wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

ONCE MORE AROUND THE SLOPE

We didn’t get our fantasy gift

Nor anything that hot--

My car and I were hoping for

A permanent parking spot.

"You can the girl out of Brooklyn, but you...etc."
Even after living in Ithaca, New York for 14 years, it is the first 40+ growing up Brooklyn, and, (yes, I rented in Manhattan briefly), but quickly returned to Carrol Gardens, that makes me think I am still a Brooklynite. And, once a year in June, many mis/displaced Brooklynites now living in Ithaca, gather in one of our "Ithaca is Gorges" parks and share stories of Coney Island, the zoo, various high school rivalries, Avenue J, Juniors, Ebbets Field, the Promenade and long-lost romantic times in Prospect Park. They still think they are Brooklynites. I am glad I can stream WNYC and join in the debate.

As a Long Islander, also what a Brooklyner is: It's a great and varied place but plagued with a century[s] of poor planning and development[mass transit and highways].
p.s.
How come in Queens mail is addressed by your village, i.e. Corona, but in Kings County villages are addressed as Brooklyn, NY? Can anyone answer that?

Real Brooklynites were born in Brooklyn (like me) and raised on Staten Island! I lived in Park Slope for a dozen years and was surrounded by people who relocated to Brooklyn from the Midwest (after graduating from art school) or the West Coast (after arriving in Brooklyn from the Upper West Side), and they were absolutely not Brooklynites. It was hard to hear a real Brooklyn accent in my neighborhood--I heard MidWest accents, Aussie accents and Brit accents. A real Brooklynite should have been (A) either born in Brooklyn (like me) or (B) attended elementary, intermediate or high school in Brooklyn, or (C) attended Brooklyn College after having been born in Brooklyn and raised on Staten island (like me). Despite my residence in the Slope, I never felt like I was living in Brooklyn when I was there

This is totally a class issue. People born in Brooklyn, like Rosie Perez, want to claim their authenticity in their Brooklyn-ness. I am a fourth generation Brooklynite. I was born in Bed-stuy and have lived in Carroll Gardens since the age of 10. I love Brooklyn, and I understand the animosity of those who feel like they are being pushed out of Brooklyn by those who are taking over.....the gentrification of parts of Brooklyn truly is scary to some of use who have trouble affording to stay in the neighborhoods we were born into. As a driver, I, too, am against the tolls.

Hi Brian,

It's bad enough that our city has been co-oped by Disney, and denizens of the Midwest, so why don't you get off the Brooklyn fixation and talk about the others boroughs?
Signed, Tim, from the Bronx, and Born in Flatbush.

well you had to have been from hell's kitchen prior to living in brooklyn. Like me.

Ask a crazy question, get a crazy answer..

happy holiday's to all the REAL brian lehrer show listeners and comment posters...

I'm just glad to live in Queens after I hear this. I don't see anyone in Queens going on air to call others not "real" residents.
I'll just call myself not a Brooklynite, and be happy with a community that accepts me, no matter how long I've lived there.

Frankly, I don't give a damn. Who care? Brooklynites? Are they so insecure in being Brooklynites that this question even comes up? Let them go for therapy. Feh!!

Maybe some of it has to do with not having Manhattan-envy.
Many people who live in Brooklyn move here because they can't afford to live in "the city" or can't find a place with enough room.
I've been in Brooklyn for 12 years.
I think I "crossed over" to being a Brooklynite when I no longer cared to live in Manhattan, or to even go out in Manhattan.
I still love "the city" but as it's become more of a place catering to rich people and tourists, it has become more bland...like Mall of America. The "city" that I love is in my memory of what it was in the 80's when I moved here. It no longer has the character that comes from a variety of residents and merchants that it did when I moved here in the '80s. I lived in the West Village and my neighbors were a mix of struggling artists, writers, actors, waiters, students, entrepreneurs, trannies, immigrants, few of whom could afford to live there now....everyone is now a finance type, a trust fund person, or someone famous. it's boring.
Many of the neighborhoods in Brooklyn still have the wonderful energy that used to exist in Manhattan....the mix of people from different backgrounds, culturally and socio-economically........I identify much more with the energy here than in Manhattan and I hope that the commercial development can be limited or planned so that the character of the borough will not go the way of Manhattan.

This debate is really annoying- who can be an arbiter on this? I was raised in Pittsburgh, PA., and moved to NYC after college. So, after 14 years (or half my life), can I be a Brooklynite? Not yet, huh? Does it change anything to say that my great grandmother was born in Harlem, that I probably have hundreds of distant cousins scattered around Brooklyn, that, upon arrival, my 10 year old immigrant great grandfather walked over the Brooklyn bridge and into Bed Stuy to find his family who was already here? NYC is a city in constant flux and as far as I am concerned if you live here, love this city, and say you are a New Yorker, then you are one. I will not hold it against Rosie Perez that my relatives were here before hers.

p.s. please mention Danny Hoch's great new play about gentrification and who is an authentic New Yorker!