The Oxygen Network’s latest attempt to steal MTV’s thunder turns its lens on our own backyard. The Post reports that Bay Ridge, a neighborhood you may know as near where everyone goes bat-shit with their Christmas lights, is slated to get its own “Jersey Shore-esque Reality Show” on March 26. And rather than smelling like a tub of jolly Ron-Ron juice, it will most likely reek of whipped-cream flavored vodka and hatred. The series, titled Brooklyn 11223 (which is definitely not Bay Ridge, as commenters point out below), will focus on a “once tight-knit group of girls from the Brooklyn ’hood [who] are still at each other’s throats over an alleged heinous act of betrayal years ago,” according to the Post. Since the people responsible for The Bad Girl’s Club are at the helm of Brooklyn 11223, we can expect nothing less than a gaggle of thick-accented girls in bodycon dresses calling each other “fake bitches” and “followers.”
So, we’re essentially looking at tomorrow’s Mob Wives cast. But what implications do you think this series will have on the neighborhood? Do you care that it’s airing at all? As long as the Bay Ridge Century 21 stays civil, here’s no hard feelings here.
Follow Arielle: @arielledachille.
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A- We don’t go batshit crazy with our Christmas lights. That’s Dyker Heights.
B- Bay Ridge isn’t 11223- that’s Gravesend. We’re 11209. Meaning that this show is either NOT about Bay Ridge, or the producers are too dumb to be able to read a map.C- Fellow Italian-Americans, for the love of God please stop embarrassing our culture.
that makes this quote in the Post story all the funnier: “The Bay Ridgeness [of the characters] came through,” he said.
Unrelated to the total fail of the area code deal, but further on the executive producer and his notable ideas. He was inspired to make the show after seeing the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story. So, one could make the case that this series is the contemporary, reality incarnation of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare is spinning in his grave.
Out of curiosity – do you even know what the show is about? Did you read the NY Post article – or do you make this stuff up as you go? Seriously – Romeo and Juliet? How do you make the similarities to this? These 2 chicks are fighting because they were friends and 1 stole the others boyfriend… doesn’t sound like Romeo and Juliet to me… so either your confused about the show’s premise, or you don’t know your Shakespeare… As far as West Side Story goes – that may make slightly more sense – as far as one group against the other…. but then again – that was a highly racial play about one racial group against the other…. here again – I don’t see the similarities between the two…
UH did YOU even read the NY Post article? It states:
“Executive producer Michael Hirschorn said the idea for the series came to him after he saw 2009’s Broadway revival of ‘West Side Story’ and thought the tale of rival gangs could somehow be turned into a reality show.”
Arielle was pointing out that the executive producer claims to be inspired by West Side Story, not that she thinks the show is anything like it…
Totally agree with A-B comments, can’t on C as I’m Irish. Christmas lights ARE Dyker’s thing, but most people here don’t know neighborhoods outside their own let alone the southern ones.
11223 is Gravesend not Bay Ridge
This article is the exact reason why it is so difficult for me to support this site. I want so badly to support you, Brokelyn – as you bring me good tips on cost-savings options in and around my borough. But, for F’s sake… please employ some informed writers. Even when I wrote a few pieces for the site and they were edited to reduce content, the editor chose to omit crucial detail to the content and the piece was presented as uninformed! The ENTIRE content of this article is erroneous. 11223 is Gravesend -which is incidentally where I grew up. There is nothing even remotely overdone about our Christmas lights, Century 21 is at least a 15 minute DRIVE away and the R train is no where near the neighborhood. It’s the F line, 100% – Avenue X, Avenue U, and Kings Highway on the F line. —- Further and more important to that, do we even care about implications on a neighborhood? Yes — yes, we do. Real Brooklynites do care about our neighborhoods. And while we might be thick accented and wear tight dresses (we enjoy looking like women), there is no correlation between these attributes and later becoming the wife of a gangster. I am as thick accented as they come and I have dresses in my closet that are so tight I need a shoe horn to put them on… but I wouldn’t date a ‘mob wife’ kind of guy in a million years. — We’re not all gum-chewing and attention starved and the generalization and dismissal you present in your piece as a whole is the exact reason why most of us have issue with transplants.
– Nikki-Jo Grossman
Nikki, we appreciate your comments! But surely you’re not faulting us for mentioning Bay Ridge when that is where the show is presenting itself as being based? And the writer doesn’t sound to me like she’s trying to categorize the whole neighborhood, just what she expected the show to be like based on the previous work of the producers.
I can see your point – and while I can understand the writers expectation of
what the producers will ultimately script for this ‘reality show’, I can’t
help but still get annoyed at what reads like an implication that neighborhoods
‘far out’ are less important and they should be regarded simply as a shopping
grounds. — We are more than Century 21. We’re a neighborhood of working class
people who are proud to be from Brooklyn and the fact that her closing
statements imply that the potential impact on the neighborhood is a moot point
is insulting and it reigns as somewhat elitist. — This is not the first time I
have heard similar statements made on this site. I wish i could recall other
articles that had the same tone… but i’m at a loss right now. The point is
that the overall attitude of transplant Brooklyn is that anything outside of the
hip-gentrified neighborhoods is less than. And to that… in my best 11223 deep
accented growl, i call Bullshit.
Nikki, thanks for your feedback, but this article was really not meant to make any umbrella judgments based on neighborhood character. I apologize that it may have come off that way, but everything identified in the article was just meant to summarize what Oxygen would be doing. And it’s definitely not in favor of their spin. PS, I like Brooklyn accents.
Of course you like Brooklyn accents. Much like the monkeys at the zoo, it’s a novelty that never gets old for the visitors. — I know how important it is not to become argumentative on this site as a writer, so I can appreciate the polite nature of your response
While the majority of your article was a simple paraphrase of the NY Post Article (which is way too reminiscent of Gothamist and also completely explains the lack of fact-checking), there is really no way you can deny that your closing statements which are your very own were at the very least crass.
Nikki, grow some humor
The closing paragraph negates anything else you have to say.
Arielle, I think the mistake that you made that seemed to tick off Nikki is the idea that either you just accepted the NYPost information as fact and never double checked – or you yourself are being quite stereotypical in your generalization of Brooklyn chicks. Either way – your article has done nothing but infuriate. It is already hard for die hard Brooklynites – those of us who have Brooklyn in our Blood – to sit back and watch Brooklyn all of a sudden become “trendy” and “cool” because some mid-western hippie decided to come here and plant their asses bringing with them their lil shops (like we didn’t have them before), their haute cafe’s (we had real italian cafe’s where you couldn’t order unless you spoke italian before you came!) and your bicycle lanes (how about driving down 86th street sitting in traffic like the rest of us did). We are the ones that remember the real Brooklyn, the real Coolness of those who didn’t give a crap what someone else thought, the greatness of going to Cesar’s Bay, the 4th of July parties where the NYPD were escorts… and the true Brooklyn that all the wannabe’s want to latch onto and try to make their own – yet have done nothing but destroy it. Now – it seems that those who made Brooklyn what it is… greatness that you all Want… has been negated and turned into gum cracking twenty somethings that are too young themselves to even know…
Awesome, a thin-skinned “writer.” By the way, is “everyone going bat-shit over their Christmas lights” not making any umbrella judgements based on neighborhood character?
Very poor stenography. Stay in Nieu Brooklyn please.
Love it!
@Nikki-Jo Grossman – I don’t think the article is making generalizations about the neighborhood so much as it is anticipating the way in which the show itself will construct this particular image of Bay Ridge
I respectfully disagree. I think the entire closing paragraph is a spit in the face of 11223, Bay Ridge, or anything not gentrified Brooklyn.
While I agree that the last paragraph seems a bit myopic the ultimate intention of the article feels like a critique of Oxygen’s programming rather than of Bay Ridge
“Do you care at all? Have you ever even ridden the R train out that far? As long as the Bay Ridge Century 21 stays civil, here’s no hard feelings here.”
So ESSENTIALLY what this article is ending with is “well who cares, this is south Brooklyn and no one really cares about south Brooklyn because south Brooklyn is clearly NOT Williamsburg or Bushwick or at the very least Park Slope.” How very elitist of you Brokelyn. How very NORTH Brooklyn (ie-just moved her over the last few years) of you Brokelyn.
As a native of NYer I never really messed with this site too much. Someone directed me to this article. Those few sentences assured me that I won’t be back. (And no this isn’t some neighborhood pride thing. I dont live in, never have lived in and it is unlikely that I ever will live in South Brooklyn.
The battle for Brooklyn will be on the message boards.
to all the people making generalizations about the author being some Williamsburg transplant – as her close friend I can assure you that she is in fact a native New Yorker herself having grown up in Staten Island… the hypocrisy of some of the above comments is disheartening to say the least
Where is there hypocrisy in assuming that she is a transplant? Her position sits in line with that of many a transplant and while it might have been an incorrect assumption, it’s still a troublesome perception of a neighborhood that is as much Brooklyn as any other neighborhood in Brooklyn. —
That she is from SI actually makes her stance worse in my opinion… Staten Island has long been considered the bastard borough and if anything I’d expect a totally different approach to the idea of neighborhoods that sit outside of the ‘cool zone’. — Look, I have no gripe w/ her lack of fact-checking nor do I have an issue with her paraphrasing the Post article for her write-up here… It annoyed me at first but that’s not the big picture. My issue from my first posting is that the last paragraph of the write up implies that 11223, Bay Ridge, or whatever you want to call any area that is off the beaten path of gentrified BK is unimportant. THAT attitude is what makes THIS native Brooklynite speak up. —
As for some of the other commenters, I am 50/50 on agreements. Change happens and it needs to be embraced on some level. Do I think the idea of bike lanes are ridiculous? Yes, I surely do. I ride avidly and I actually prefer to ride along with traffic because I find it safer than being on a bike lane where double parked cars force you to sway into incoming traffic or where drivers swing their doors open without even looking. Coffee shops and little shops? Eh, what are you gonna do? Everyone has a hustle and I wish all entrepreneurs well. What is oft overlooked, however, is that the mom and pop shops that were priced out of the space these new shops occupy were also once entrepreneurs. They were middle class hard working native Brooklynites. They worked their asses off and opened these shops with little to nothing – they didnt get small biz loans or have investors. I am not blaming gentrifiers, hipsters, or anyone for the changes. Like I said, change happens… But when these changes happen and peoples entire lives are changed due to being priced out (biz or residence), reading an expressed attitude that states that neighborhoods where many of these people hail from are unimportant does nothing for anyone but create more angst.
It’s hypocritical to chastise her for making generalizations and then go right back and make a generalization that she’s some gentrifying transplant based on how you interpreted her perspective, just as you mentioned wearing tight dresses doesn’t equate to being a mob wife, expressing a limited understanding about a specific neighbor doesn’t automatically make you some uninformed outsider; i find it hard to believe that native new yorkers are void of misconceptions about neighborhoods outside of their own
Expressing a limited understanding about a specific neighbor? She didn’t express a limited understanding. Another commenter regarded her closing statement as a bit myopic. I don’t find it at all myopic, especially in light of her having grown up in S.I I find the closing carries with it an ill regard to anyone outside of the cool-zone. Why would anyone question whether or not it matters how something will effect a neighborhood? Don’t you think that statement carries some weight with it? — If you recall my first comment you’ll note that my issue is more with this sites constant mention of things outside of the cool-zone as less-than. Even in one of my own pieces I referenced something about fake-coach bags and it was found to be the highlight of the work because it allowed the reader to poke fun at what is not the NORM in their small-minded worlds.
As a writer for the Brokelyn perhaps she wanted to capture the overall tone of the site in general and decided to throw in that little blurb at the end to do so – I get that you need to cater to your audience and all, but Come on!!!
Aside from my two pieces and a couple of throw ins here there is absolutely no mention of anything outside of the gentrified zones. That, to me, is the real hilarious part. The entire site is dedicated to bringing readers deals and discounts to be found in the Brooklyn borough and the areas that offer the most rational prices for anything from a manicure to a fine-dining experience are overlooked.. Oh, right — I forgot… Who cares about those areas?
looks like you and brokelyn got some figuring out to do…
“Do you care at all? Have you ever even ridden the R train out that far? As long as the Bay Ridge Century 21 stays civil, here’s no hard feelings here.” (this is the original ending to this article. seems to have been edited since yesterday).
“PS-I love Brooklyn accents.”
As a native NYer I simply would not expect another native NYer to make statements like the 2 above. And with the overall tone of the rest of the article (as well as the overall tone of the ENTIRE site) I dont see why its a surprise that commenters assumed the writer was an out of towner.
hey, come on now: Out of the 20 or so people on Team Brokelyn, only a handful are not tri-state area born and bred, and a bunch are Brooklyn natives.It sounds like maybe you just don’t like our site at all, which is fine. But let’s back off the everyone-who-writes-about-brooklyn-must-be-a-transplant trope, as it just isn’t true.
Funny, never said everyone. I said this particular writer.
The community of Bay Ridge, and our community leaders, are up in arms over this “reality show”. Councilman Vincent Gentile sent out the following yesterday:
JOIN ME ON FRIDAY TO TELL THE OXYGEN NETWORK: “TAKE THIS SHOW OFF THE AIR!” The Oxygen Network is producing a new reality TV show called “Brooklyn 11223”. The show has been called “trashier than Jersey Shore but filmed in Bay Ridge.” (We’re not sure where they got the “11223” from, as that zip code belongs to Gravesend and Coney Island, but, hey, never let the facts get in the way of a trashy quasi-reality TV show, right?) “Brooklyn 11223” will debut on the Oxygen Network on Monday, March 26th and, judging from the trailers and previews we’ve seen, it will be gratuitous, classless and heavy on the stereotypes. That’s why this Friday I am joining with the women of Bay Ridge to let the world know that the REAL Bay Ridge will not stand for this sort of “entertainment” that will serve only to denigrate and disparage our hard working, middle-class community of creative, smart, proud, cultured and compassionate people. Join me and tell the Oxygen Network that their new show “Brooklyn 11223” has it all wrong; they’re wrong on the zip code and wrong on their portrayal of Bay Ridge! This Friday, February 24 at 11 AM, outside the new “Beyond Dance” studio at 8717 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11209
Is the real Bay Ridge the one that allows the 3rd Ave Feast to have all those drunken hooligans from the neighborhood or the dance studio to have all those little girls dance in costumes and wear make up like future strippers while the mothers are fighting with each other over whose daughter did`nt get a good spot.Get a life you don`t have to watch the show , change the channel. maybe you should close all the bars on 3rd & 4th Ave so most OF your kids won`t have a place to get sloshed.You should`nt get so bent out of shape over a zip code. Vinnie Gentile , you should worry more about doing something for the economy of your community and maybe you should put all your valuable time into getting the”GODFATHER” taken off every t v channel it might air on. Get a life there are way more pressing issues to address than some t v show that not one of you have even viewed.
You sound like a real ass hole , but you should`nt be threatening anybody you lowlife punk.
Your neighborhood ??? What cardboard box do you and your family live in ????
Could someone please report this Ryan Ennis ,that made a threat on this blog. We may disagree on on the show, but it’s frightening to read that he would knife someone from the show!
Is anything being done about this guy who threatened to knife someone from the show? i see his comment was removed but were the police notified? last time i checked threatening someone’s life with a knife warranted police followup.
yes i do care about brooklyn 11223 airing its about time that oxygen had a great reality show to cats the audience no one can judge this show they don’t live a brooklyn lifestyle brooklyn 11223 is exciting I’m glad its premiering on march 26.
This show is really wack I grew up with all these girls there all phoney there scared of anybody who steps up to them Carla with the big banana nose is such a herb even wen she was younger joeylynn is cool and laid back Christie is just a dumb broad these girls are all acting like there gangsters but believe me for someone who grew up with them there such cowards
Maybe 11223 looked catchy and seemed easier to remember. Just sayin’.
Also, don’t mind these show that stereotype Italians, particularly Sicilians. I am Sicilian and I expect to be taken as a woman who has pride in her heritage. These caricatures do not affect me so strongly anymore.
I have some culture ambiguity going on in my life right now, but don’t most second-generation anything have that? Cultures, religions, subcultures, and music will continue to be stereotyped by outsiders (the only freebie stereotype is hipsters!). It isn’t so useful to ignore these caricatures than to recognize it (I most certainly do not agree with them, but they do exist!), and of course understand the networks exploitation of these television characters.