This is from a Third Street friend who left Park Slope for Buffalo. Thanks for writing Buffalo Girl. Great to hear from you. And you are, of course, absolutely right. I did leave out a whole bunch of reasons why people leave.

Addressing your “Deserters” article. We too left several years back & I think too many NY’ers think NY is the only city in the world! The cost of living and trying to maintain self preservation was simply too high, trying to keep up was simply too impractical. Let’s not forget Park Slope is primarily upper middle class with some leftover strugglers and young whimsical newcomers. If one were to either have struck it well in the 90’s, were well on their way to high positions in life, or perhaps had maintainted the 3rd very common reality of having families with $ to back them, well they seemed to at least maintain a casual smile. Any one of those options afforded our friends the luxuries of being able to simply rent a car to leave the slope on a sizzling weekend in July-or if bored with that- they crossed the ocean to Madrid or Switzerland for a happy family vacation or perhaps Summer camp for the wee ones. That not being the case for all, but rather an i llusionary promise of rejuvenation, perhaps that is at the core of this so called “desertion”.

I ‘m convinced you wrote the article with intentions of love-so I guess I can’t be too hard on you…but I also have many friends I left behind and most had a small trust fund or a rather large bank account. Come on SMART- MOM- get real!! I’m not particularly bitter, but I left knowing myself & my children would never be completely happy about the move, leaving behind all the fabulousness NY offers, but some of us simply had no back-up or personal independent future there, at least not at that time. Though we loved everything,…. except the 60 mice we killed in our apartment, the fact that our landlord was a shit , the fact that we were forced to stick ice packs on the thermostat to warm ourselves above 66 degrees in the cold of winter, and even more important, the fact that we couldn’t create anything of substance because we were big object makers, painters etc. and had two kids in our work space, or rather we worked in our living space, or I don’t know it was all a jumble all the while working & traveling 16 hours a day, to put home-made food on the table with no real promise. All that in 800 sq ft!! Yep it was awesome!

I find it disturbing that your opinions seem to neglect so many other realities- No, not an attachment to the burbs or the yards…but rather, out of options. Your poking reminders of the reality that we left behind is frustrating and somewhat insensitive. Do your really think everyone that leaves, does not deeply miss the activities and relationships NY has to offer? – And offer though it may, it still adds up to one high income or slaving for environment.

Looking back , I have rich memories of how my friends & I had crossed cultural and financial boundaries- to find unity in common values, goals and desires but I question that now. One of my very good friends left Park Slope & bought a 4 million dollar spot in Switzerland & somehow we are still connected. Others who stayed in Park Slope simply ignore those who leave- what does that say about the “Slopers”?

The seemingly general lack of sensitivities from those who stayed in the Slope, to all who may have left for this or that reason makes me wonder if I too was living in the cultivated, Park-Slope, landscape of delusional fantasies…

Let’s face it -there are many great cities and though Park Slope holds my heart, I realize now it was even more about the people that I loved including you, Smart Mom- Yep I thought we were becoming good friends and I too have not heard from you once since leaving- though I had sent e-mails several times- they all went unanswered.

For those who work to stay connected, relationships are the same now as they were then with our NY friends- though we can’t hang with them directly, and we’re not able to drink wine with them weekly, gaze stupified at the Halloween parade as we all watch in awe, or lazily hang & gossip on the stoop, we still manage to talk about the same old subjects- $ Art. politics, our disdain for Bush, environment, progress, missing the Co-op, not missing the Co-op, our fabulous teens, education, family issues, private dreams etc. Those issues continue on and have been the thread that binds, if you will, regardless of geography and whose doing what. Perhaps those connections are your road to reunions with old friends. Much more genuine than location! To me it seems the “deserters” are still in Park Slope!