I Am Still Having Issues With Brooklyn
As soon as I saw one of my Team Manhattan friends crossing Fifth avenue in a little sundress and a Louis Vuitton bag, I knew things would go poorly.
“It took me fucking forever to get here. The 4/5 trains weren’t running.”
"Awww, I'm sorry." And really, I could empathize. The first time I went to a friend's apartment in Brooklyn, I was told to take the M train, then transfer across the platform and take the subway three more stops. I wound up taking the M train for half an hour, then "transferring across the platform" to the M train going back to Manhattan. That was fun.
"It's so ridiculous trying to get to Brooklyn on the weekend. I honestly think I was in a tunnel of the subway that hadn't been used since the seventies--wait you live on the fourth floor?" My friend balked at the entrance way to my building, looking at the stairs as though she was unsure of what they were.
"Yeah, come on."
Three flights of stairs later, we had arrived.
“Wow, your apartment is so…nice,” Team Manhattan said suspiciously, seemingly alarmed that such a normal looking place could exist in a walk-up.
“Thanks.”
“So," she said, plopping down on my couch exhausted from all the stairs, "Are you ever going to come to the city now that you live here?”
It was time to take control of the situation.
“First of all, Brooklyn is ‘the city’ too. Second of all, I still work in Manhattan.” I rolled my eyes to let her know these things should have been very obvious.
She seemed unimpressed.
“Plus, you know it takes me less time to get to work from here than from my old apartment,” I added defensively.
“I meant more like, aren’t you going to need a car now that you live in Brooklyn?”
“Are you serious?”
"Isn't everything really far?"
It just went downhill from there.
14 comments:
Every time I tell someone I live in Park Slope they say, "Oh there's a nice Barnes & Noble down there, right?" Who the fuck says that about an area in NYC? One day at a time, I promise.
It will get better. Sorry to say I did giggle, but I needed that giggle more than you know.
Simply explain to Team Manhattan that Brooklyn = lower rent, larger apartments, less noise, CHEAPER BOOZE, and... a tighter ass! Trust me, I've been living in a 4th floor walk-up for 4 years...
While amusing- somehow I think you need to be a New Yorker to fully appreciate this post.
It does remind me of the Sex & the City episode when Miranda moved into a house with Steve though...
I miss NYC...... sigh. Of course, I've only dreamed about living there, but whatever. I still miss it.
Have you found a good bar yet?
I can relate to your issues with Brooklyn; it still owes me $40 for a bag of weed.
I know it's not the same, but it feels like the issue here: Atlanta has sprawled so widely that to get to a friends house takes me 45 minutes to drive and I find myself contemplating if it's worth it. Good grief, it's the same darn city but it takes freaking 45 minutes to get there! Yeesh!
Just avoid the Tea Lounge on Union. God, when I lived in Park Slope, I feared catching a contact-pregnancy from one of those couches. SO MANY PREGNANT WOMEN. Can't happen, you say? Go there. The air is thick with fertility. It defies science. Shudder.
I find that the more times I incorporate the phrases "Kiss my ass" and "Fuck you" into conversations like these, my friends tend to be a bit more friendly.
Brooklyn pride, baby. There's no use trying to convince "them". Oh, how I've tried. It's best to just let them enjoy their ignorance.
So now I just spend my weekends in Brooklyn with all the other cool people.
Welcome to the Slope!
You quickly weed out some old friends when you make the move out here: you have the ones who are happy, even excited, to make the voyage, and the ones who bitch about it and act like they've never spent more than 20 min on a train before. Take them to an outdoor garden where drinks are less than $10 each...they might get over it.
Ever read Paul Auster's Brooklyn Follies? I think I would LOVE to live there!
I live in a suburb of Paris, ironically enough, and pretty much NO ONE wants to come out to where I live either. But I could never get an apartment my size in the city these days anyway... I'm lucky to be living where I'm living, so I won't complain!
The ugly truth is that the next stop after Brooklyn will be like, East Northport, or Maplewood, NJ!Just sayin'..
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