I’m From Brooklyn, She Said in Her Southern Drawl
By Dvora Meyers
As a 27-year-old single woman living in Brooklyn, I enjoy the communal events that warm weather brings: summer concerts in Prospect Park, street fairs, outdoor dining with friends. But with the social spirit comes an uptick in street-side proselytizing by evangelists for Brooklyn, who insist that theirs is the one true borough. They are even more grating than the subway preachers who roam the cars on Sundays. I’d much rather listen to a sermon than an ode to a utopia that doesn’t remotely resemble the place where I grew up.
I spent most of my girlhood in Canarsie, where the L train goes after all the hipsters and artists debark. I took two city buses to my school in Midwood, passing Flatlands Avenue and the Arch Diner, the local mob hangout. I saw no cheese or coffee shops, which is why I don’t live in Canarsie anymore.
I left for hipper pastures, like Los Angeles and the Upper West Side, but I eventually returned — not to the Brooklyn of my childhood, but to “Fakelyn,” a k a Clinton Hill, where I moved last August. The neighborhood had everything I wanted: reasonable rent, good subway coverage and a nearby Target. I’m also keen on all the stores with monosyllabic titles, like Cloth and Bliss. And I love that the only Brooklyn accent I regularly hear is my mother’s on the phone.
My neighbors, most of whom aren’t from around here, can’t admit that their New York experience isn’t authentically gritty. Worse still, most have developed amnesia and have forgotten their pre-Brooklyn existence. When I lived in Los Angeles, I never claimed to be an Angeleno, but when I ask a Brooklyn resident where she hails from, she immediately answers, “Brooklyn.” In a strong Southern drawl.
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