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There's nothing like a mean New Yorker cover to get Brooklyn intellectuals into a huff. Two weeks ago, the cover of the New Yorker featured God's hand banishing Adam and Eve across the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn, in an illustration by Marcellus Hall called "Unaffordable Eden." The Daily News spoke to some enraged Brooklynites, who think the idea of Brooklyn being a second-class borough is outdated, scoffing at Manhattan denizens who think Manhattan is "the entire city," and realtors, who say Manhattanites who move to Brooklyn feel "clever." And, yes, Brooklyn BEEP Marty Markowitz wrote a letter, saying:
I am concerned, however that my copy of the issue may have been missing a second panel, in which the couple realise that what awaits them on the other side of the bridge is not a dark cloud of doom but the promised land itself. High rents might push some residents out of Manhattan, but we Brooklynites welcome these emigres with open arms to our better quality of life, our unrivalled diversity and maybe even a nice brownstone...What better than the hand of God to direct you toward the most divine bagels and lox?For his part, illustrator Hall told the DN, "Manhattan is still one step up from Brooklyn in terms of where it's at," adding that he loves Brooklyn but the "idea for me was just to depict Manhattan as a paradise." Gothamist found it funny that the DN called the cover controversial, but it's no Hasid kissing African Amercian woman from Art Spiegelman or Saul Steinberg's View of the World. And while the New Yorker definitely epitomizes a certain mindset and attitude, the New Yorker's cartoons and illustrations aren't necessarily the greatest representations of what New York really is.
Anyway, Bay Ridge resident, Helen Lilkakas, said, "Brooklyn's great. I don't think Adam and Eve would be banished to Brooklyn. Maybe Queens, but not Brooklyn." Oh, Queens, did you hear that? It's on! And Gothamist on the Complete Book of New Yorker Cartoons.
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While everyone knows NYC is all five boroughs, let's face it, Manhattan is THE center of THE city. Admit it, when you go into Manhattan you say you're going into "the city." And if you think I'm being snobby, I have two words to everyone in Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx with their Manhattan inferiority complexes, "Staten Island." Don't even try to tell me you don't poo poo Staten Island if you even know it exists. Don't worry about us though. We'll continue to get along with our private detached houses and back yards and front yanrds and lack of alternate side of the street parking somehow. *sigh*
banishing?
God's pointing to the wrong bridge; He obviously meant the Queensboro Bridge.
Banishing those who do not have the connections for rent control/stabilization.
Pffth, pretentious Manhattanites can keep their high rents and over-feminized world. I love when they're afraid to come to Brooklyn.
Oh, and there's nothing wrong with Queens either. Also, are these people afraid of messing with the Bronx?
Who are the famous people we know from the past 20 years? Manhattan vs. Brooklyn edition:
Manhattan:
Woody Allen
Brooklyn:
http://www.is187.com/famous.htm
Booya.
Michael Jordan?
what does he have to do with Brooklyn?
jordan was born in brooklyn.
sorry, that does not make you a famous Brooklynite
Woody Allen (married his daughter)is from Brooklyn. Midwood, to be exact. Not sure any borough would like to claim him.
I'm a native- whenever I meet someone who says "I don't go above 14th" or "Jackson Heights- where's that?" I can be pretty much assured that they have been in the city for 4 months, and the reason they don't want to live in Brooklyn/any Outer Borough is that it doesn't fit in with their bullshit FANTASY of New York. You see, if they lived somewhere with detached homes and decent schools (Bay Ridge, Flushing, S.I.) they might as well be back in Ohio. No, that wouldn't do, it's much better to live in an abandoned factory for $2000 a month.
Oh, and Queens has the best famous people: The Ramones, the Marx Brothers, Tony Bennett, and the Three Stooges.
I showed this cover to a friend from California and he at first thought that Brooklyn must be a nudist colony.
I thought the Three Stooges were from Bath Beach Brooklyn?
Moe=Bensonhurst
Curly=Bath Beach
Larry=Philadelphia
http://www.threestooges.com
I figure the joke's on the Manhattanites. Brooklyn's the best, and who needs more people here jacking up the real estate prices?
The only thing I take issue with is Markowitz's reference to "divine" bagels and lox. There are some OK bagels here, but the best are indeed in Manhattan, at Murray's.
Manhattan is the original New York City. Brooklyn used to be its own, separate city. Even Williamsburg used to be its own separate city from Brooklyn.
When the first subway was built by the IRT, Brooklyn had been a part of NYC for only about six years (Brooklyn joined in 1898).
But Brooklyn doesn't need to latch on Manhattan for acceptance; it has its own rich identity and history.
Brooklyn and Manhattan are like apples and oranges; they are both unique, you can't say one is better than the other, and they are both damn good.
Actually, I thought it should be pointing to Long Island, but that's hard to fit on a magazine cover.
i love that your copy is folded - i'm not sure why i always did that myself, but it just seems right to do.
Uh, shouldn't it reallllllly be the Holland Tunnel leading to NJ? I'm just sayin'.
I live in Brooklyn and I thought that cover was funny. People need to lighten up.
Hey, lookie, lookie, Manhattan....my air is cleaner than your air (even if only slightly). AND I have my own backyard with greenery and everything. Come waddle around in your stilettos over here, I dare ya. Booya, damn straight.
The Marx Brothers were from the Upper East Side/East Harlem.
I grew up in Manhattan, I've lived in Brooklyn for about ten years, and I thought that cover was hilarious. I read it as more of a rag on solipsistic Manhattanites than anything else.
I love it when Manhattanites agree to come to Brooklyn (it happens occasionally), and start to worry -- "What kind of shots do I need? Should I wear a pith helmet? What end of the train do I get off? Do you have ATMs?"
I say stay in Manhattan, and keep my rent down.
That goes back to a weird neighborhood a destiny thing I don't understand. I live in Washington Heights (750 sq ft, natch), it hasn't stopped me from hanging out in any neighborhood. The money I save on rent subsidises cabs, so what is this whole thing about? I lived in Brooklyn, I liked it. I personally would never consider moving back until MTA shows the borough a little respect. They gotta fix the "L" before you Brooklynites can claim bragging rights.
The cover isn't controversial, it's just dumb. Where the hell's Hall been? Brooklyn hasn't been a 'burb boro for a long time now. Manhattan will always be the center of the city, but the gap between it and Brooklyn has been narrowing for a long, long time.
This cover might have been timely in, oh, 1985... If he wanted to stir up controversy, he would have pointed Adam and Eve across the George Washington Bridge, or maybe into a smaller closet-sized studio. That'd make a statement and reflect how things are now.
I was born a third generation New Yorker,in Manhattan, to parents from the outer boroughs(my Mother is from Manhattan Beach and my Father is from Queens). Manhattan is my home town, my stomping grounds. The place where I grew up and learned about New York so lay off already.
The thing that really gets under my skin about people who moved to the city and "discovered" Brooklyn is their smugness. That self satisfied sense of superiority that comes from crossing the river. Talk about being a snob about where you live. This is the way people who live on Park Avenue talk. Listen to yourselves.
It's easy for people who moved to the city after college to point and laugh at Manhatanites, but this is my home we're talking about. It just happens to be one of thre greatest cities in the whole world and I like it just fine thank you very much. How would you like it if I went to wherever you were from, moved one town over and started lobbing rotten fruit in your direction?
Brooklyn's nice. But so is the west village. DUMBO is nice but I don't see anyone camping out in my neighborhood for new condos. Certainly the Manhattan I grew up in was different than today's crazy combination of gentrification and real estate insanity, but it was and is my home.
I got admit I was a little offended by the cover. Brooklyn Rocks. I wish the Manhattanites would stay away though because the rent is going up, up and up. Every few years I am moved deeper and deeper into the borough and before you know it, I am going to swimming in Coney Island.
lorna k speaks the truth; I can now see sea gulls outside my windows instead of pigeons...
I liked the cover. As others have said, I'm glad no one knows about how great Brooklyn is. I loved the fact that I had to explain to my sister and her friends that yes, Miranda on Sex and the City may not get a cab all the time in Brooklyn but they do exist. And yes, Miranda is the cool one for moving into a HOUSE with a BACKYARD.
Brooklyn people: there are affordable places in the city. I live on the LES for less than what I paid for in Bushwick.
Anyway, why are we fighting each other? We're all New Yorkers. The 718 is great and the 212 is true. We all have the same mayor, ride the same trains and pay the same goddamn NYC resident taxes. Brooklyn and Manhattan are like brother and sister.
Let's concentrate our scorn towards those weekend warriors from Jersey, Connecticut and Long Island who abuse our resources without paying taxes for them, vomit on our stoops and annoy the living fuck out of us. I'd rather sit by a Brooklynite and Manhattanite than a Jersey girl and a "Strong" Island boy.
Perhaps the cover was inspired by that series on New York called THE NAKED CITY.
danb, what are the two other greatest cities in the world?
it is a different way of life in brooklyn. the neighborhoodiness of it is more diverse in type, and more insular within the hoods. when you find one you like, it is a slice of heaven.
they do need to pay brooklyn and queens more respect on the train front. we need the 5 to brooklyn all times, we need full-size G trains from Church, we need an F express, and the L needs to be treated better (revive the express!) do this, and we're straight.
From my perch up in Washington Heights, Brooklyn looks as clichéd a choice as Manhattan. I'm not hating on any specific neighborhood per se, but Brooklyn is no more undiscovered than, say Franz Ferdinand. It's no secret, yo. But it all works. The city is a great big choose your own adventure book.
I say, instead of ganging up in terms of boroughs, it should be people who bring up SATC in any way vs. everybody else. That crap show is as relevant as Friends. Seinfeld is fine but a SATC reference should lead to an immediate and complete shunning.
P.S. Gothamites, copy editing is no replacement for wit
Isn't Washington Hieghts on the island of Manhattan? So that would make it..... Manhattan. But not to quibble, more to ask a question, where does "Manhattan" end? (Full disclosure- I grew up on 96th street. North or south side- that I will keep to myself).
It's Manhattan. Manhattan ends at 220th Street in Inwood.
Actually Manhattan 'ends' at Marble Hill, a small district on the mainland north of the Harlem River
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/marblehill/marble.html
I think Reality Check needs a reality check in that people from New Jersey and Conneticut do pay NYC taxes when they work or do business with NYC, which is why most people from the outer-states are in the city, anyway.
It seems like everybody lives in a bubble lately.
And Astoria's the new Williamsburg...aieeeee! :D
All us Queens folk need is better N/W weekend service -- the "N(ever)" and "W(henever)" trains take forever... :P
Marty: "High rents might push some residents out of Manhattan, but we Brooklynites welcome these emigres with open arms to our better quality of life, our unrivalled diversity and maybe even a nice brownstone..."
Marty: "Bruce Ratner's arena and 17 skyscrapers is finally going to put Brooklyn on the map. Without Bruce Ratner's 17 skyscrapers and arena Brooklyn will remain the dark cloud to Manhattan's paradise"
FACTS: Bruce Ratner's 17 skysrapers and arena will–for Prospect Heights, Fort Greene, Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights–ruin the "better quality of life," decimate our "unrivalled diversity" and demolish/overshadow our "nice brownstones."
Six words: Schmucky Schmuckowitz has got to go.
You see, if they lived somewhere with detached homes and decent schools (Bay Ridge, Flushing, S.I.) they might as well be back in Ohio. No, that wouldn't do, it's much better to live in an abandoned factory for $2000 a month.
$2000 a month for an abandoned factory? Bargains like that just do not exist in Manhattan anymore.
Meanwhile, the cover is meant to be funny, people. Please enjoy it and then return to your boroughs.
Marcellus Hall owes Barry Kite some props, yo! Kite did practically the same thing a decade ago. Check it!
People, Marcellus Hall's comments not withstanding, does anyone think that perhaps that cover might have been a bit tongue-in-cheek? Say it loud - we're Brooklynites and we're proud! This hang-dog inferiority complex is what enables Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn Intellectual???!!!) to foist the abomination of Ratner's 'Yards plan upon us solely to salve his gaping Dodger-void. Was he torn from Walter O'Malley's breast before he was weaned? The rest of us can be smug in our Brooklyn-ness.