01.09.08
“We don’t go to Brooklyn anymore…”
That’s what my high school chum’s wife told me when I invited them to one of my backyard BBQ Jam parties. I’d set up my drums and my friends would bring their guitars and instruments and we’d play music and eat and drink all day. It was lots of fun.
“No, we never go to Brooklyn anymore.”
I hadn’t seen them since they moved away from Coney Island and bought a house on Staten Island. Like me, my buddy and his wife were born and raised in Brooklyn. He and I became best friends at Brooklyn Technical High School. She was from Coney Island and went to Our Lady Of Solace where, by complete coincidence, we were both in the same 1st grade class.
They saved up enough to buy a house, found a decent one on Staten Island, and now they would never go to Brooklyn anymore. What I found curious was that my friend had two kids and his mother still lived in Brooklyn. Did they not visit Grandma anymore?
To me, Staten Island has always been a crummy place. Maybe it’s the number of Brooklynites who move there and bring with them the same attitude as my friend’s wife.
I have other friends who’ve left Brooklyn. They’ve moved eastward onto Long Island. They don’t express such hatred of their former home town.
One day I hope to leave Brooklyn and find a nicer place to live, too. Somewhere country-ish, and definitely not New Jersey: higher taxes and more political corruption than Brooklyn! Maybe I’ll try Pennsylvania, or even upstate New York.
As much as I’ve seen Brooklyn change, I don’t think I’ll have such hostility towards it when I’m gone. I love Brooklyn. I love its history. I love my history in it, my family’s history in it, and I always will.
P.S. - My pal and his wife eventually split up. He moved to New Jersey. Recently, I visited him in his new house where he said that he so despised Brooklyn, he would refuse to accept a house given to him for free, lock, stock, and barrel.
Go figure…