Brooklyn to remind haters who’s Number 1 with giant statue

What’s the number one borough in all of New York City, the number one city in the entire world? It’s an argument that you could carry on for hours, days even without ever coming to a firm conclusion. Some might say that’s because there’s no actual objective way to measure who’s number one, but soon there will be, after Brooklyn installs an enormous two-story bronze arm with its index finger pointed skyward in a gesture that will remind everyone coming over the Brooklyn Bridge that Brooklyn is Number One. Don’t like it? You can just turn your ass right around and go back to Manhattan.

“Brooklyn’s Number 1 (That Ain’t No Prediction, That’s a Fact Of Life),” our preferred name for the currently nameless statue, is a proposal by artist Hank Willis Thomas that would be installed at the base of the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge at Tillary Street and Adams Street according to the Brooklyn Paper. Beyond being a great distillation of what Brooklyn is (Number 1), the design is also perfect for the even more oversize than usual foam finger industry, as shown by our proposed temporary addition for the statue every baseball season:

Community Board 2 president Robert Perris said that the proposal has gone over well, with the only objections from the board coming from people worried about drivers who would be distracted by a giant bronze finger greeting them on their way into Brooklyn. It’s a fair point, though we would be more worried about huge traffic jams snaking back into Manhattan as haters from around the world, gripped by bloodlust upon realizing that they aren’t Number 1, stop their cars and attack the bronze statue with tire irons, bats, axes and their own inadequate fists and feet in a pitiful attempt to bring Brooklyn’s victory finger down. Beat on the statue all you want, if your borough doesn’t have a giant victory finger pointing skyward at its entrance, then it clearly isn’t Number 1. Q.E.D., motherfucker.

Obviously looking to quell the vitriol and burning hot anger that people not living in Brooklyn would feel once this statue was installed, Willis Thomas took a concilliatory approach when explaining the giant arm with a huge finger pointing upwards towards the Heavens in a bold gesture that’s recognizable in any culture as declaring the greatness of the one doing the pointing, telling the Paper that the statue could also be seen as a symbol of unity, that we’re all one. Which is to say that everyone not living in Brooklyn will be able to unite as one furious entity over the fact that they aren’t Number 1.