We don’t much talk about Vogue around these parts. Sometimes though, they deign to come to Brooklyn, and they print incredibly stupid things. Like last time they were here and compared an urban area of 2.5 million people to moving to the country. One of our Twitter pals clued us into their latest trip here, in which they sent someone to cast judgment on our restaurants. We got a subscriber to share the article with us, and it was a doozy. While here, their writer, Jeffrey Steingarten, let us know that Bushwick is “disfavored,” along with a bunch of other things you might not have known about Brooklyn.
The entire article, “A Distant Shore,” reads like a baby’s first Brooklyn trend story, complete with the shocking news that people wear skinny jeans around here (“The spirit or brand can still be identified by the hipster, who can sometimes be identified by a narrow-brimmed fedora, white earbuds and skinny jeans.”) Other things you can learn:
1. Bushwick is a “disfavored neighborhood”
While trying to find Roberta’s (which isn’t that difficult), Steingarten lets Vogue readers know that “Roberta’s is not easy to find, situated as it is in Bushwick, which a real estate agent might refer to as a ‘disfavored neighborhood.”
2. When you take the subway here, you will be cast out into darkness
Steingarten says coming to Brooklyn is too expensive by taxi and the subway isn’t worth it because of “the subway ride that often dumped us eight dark and unfamiliar blocks away from supper.”
3. Sunset Park is also problematic
“Sunset Park is a somewhat distressed neighborhood”
4. There used to be barely reason to come here
“Before the current decade, my main reason for traveling across, under or on the East River from Manhattan consisted of the world-class pleasure of visiting the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.”
5. A favored Brooklyn pastime is staring at Manhattan
“They no longer need to stand at the water’s edge, gazing longingly at the bright lights of Manhattan, salivating.”
6. Hipsters should go out and get jobs
“Hipsters are remote descendants of the Beats of the fifties and the hippies of the sixties. Today, many are simply slackers.”
7. A bonus, but not about Brooklyn
“Maps can be so educational!”
Follow Dave for more tweets Bushwick at @HerbertHarper
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So, the attitudes displayed by the ladies of Sex and the City were rooted in reality. (*rolls eyes*) However, even one of the lovely four (Miranda) moved out to Brooklyn.
yep and SJP (the most Manhattan of the bunch) in real life has now moved to Brooklyn Heights.
Sorry, but I live in Sunset Park on 5th Ave; which is right next door to Park Slope, and 15 minutes from Barclays Center, and it’s an amazing neighborhood. So whatever MORON wrote this is absolute trash and a problematic Manhattanite with no sense of what New York really and truly is.
Did I mention that everything is cheaper, affordable, and more family orientated than the city? Just keep in that mind when you’re wasting money all over the place in the city. I work in Chelsea but saying those false rumors is absurd.
At the end of the day who needs those kinds of people coming out to Brooklyn. They can have Manhathan.
speak!
Wow – you would think these people would AT LEAST have two versions of their story: one written by someone living in Manhattan and another by someone living in Brooklyn. Or at the very least, include a huge disclaimer admitting that such person has not had the proper time to fully research the story beyond a day trip or two. Complete nonsense.
— A former Manhattan dweller who recently (and happily) moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn
Keep it in Manhattan. We dont want your kind driving up real estate in my nabe!
8. Nary a proper monacle shop
*monocle. (apologies–I hail from the even less-favored county of Queens.)
embrace the negative stories, my friends. the more, the better. the more, the less enticing it might be to move to the most awesomest of boroughs. positive painterly articles do nothing more than raise the rent, and, the number of people vying for that extra inch underneath your armpit on your morning commute.
As a representative of Harlem I’d like to state the opinions of our lower Manhattan brethren does not hold true for most people living north of 110th street.
Please, please, please!!! don’t let him come back to Brooklyn, let him stay in Manhattan where plastic people live.
GOOD!!! Maybe this will curtail the interest in folks wanting to move into the hood…
I left Brooklyn in February 2001 after living there for 26 years. In 1992, I turned 18 and moved from Park Slope to Williamsburg. My rent on N. 11th was $410. There was no ATM anywhere. You had to go to a bank in Greenpoint.
I’m happy that so many of you people have “discovered” my hometown and are pumping so much money in and rebuilding and renovating and opening businesses, etc.
Just, please…STFU about mostly everything. Really. It’s not your “nabe.” You’re NOT a native. And you’ve probably got herpes.
I’m sorry that the transplants have made you reasonably bitter, but some folks are truly natives here… hopefully minus the herp.
Poor Vogue. It unshockingly has its head up its manhattan ass.
It’s true that people like the view of Manhattan, but we don’t salivate. Although, I have to admit that working for Vogue probably fosters a pretty fun Manhattan experience.
It’s because there are no flashing lights or giant billboards to make them think they’re glamorous.
Guys, guys- this is a great thing. It is exactly the kind of reporting we want. It speaks to just the people you don’t want to see in your neighborhood, and tells them not to go there. We should request more of these pieces. There’s already way, way too many Brooklyn hype articles, drawing undesirable Manhattanites here.
If you are a Manhattanite, by the way, everything in this article is totally accurate. I just got stabbed on G train twice on my way to work today. Definitely don’t come here.
Yes, dear Manhattanites, there are no yellow cabs here, it’s full of brown people who barely speak English, our delis are called bodegas, we have tons of alley cats who don’t even bother taking care of the rat problem, on a hot day your summer dress might get ruined by one of the many open fire hydrants, and last but not least, you’ll sometimes inadvertently cross over into Queens. Queens!
Willilamsburg has already been ruined and contaminated by this elk, please, please, please stay away from Bushwick, Ridgewood, et. all.!!!!!! There’s nothing to see outside Manhattan, nowhere to eat, no great bars, art, parties, shops, nothing. Leave us to our uneducated uncouth unhip ways Vogue. And while you’re at it, don’t send Annie Lebovitz or Lena Dunham here anymore either. Certainly there are better places to pose overstyled, overdressed quasi celebrities than a subway platform in Brooklyn n’est pas?