Neighborhoods

The sad clowns are in Coney Island, the binge drinkers are in Williamsburg, and other need-to-know stats about BK

Sure, your hood drinks. But who drinks the most? Via flickr user Chris Goldberg
Sure, your hood drinks. But who drinks the most? Via flickr user Chris Goldberg

Remember last week at the bar, when you were fighting with someone about whose neighborhood would be most likely to win in a WWE cage match? We sure do. So when Brokelyn alum Sharon Lintz launched a comprehensive statistics directory called Investigate NYC, we took it for a test spin to find out how BK neighborhoods really stack up against one another when it comes to things like sexual promiscuity and alcohol tolerance. Our (very scientific) findings are provided here below.

Most Likely to Be in a Dry Spell: Borough Park
According to the latest Health census data available, Borough Park has the greatest percentage of abstinent residents. Many answered “None” to the question of how many sexual partners they’d had over the past 12 months. Strangely, though, they’re also the ‘hood with the greatest number of births. Immaculate conception, perhaps?

Most Likely to Win a Hot Dog Eating Contest: Canarsie
The L train boondocks apparently house some of Brooklyn’s chubbiest residents. A whopping 42% of Canarsians reported themselves as “obese” in 2013. Since portions have only gotten bigger and things you put in your mouth more absurd, we’re predicting next few years’ censes will reveal a whole lot more people like this in almost every nabe.

Most Likely to Spike the Cider at an Office Holiday Party: Downtown Brooklyn/Brooklyn Heights/Park Slope
13.6% of residents from the neighborhoods we usually see as the most put-together lays claim to heavy drinking, according to this statistics rundown. Note that there’s a whole separate category this census was solely about identifying as “a heavy drinker,” which means 2 or more drinks per day for men and 1 or more drinks per day for women. Turns out all those stroller-pushing mommies and daddies depend more on their nightcaps than we once thought.

Most Likely to Make Friends with the Marlboro Man: Bensonhurst
Maybe it’s just their mafia roots, but Bensonhurst scored highest in a “heavy smoking” poll. 8.3% of residents claim to enjoy more than 10 cigarettes a day. Gosh, that’s a lot of breaks and a lot of smokers’ corners. We peg them as the likeliest to have all their business meetings in back alleys, and to identify as The Criminals of their respective social groups.

Most Likely to Blackout: Williamsburg/Bushwick
No surprise here, huh? The OG party neighborhoods rep highest in a census about “largest number of drinks consumed on any occasion,” reporting back with over 10,000 residents who have consumed more than 10 drinks in a single night. (BK hoods are the only relevant ones for our purposes, but it’s worth mentioning that Chelsea/Greenwich Village ranked highest of all in this category, with a reported 16,000 champion drinkers.)

Most Likely to Sit at Home Listening to “New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down” on Repeat: Coney Island
Coney Island is officially the sickest and saddest neighborhood, ranking lowest in a 2013 poll about general health and highest in one about diagnosed depression. Ironic, since they’ve got the amusement park.

Thanks, Investigate NYC. How about you, readers? Got any most-likelies for the borough? We’d love to hear ’em—and maybe disagree vehemently, since now we’ve got the cold, hard data to back it up.

3 Comments

  1. Arealperson Magillacutty

    Borough Park is full of Orthodox Jews. The unmarried ones are abstinent. The married ones are “repopulating” after the Holocaust = Yids don’t wear Lids.

    Also New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down is about nyc becoming boring and corporate.. not sure why that’s relevant to sickness/clinical depression

  2. Right, because we’re all mobsters in Bensonhurst. Outright criminals? What asshole transplant wrote this shit? You would never identify another neighborhood as full of criminals.

    By now, I think most Bensonhurst residents are Asian. Maybe Asians smoke a lot.

    Tell me if you’ve ever been to Bensonhurst. God, I can’t stand you assholes who moved here from someplace else and write about what we’re like.

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