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In writer-director Noah Baumbach*'s 1995 film, Kicking and Screaming (about college graduates, not to be confused with the Will Ferrell's children's soccer movie), the protagonist tries to tempt his girlfriend to live with him in Brooklyn: "And not just Brooklyn, A-list Brooklyn. Park Slope. Division 2 Manhattan.”
The NY Times Styles section has an article about Division 2 Manhattan--Park Slope: Where Is the Love?, which outlines the withering attacks Park Slope the neighborhood and the community has endured, especially from blogs and websites (like this one), and tries to dissect the genesis of "Slope Rage." Here are some quotes from interview subjects, including residents and professors:
- "This whole thing sounds like white people being annoyed by and jealous of other white people."
- "They’re jealous because they can’t live here."
- “There is all this class resentment in New York, and it’s very tied up in real estate. People who are well-housed are the envy of others.”
- "Hipsters and people who don’t have kids are terrified of becoming grown-ups and parents, which is what Park Slope has come to represent."
- "Brooklyn was supposed to be different. Park Slope, to some, now represents everything that Brooklyn was not supposed to be.”
But let's face it-one Park Slope blogger did create rules for the stroller set. And did the hating being in earnest when...
- People fussed over stroller parking at Barnes & Noble?
- One resident decided the neighborhood might not be worth living in after getting mugged outside his home?
- Neighbors' amazement that stars Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany are leaving Brooklyn?
- The realization a 6-year-old's chalk drawings on her stoop might be considered graffiti?
- Union Hall's sort-of-stroller ban?
- Reports of a mom Bugaboo-ing her babe through a drug deal?
- The Obsever wondered what's better--Williamsburg or Park Slope?
- Darren Starr was rumored to set his new show in Park Slope?
- Patriots' coach Bill Belichick's purchased a townhouse for his mistress?
- A.O. Scott's 2003 reviewed the film Duplex, set in a Park Slope duplex and noted "...the extra space would sure be nice, especially when they get around to having a baby (though the movie doesn't mention it, residents of Park Slope are required to do within 18 months of arrival or face deportation back to Manhattan)"?
*Baumbach grew up in Park Slope and told Gothamist when he was younger, "Nobody would ever really choose to live in Brooklyn…it’s always the second choice."
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Weren't baumbach's parents exactly the kind of self-centered me generation yuppies that define the current residents of the neighborhood.
Doesn't seem like much has changed.
I'm arming for when they come after Little Neck.
www.forgotten-ny.com
In the 1970 Beau Bridges film "The Landlord," Park Slope is referred to with horror as "a colored neighborhood." It was on HBO or Showtime last week. I cracked up.
I like Park Slope.
I don't mind the young nubile women in park slope. It's the old ones who live vicariously through their brats that are the vicious one.
I'm getting really tired of every jackass excusing their own behavior by saying the rest of us "are just jealous" of their money. I have plenty of money and choose to live as far from the assholes as possible while still within the city limits.
they should add "complaining about Park Slope" on that stuff white people like website.
"Hipsters and people who don’t have kids are terrified of becoming grown-ups and parents, which is what Park Slope has come to represent."
I actually agree with that quote. I'm terrified that when I have kids, I'm going to turn out like one of these entitled a-holes that live there and actively force out any person or business that is not exactly like they are. My god - where do they think we live... the city?
The stroller parade crowd are as uptight as it gets. It's not even Old Money uptight, but New Money uptight: the kind of uptight where the mother-to-be wife chooses your friends for you and where businesses that aren't child-friendly get driven out with torches and pitchforks. These people are savages.
That quote from K&S by Baumbach is a shorthand metaphor. The guy wants to instantly grow up and be a settled adult (Park Sloper); his girlfriend and intended wife wants to move to Prague and live life a little before settling down. The quoted sentence is the epitome of saying, "quiet down, have kids, get a regular job, give up on that romantic dream of becoming a writer." No one probably knows this better than Baumbach. His life experience represents P/S as the emblem of frustrated domesticity.
Baumbach is right. Most of you are too young to remmber a much different Brooklyn. I remember when Park Slope and Williamsburg were considered bad areas. They were havens for drug dealing. The bodegas all sold dime bags. The good old days!
Jeezus, most of 5th Avenue in PS between Flatbush and 10th Street was bodega/nickel bag/needle park/dollar store/home boy territory less than 10 years ago ... some even say 5. Now its getting almost as crowded as Manhattan's 5th Avenue at Christmas with all those twee chi-chi restaurants and clothing boutiques for anorexics. Even John Jay HS is gentrified, and has a sub-school for law and journalism, of all things!
Popularity has its faults ... PS now is overrun with spoiled brats of all ages ... and all those tourists from Minneapolis or Bergen Co. who decide to rent or buy there. Even the dykes are leaving to Rockland County to raise their kids.
Now there will be parking wars in PS since with a temporary lifting of alternate side of the street parking regs ... people will park for two months and won't move and the streets will be Park Slob.
Oh well, more material for Gawker and Gothamist.
I agree. Y'all just jealous! Park Slope is Magic. Elitist Lesbian Puggle Yupster Stroller Mafia Magic!
millions and millions and millions and millions of people packed into a few hundred square miles: you people realize this whole fucking city is just a titanic american practical joke, right?
you want an american practical joke? try being a minority growing up in the midwest!