Kaetlin Perna
March 9, 2007

I feel like you are becoming the new black. With quasi-famous celebrities fighting for it, the famed Williamsburg hipsters making art out of it and the buzz of real estate developers putting ugly buildings up in it has arose an unnecessary and possibly damaging attention on the borough to my bottom right (as it appears on the subway map). It is not the gritty feel anymore once made famous in "Do The Right Thing" and "The Warriors," granted it's not the 80's anymore, but whatever happened to that real neighborhood feel, Brooklyn? Inwood, where I live, feels that way; I call it the Dominican Bed Stuy. And not even the real Bed-Stuy is Bed-Stuy anymore. It's why I prefer to live here and opt not to live in you.

All of a sudden it's cool to be from Brooklyn. On my MySpace profile, I put "New York," not "Manhattan," for my location. People who live in Brooklyn wear their artsy fartsyness brooklynitis on their sleeves like it's a badge of cool, and say they are from "Brooklyn". Brooklyn, you're cool, I admit it. With the parties, the people, the acceptance, the bohemian feel of freedom, the non-judgment attitudes and the ingrained gritty culture set from the early years of immigration into New York, you are something I sometimes yearn to be in. But really, come on. There is nothing "cooler" than watching some girl explain to the guy who's obviously more interested in you (me), completely repulsed because she's explaining her love for expressionistic art and how "moving it is." Pratt girl, apparently.

Can Manhattanitis be cured with Brooklyn? It's difficult, because I do everything between Morningside (110th) and Inwood (200th); I rarely visit my former home in the Bowery (East Village-ish) just to say, "Hello," when does one expect me to hop on a train to Union St in Park Slope? I've got things to do (like normal things: grocery shop, soho art exhibits, bugging my friends at work, etc.), that going to you feels like its like going to Disneyworld. It is a place you say you want to go to but never do for whatever reason: time, money, no interest, scared of an oversized mouse with a predominant widow's peak, who knows.

Even when I do go there, I get off at a train stop, go up the stairs, reach the top and I feel like I got off in Pittsburgh: it's gritty. It's an alternate reality if you're used to the blocked, busy routine of Manhattan; it looks like a suburb (or Rochester, in my case). For you Rochestarians, walk down South Clinton Ave from Meigs to the Innerloop; now imagine bright green globes and a forest green fence barrier next to Boulder Coffee: that's Brooklyn. Although Manhattan isn't comparable to anything in Rochester; Toronto would be a good comparison, with Rochester being the BK (as they say in the streets).

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn is an organization run by a group of volunteers who want to preserve and unite you, not divide and destroy you with greed and nasty contemporary, Home Depot buildings. I feel like while their stance is right for the real estate nature of it, the social artistic effort may be what's bringing all the spotlight and "coolness" to it. Think about it: the more trendy a place becomes, the property value drives up, the higher the rent, the more jerks move into the area, the less unique something becomes, making something become "uncool", leaving your place to be run by yuppies and Heath Ledger. My Little Dominica will never be "cool" because no one really wants to travel forty five minutes to midtown, and that's okay with me.

Love always,
hoping you don't get too cool,
Kaet