There’s an article in today’s New York Times Style section called, "Where is The Love?" about Park Slope hating as blood sport. No surprise, our pal Pete of Full Permission Living has some controversial thoughts on the topic.
As a regular interviewee of Lynn Harris’ articles on why people hate Park Slope, I have to make clear that one reason for any antipathy I might have for Park Slope is NOT that “Brooklyn was supposed to be different," according to some quoted in Lynn’s article. It continues: "Park Slope, to some, now represents everything that Brooklyn was not supposed to be. And if we lose Brooklyn, we lose everything."
Let me shout this out – Brooklyn, in many of its long-established neighborhoods outside of Park Slope and the surrounding "Heights", is still a bastion for clannish, homogeneous, xenophobic collections of ethnic tribes holding onto their frozen identities as Italians, Irish, Polish, Hasidic, Russian, Jamaican, etc., hold-outs who believe that surrendering to the melting pot that is New York City at its best is tantamount to selling their soul to the devil.
I do not hate Park Slope because it is ruining what the rest of Brooklyn is. If I hate Park Slope, it is because of what Park Slope pretends to be and isn’t – an enlightened enclave of modern parenting.
You can’t hate Park Slope “because of what Park Slope pretends to be and isn’t – an enlightened enclave of modern parenting”.
Park Slope is not a parent. Neighborhoods do not raise children, people do. Park Slope is a loosely defined geographic area of nice homes, good schools, restaurants and parks. Some of the people who live here are good, decent people and some are people I don’t have much to do with. I love my block party, the Halloween parade, and the street fairs. I don’t belong to the coop, I travel too much for work, but I think that is great too. I even enjoy the Park Slope Parents list-serv for the helpful advise on where to hold a birthday party or buy cheap diapers. I am my children’s parent though, not “Park Slope”. It amazes me that seemingly educated and intelligent people will wallow in such crass over generalizations and stereotypes based on perceived income levels, the way people dress and the source of their income. Seems intellectually lazy to me.
No, he’s right that those neighborhoods are pretty xenophobic. Shit, I’m black and *I* wouldn’t be caught dead in the Flatlands.
What he’s wrong about is that Park Slope claims to be “an enlightened enclave of modern parenting.” Man, I never claimed to be anything – I’ll admit it at the food co-op at the top of my lungs: I sit my 2 year old in front of the tv for about an hour a day and I even let her have Cheetos today.
The only thing I’m pissed off about is that I can’t afford to live in Park slope anymore – just like the Times article ultimately says.
Wow – look at Pete’s site… Pete the hippie calling me hypocritical. The layers of meta-hypocrisy are recursive and staggering…
Um, so Brooklyn neighborhoods filled with “Jamaicans” and “Russians” and “Polish” are xenophobic?
This is the kind of stuff that makes us native Brooklynites from the non-brownstone neighborhoods quite annoyed. The writer needs to get out more. Go to Bensonhurst or Canarsie or Sheepshead Bay or Homecrest or Marine Park and you will see plenty of diversity and heterogenity.
Pete, you have my permission to go on living…but you need to get out more.