Phyllis Bobb of Reclaimed Home hates Park Slope, or at least that’s what she told Lynn Harris, a freelance writer for the Times. Now Robb says she’ll never do an interview again. With the Times’ or anyone. That’s because she’s pissed off about her quotes in yesterday’s Where’s the Love? article in the Style section about Park Slope haters, which she says, with humor (I think) were coerced out of her.
I didn’t lie so much as I was coerced into confession and creative editing was used. My whole paragraph from the article: “Many
locals, and ex-locals, I talked to swore that something else has also
changed. Phyllis Bobb, 42, lived here from 1990 to 2002, when she moved
to Bed-Stuy because, she said, “there were too many yuppies moving in.”
People on her block stopped sitting on stoops; a guy in the park kicked
her dog. “It wasn’t a community anymore,” she said, and she’s still
steamed. “I feel like a jilted lover.”
She adds that the jilted lover comment is meant to describe the way she and Park Slope have changed and grown apart.
We’ve both moved on and
we’re in different relationships now. There was a time I loved Park
Slope, that was probably mid 80’s-2000. But I look at it now and I
can’t believe I lived there for so long.
Now Phyllis, did someone really kick your dog? Bobb says that it’s 100% true:
That happened ages ago, so I
don’t know how she got that out of me when I was talking about the
recent changes in the Slope. But it happened and I hope the guy read
the article and knows he will go down in eternity as “the dog kicker of
Park Slope”. The incident occured in Prospect Park one morning during
off leash hours. This schmuck walks right through the “doggy circle”
and gets knocked down by a running pack of dogs. Ok, gets knocked down
by MY dog. I tried to help him up, apologized, etc….and then he kicks
my dog! That would never happen in Bed Stuy! Because people are
terrified of my dogs there.
In a post on her blog today she really goes to town on Park Slope:
Not everyone wants to live in a suburbanized, homogenized
community overrun with kiddies. It’s not because we can’t afford to,
it’s because we simply don’t want to!
Nasty, nasty. But she’s got a point. She moved on. It’s not about jealousy at all. She moved to greener pastures—a house in Upstate New York and a nice house in Bed Stuy. You can find her Reclaimed Home shop at the Brooklyn Flea every Sunday.
I’m going to stab a fork in my eye to get relief from this crap.
Bed-stuy! Yikes!
Someone should tell Phyllis Bobb that “hating Park Slope” is not good for business and it makes her seem like an idiot. Park Slope is a big area that has a lot of people. It is not the monolithic sterotype that Phyllis makes it out to be. I love the neighborhood, but I have no more connection to my random neighbors than Phyllis has to her neighbors in Bed Stuy (who, by the way, she is helping to price out of the neighborhood by contributing to its gentrification). She does not have a point and she should really focus her energy on things that matter.
coerced? Get over yourself.
OTHER PARK SLOPE OBSERVATIONS
Many seemingly unemployed under 40 men wearing socks with either sandals or Bikenstocks, generally unkempt and drinking expensive coffee at numerous establishments featuring $5.00 lattes.
Prodigious numbers of Lesbians grasping at their partners as they stroll by weird retail stores that owe their existence to Trust Funds established by bewildered parents.
Proliferation of left & left leaning utterances and signage emanating from owners of million dollar + townhomes purchased by the
a) profits made or derived from Wall Street
b) the aforementioned Trust Funds
c) sale of upper West Side coops that appreciated beyond belief
d) huge divorce settlements
e) Lastly, honest labor
Religious institutions, Christian & Jewish, that feature guitar-playing clergyman raising funds to travel to Darfur by way of London, Paris & Rome