit, get screwed with tolls and haaving to drive.
An guy that was a landmark on north 7th and bedford overheard me saying that I became a real "New Yorker" when I got my first mugging. He said that you aren't a real New Yorker until you get shot or stabbed.
Perhaps it is the act of telling other people that they are not Brooklynites that makes one a Brooklynite.
I have friends in the City who did not grow up in the NYC area. They are nice people and well intended, but they are very dismissive of New Yorkers and people from the outer boroughs or who live outside the 'in' neighborhoods. This is a very narrow minded view which does not understand that New York City is made up of 5 boroughs and that Manhattan cannot be what it is without the resources and human capital provided by the other boroughs.
It's not where, it's when. I was born in Carroll Gardens BEFORE gentrification. It's the new people who have the sense of entitlement.
True, Brian, that it's not just the "dese, dems and dose" borough anymore. But working class Brooklynites are still here, and afraid of being crowded out and overwhelmed, financially and culturally by the influx of hipsters and yuppies. Brooklyn is more than BillBurg, Greenpoint, and the South Brooklyn Yupppie Belt.
People in southern and Eastern Brooklyn are asking for the right to drive through Manhattan and northern/western Brooklyn for free. Its not free- the cost is born by the residence of the areas they drive through. They have alot of nerve.
Rosie Perez's definition of Brooklynite is simplistic at best.
I've lived in Brooklyn sinced 2003, and I am a Brooklynite because I own a home, pay property taxes, volunteer at my local soup-kitchen, pay attention to local politics, know who is on my Community Board, pick up all the dog poop I find in my local park
(because my dog is also a Brooklynite and wants to be a good citizen)
and enjoy the company of my neighbors.
A community is made of individual actions, not the pronouncements of how long individual actors have been here. And there is definitely room for anyone who wants to lend a hand, smile at a neighbor, donate some food or sweep a sidewalk.
Sounds like you have to be angry to be a Brooklynite.
A real Brooklynite is someone who knows all the different neighborhoods in Brooklyn from Crown Heights to Ditmas Park/West Midwood;Sunset Park; Borough Park; Prospect Park, Canarsie, New Lots, Bushwick, Brownsville, Flatbush, Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Ft. Green.
I was born and raised in Brooklyn. You don't have to be born here but you need to know the area.
I think that if they put tolls on the bridges I will never go to Manhattan.
Also, I resent being called an "outer borough". We were an independent city before we incorporated.
I did not "settle for Brooklyn" (like so many Manhattanite real estate exiles) when I couldn't find Manhattanite parents.
i live in williams for 7 years (& manhat 4 before that) but i'm a newyorker
One indicia, if you say, in answer to a request for your phone number, "Hy -9 xxxx or St 8, yyyy."
You have to be able to remember the time when we did not lock doors...if you are saying "whaaa" and you don't know that to be true, then you are certainly NOT a real Brooklynite, you are a transplant! LOL
You are a Brooklynite if you were born in Brooklyn - I mean if a cat has kittens in the oven do you call them muffins?
Who cares? Blah, blah, blah. Big heads and Marty Markowitz, blech!
Rosie Perez really ticked me off yesterday. What makes you a Brooklynite? If you live in Brooklyn, whether for 50 years or a day. She thinks that just because she has lived here her whole life, her opinions is more valid than someone who has "only" lived in Brooklyn for 10 years? There was also the sense that not only are lifelong Brooklyners "real" Brooklyners, but that "real" Brooklyn is East Flatbush.
It's easy....Brooklynites know how to play stickball!
I am from Queen but now reside in Brooklyn. I think a real Brooklynite is someone who appreciates and respects the borough, especially concearning its history. A real Brooklynite respects their neighbors of all kinds. A real Brooklynite knows Brooklyn is the best.
I was born in 1978 and lived in BKLYN my whole life -except college (in flatbush).
Im still bitter about the Dodgers - that makes me a real Brooklynite.
Much to my father's chagrin - Go Yankees!!!
Rose is right.
I have lived in Brooklyn for eight years, but I am definitely not as Brooklyn as someone who grew up here and went to the schools. You have a different perspective when you grow up in a place and have deep roots and family members there.
PS Rosie is also right about the tolls.
I think I'm a real Brooklynite because I own a house here and my son goes to public school. I've lived here since 1991 and lived all over and have friends who live outside of the popular newbie areas and who grew up.
BUT, I have to say, if people ask me where I'm from, I usually say I'm from Connecticut.
I grew up in the south but have lived in Brooklyn for nearly 30 years. People always comment that I don't have a southern accent.
I tell them that I got rid of it because people used to think I was a moron and a racist because I had a southern accent and NOW they think I'm a moron and a racist because I have a Brooklyn accent!!
If you're a hipster living in Williamsburg with your other hipster friends you're not a Brooklynite.
A REAL Brooklynite is someone who knows the nooks and crannies, they know the crazy drunk guy who hangs out at the park, and the little old lady who has three cats at the corner house.
A REAL Brooklynite is someone who knows the community and its inhabitants.
Two brooklyns.
1. Yuppie Brooklyn
2. Everything else
The important thing is for those to understand and embrace their respective affiliations.
Yuppies walking around in 718 sweatshirts live in yuppie brooklyn. Accept this as fact.
I live in yuppie brooklyn and know this. I make no claim to have brooklyn roots.
or
if you refer to Manhattan as "the city"
You've been to the Labor Day parade on Eastern Parkway.
You've been to the Kings Plaza Mall.
You remember what Williamsburg used to look like.
I was born here; I live here.
I lived in Brooklyn for only three months, but I lived on the G line. That instantly made me a real Brooklynite. I REGULARLY waited 45-90 minutes for a train. A friend visited from Oklahoma and commented, "I thought I was isolated in OK, but it really sucks living on the G line."
the "hustpeh" to look people in the eyes and give a head nod and/or a smile.......
i consider myself a real brooklynite because even if i won the lottery i wouldn't move to manhattan. i love brooklyn!
A real Brooklynite has lived with 8 other people, in the same apt.
The ability to turn people off quickly by talking about Brooklyn.
A REAL Brooklynite is only one born and raised in Brooklyn..point blank, period.
We heard Rosie yesterday on our morning commute from Westchester to Manhattan. My husband grew up in Manhattan, in Stuvesant Town. I grew up in Brooklyn, in Carroll Gardens, before gentrification, when Carroll Gardens was an almost entirely Italian neighborhood. My mother was born in Cobble Hill in 1914.
I left Brooklyn at 20 for the bright lights of Manhattan. Three years ago,after thirty plus years in Manhattan, I moved to Westchester. Am I a Manhattanite? Sure; I ate sushi when everyone in Brooklyn was yelling "RAW FISH??!!" But my heart remains on First Place, between Carroll and Court Streets.
I agree with Rosie; new Brooklyn people are not REAL Brooklyn people; they are Park Slope people. If you have never had a fried ponnell sandwich, you are not a real Brookynite.
RC #1,
Actually, Brooklyn is bigger if you measure by population. Queens has more area but fewer people. It is still cool, though.
I have been living in Brooklyn for 25 years and I am raising my kids here. I love it. Does it make me a Brooklynite? I don't know. I feel somewhat like an outsider because whenever I point out that Brooklyn is part of the land mass we call Long Island people look at me like I have two heads.
What makes for trivial, dumbed down radio? Silly, irrelevant segments like this.
The problem with the woman talking to Rosie yesterday was that she had a real air of entitlement that I notice is common with people who live in Downtown and some of the more affluent neighborhoods in Brooklyn, which are also closer to the city and more subways. I live in Midwood and I think it's very hard for Manhattanites and people who live closer to the city and subways in Brooklyn to understand the plight of the people who live much further out in more remote areas of Brooklyn. Additionally, I wish all of this had been solved under Bloomberg's congestion plan instead of directly tolling the east river bridges. These tolls will never be repealed and just increases the cost of living for people living here!
I've lived in Brooklyn for 8 years; what I think makes me a "Brooklynite," even though I haven't lived here that long, is that I chose to move to Brooklyn in 2000 instead of Manhattan. There is definitely a difference in self-described Brooklynites - as a whole, both new and old Brooklynites seem to be less obsessed with money and status than people who live in Manhattan. Having a doorman and gym in the building in which you live is not a priority to Brooklynites; having a large, working kitchen is. Quality of life seems to rank as one of the primary reasons people choose to move to Brooklyn - for a slower pace, more space, more trees, and a more small scale, neighborhood feel that Manhattan lacks these days. This is why it's distressing to see high rise, Manhattan-style buildings and luxury condos going up in downtown Brooklyn - this isn't what people come to Brooklyn for.
What's so special about being a Brooklynite? I think being a Queenser is just as cool. And, if Rosie Perez thinks Brooklyn is a large borough, Queens is bigger. And, we have toll bridges here too and do not have as extensive subway system as Brooklyn.
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