Fuggedaboutit: Miss Brooklyn Hails from...Manhattan

After a 16-year absence from the beauty pageant circuit, Miss Brooklyn returned this year -- which meant that maybe, just maybe, a Brooklynite would become Miss New York, or even Miss America.

Of all the 17 to 24 year olds in Brooklyn, last week's pageant was only seven-strong, and the winner is causing a commotion in the borough. The Brooklyn Paper is reporting on the scandalous move of crowning a "queen who's not from Kings." After her win, 22-year-old Leigh-Taylor Smith sashayed her Miss Brooklyn sash right back to Manhattan, where she resides. The paper says the beauty's "main qualification for being Miss Brooklyn is that she is a parishioner at the Brooklyn Tabernacle on the Fulton Mall in Downtown."

Hold on to your tiaras, it gets better: Smith is barely even a New Yorker, having only moved here last year after graduating from the University of Virginia.

Pageant organizers said there simply wasn't enough interest from girls in Brooklyn to join the pageant, which is likely why it disappeared for so many years. Perhaps Brooklyn girls are too smart to want to take part in the antiquated "scholarship program".

Photo via Brooklyn Paper

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By Jen Carlson in Arts and Events on February 28, 2008 11:50 AM

Comments [rss]

Andrew W

If she went to UVa and competes in beauty pageants, I have a feeling she's not a hipster.

Snoopy

Burger, the one on the left in the picture is her mother.

MFer

That's a very weird expression she has on her face. And her hands. What sort of kung-fu grips are those? Definitely not from Brooklyn.

cannedand

Have you seen Brooklyn girls? They're ugly and stupid and speak only with words with less than 2 syllables.

smitty

I'm from the Bay Area and a girl from my high school represented Massachusetts in the Miss America pageant while she was at MIT. Kinda weird, it doesn't seem like it should be for people temporarily residing in a particular place.

rockypocky

beauty pageants epitomize an impossible body image, obedient behavior, shallow competition....pretty much all the things left that perpetuate discrimination against women.

and ummm...do you know how expensive it is for the participants? they have to pay to enter, pay for every one of their gowns, pay for their makeup and hair, pay for EVERYTHING and only one of them is lucky enough to be partially reimbursed.

burgerdeluxe

The one on the left in that pic looks like she should be the winner instead. The others look too generic.

JRod5417

So she's from Virginia, lives in the Manhattan and hangs out in Brooklyn. Basically, she's a hipster. Yeah, she should be Miss Brooklyn.

Papercutninja

HOLY SHIT! A non-NY transplant from Manhattan? Pretending to be from Brooklyn? STOP THE FREAKING PRESSES.

cannedand

Even if it was true that there was not enough interest from girls in Brooklyn to join the pageant, they should have scrapped the idea.

JenChungsBaby

To me there's only one Miss Brooklyn, and that's Jennifer Connelly. What I wouldn't do....

zodak

"Pageant organizers said there simply wasn't enough interest from girls in Brooklyn to join the pageant"

what a crock. the popularity of america's next top anorexic proves that tons of girls love that crap, they would be inundated with applicants if they did just a little publicity.