[lynncorinne]

Hi all,
I'm the writer who wrote the Time Out New York Kids article last spring about why people hate Park Slope. (I wrote the penultimate draft of the article, anyway; it got edited rather beyond recognition -- without my OK -- and wound up snarky, which was not my goal.)

Anyway, humbly/-ed, I'm back, now writing a similar, but more in-depth article on the same topic for New York Magazine (interesting, as they've fueled some of the hate themselves). The difference will be that this one will focus not just on WHAT people say they hate about PS, but also WHY the hate seems to have become a meme of its own. Why PS and not other gentrified, Bugaboozled parts of Manhattan? Why has Park Slope become shorthand for all that is evil and twee? Why is the hate so virulent -- WHERE (beyond anonymous blog posts) is it coming from? Envy? Rage against the suburbanization of all of NYC, with PS as ground zero? Simple cooler-than-thou-ness? Something else?

As a 14-year resident who loves it here (even married to a local!), I have my theories, but I'm curious to hear yours, *no matter what* your feelings about the Slope (or the "new" Slope, etc.). Interested in speaking to haters, lovers puzzled/rankled by the hate, anyone in between. Feel free to post here, obvie, but I'd like to follow up by email or phone, so you can also PM me or email me directly at lynn@lynnharris.net.
Many thanks.
lynn

[Mamacita]

I love Park Slope, and have since I first visited in '93.
People like to complain and bitch. Especially anonymously, like on a message board.
Here in PS, I'm close to everywhere I want to be. One ride away from Manhattan, and a nice walk in all directions to some of the best neighborhoods: PH, Carol Gardens, Sunset, Ballfields, Ft Green, Prospect Park, Mooney's, the heights and of course Monteros

PS.. had dinner at Al Di La last week and that sage butter is to die for!!

[sweet tea]

love that Mooney's and the Ballfields are "neighborhoods" to you, mama.
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Bumping ancient threads with bot-like bullshit

[LongTimeSloper]

To whom has park Slope become shorthand for all that is evil? is this a joke?

I mean, I have lived here for 21 years now and though, I have complaints about things and changes here that I am not pleased with, all in all, I still love Park Slope and couldn't imagine living anywhere else in the city (and, I have lived in Queens, Manhattan and out on LI).

so, why would we want to participate in a Park Slope bashing article?

[filmlover44]

They hate it because it was always different, even when it only took up a few small square blocks.
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Ok, now I'm crazy. Another goal achieved.

[lynncorinne]

As I said in my post, I love the Slope. Have been here 14 years; married a native, even. I actually jumped at the chance to take this assignment because I feel I can be more than fair to the Slope -- as most other such articles are not; I'm here posting so I can include the opinions of as many Slopers as possible -- as most other such articles do not. As for evidence of this hate, that's not my hypothesis; look on this blog, Gawker, Curbed, pretty much anywhere. (And believe me, it's not hard to find people to rant about the SLope, fairly or not.) The piece is not about why people should hate the Slope, goodness no. It's exploring the phenomenology at work: WHY SlopeHate has become such a thing unto itself. If you don't care to comment, or haven't experienced such a thing, that's more than fine. But I know it's out there, and I just wanted to make sure to open the topic up to as many SLope (or near-Slope) voices as possible. Thanks very much to those of you who have commented or emailed thus far!
Best regards, lynn

[triebensee]

It's obvious. They hate us because we have our own opera company: www.bropera.org
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www.hellgateharmonie.com

[bradedward]

Well, I think it's important to point out that people that don't necessarily live in Park Slope are the one's carrying the so-called "hate". I wouldn't be surprised if the "haters" had never actually been to the area. Also, every neighborhood in New York City has those who openly attack it. This story should be more broad and not only include the neighborhood the author happens to have lived in for 14 years.

Asking what is the driving force behind the "idea" to hate Park Slope is like asking why people are racist on Craigslist or why Republicans hate Hillary Clinton but can't explain why. Maybe a better question to ask is how only a few people (or maybe even one) might be able to set a wildfire of posts and comments on blogs that give the appearance of this "idea" you are speaking of. It would be quite empowering if it worked. But hey, who would want that kind power, right?

Did you think the Union Hall stroller ban was real? It was a marketing ploy by Park Slope real estate agents. All press is good press.

Lynn, are you a power tripper? Or a broker?

[LongTimeSloper]

[pitu]

[lynncorinne]

As I said in my post, I'd love to hear from Slope-lovers who are puzzled / rankled by the hate (or, as the case may be, haven't experienced it at all, and simply want to rhapsodize). By all means. If anyone has those $0.02 (or more!) to add, by all means; please comment here or PM me. Thanks!

[WTGirl]

The people who hate Park Slope chose to leave Park slope (or were priced out by the influx of Manhattanites). I think asking for contributions from a list serve that serves Park Slope residents is not going to get you much of an article. Why would you stay in an area you hate? Post in WT or Kensington and I think you will get an earful about privilege, self-absorption, indulgent parents, hypocrisy, political correct to the ridiculous degree. Not saying the above is true, just seems to be what I hear over here and nobody is jealous and wants to move back. In fact the fear is that the slope attitude is encroaching here. Whatever that exactly is.

I don't hate Park Slope....I just cannot relate to it anymore (although I like to do my banking there and get my cell phone plans adjusted). I don't live on the Upper East side either because, although it is pretty, just not my kind of people. It is the classic battle of old and new. I am someone who preferred the old and would have kept my coop if I had still loved the neighborhood. So now the new are taking over, and that is fine...there are other neighborhoods: maybe not visually as pretty but from my experience a sense of community that the slope is losing.

[booklaw]

I reluctantly left Manhattan and moved to the Slope 32 years ago, to find enough affordable room for a small family. It was the best and smartest thing I ever did (and I cannot take credit for it... it was my wife's idea!).

In 1976 the Slope was funky... few if any fancy stores, still fewer fancy people. Lots of young former hippies (as we were), lesbians and interracial couples. It was an extremely charming neighborhood, and a wonderful place to raise little kids. Most of our friends today were folks we met in a babysitting cooperative... no one could afford to pay babysitters, so we bartered... we babysat for each others' kids.

5th Avenue was too funky... too many addicts, who broke into houses and cars all over the slope, looking for something to sell to score their next fix.

Over the years, the Slope has become a much tonier neighborhood, with much tonier people. More Land Rovers, Audis, BMWs and $1000 baby strollers, fewer social workers and schoolteachers. It's lost some of the funk that made it so special.

Lest I sound like a "hater", I love it here. I always have. As much as I miss the funk and the diversity, I enjoy the increasing value of my home and the greater feeling of security... I no longer have to worry about my car windows being bashed in (it used to be a frequent occurrence).

And yes... I admit it... I like having Starbucks and Barnes & Noble just a few blocks away!

[belzjm]

the thing about park slope is that the funky/gay/artistic young people are still moving here. i'm at least two of those three.

i've managed to buy something small in park slope because i love it so much and want to make a home here. i have a number of friends who have done the same.

they aren't the ones in the 3 million dollar brownstones, but we're still here.

you just have to look a little harder than you used to.

i have yet to live in a neighborhood with the sense of community that i have found in park slope.

i don't agree that it's lost that. i think, like everything it has simply changed.

[sweet tea]

as a funky, young, gay, artistic type who doesn't live in the slope, i think that part of the issue is having to hear about how perfectly wacky the slope is from people who are not themselves wacky, but have moved here because it is a status symbol. i can handle not living in the cool neighborhood, but it irks me to hear about how cool it is from people who are not cool, just more wealthy.

i certainly don't mean to imply that no one is funky, etc., in PS anymore. but i can certainly think of people i know who talk a lot about how special PS is as if they have some kind of special insight i lack, when what they really have is investment banker husbands.

that said, i don't "hate" the slope. that's so gawker.
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Bumping ancient threads with bot-like bullshit

[Slopehead]

I'm sorry, but the very premise of these articles is total crap. It's like push-polling, troll-baiting, and instigating all wrapped up in one! There is no "hatred" of Park Slope - do you honestly think people in other parts of the city sit around muttering about how they just HATE Park Slope?? About how this would be a perfect city if we could just get rid of freaking Park Slope?!? I'm sure this kind of tripe sells papers and blog hits, but it's not even a remote reality in my opinion.

[doctorj]

I used to hate the slope, but that was before riff-raff like myself moved away and more refined types arrived and cleaned the place up. Nowadays, it's quite respectable.
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The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. -- Abraham Lincoln

[dw438]

[WTGirl]

[raw]

[Livetotravel]

I've lived here for 13 years and still think it's Nirvana - after living in all four corners of Manhattan.

I mourn the loss of Mom & Pop stores on 7th and celebrate the renaissance on 5th.

And, there are certainly more people in my immediate neighborhood who I would not break bread with - i.e. arbitragers, Wall Street bankers, brokers, etc, who have driven the price of whole brownstones through the stratosphere - but they have also improved those buildings, so that PS still remains an enviable outdoor museum.

And the influx of young wanna-be hipsters is more the fodder of ridicule than hate.

And hating parents with 2.3 kids and side-side strollers is soooooooooo yesterday - and they too are beyond hate, pity maybe, but hate, no.

I believe that PS is more misunderstood and envied than hated - it's just that so many people who are posting are poorly educated (not uneducated, poorly educated) and inarticulate and are unable to express their feeling adequately in writing.
_________________
But that's impossible.

http://unratedunfiltered.com/

[belzjm]

i wouldn't want to live anywhere else for all the money in the world. how nice to be able to say that about where you live. i feel lucky.

if loving your neighborhood that much means being hated, i'll suffer.

[shishkab]

[doldrums]

it's really self-hate isn't it because those who complain and live in ditmas/carroll gardens/cobble hill/kensington/ft green are exactly similar to the slopers but for their geography. I have friends in all of these neighborhoods and cannot tell the difference between any of them. Accordingly, it's merely a way to express self hate because you usually are bothered more by traits in people that you dislke in yourself.

[raw]

Here's a good reason to hate Park Slope. The price of rent is so outrageously high that the great businesses that attract people here in the first place can't afford to stay in the neighborhood. Here's a recent example:

http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.p.....e817b3a1d3d070b7a4120a358
_________________
I blame such comments on beer.
© karlthedruid 2007

[WTGirl]

No offense, but you guys are delusional if you think that Park Slope doesn't represent something that is hated. What that is.....I am not 100% sure. I stated my theory above why I don't want to live in the slope. But why is it hated? I don't know.....what is it about Bill and Hillary that makes people have a visceral hatred. It isn't just journalistc laziness though. People rag on the slope ALL the time: hipsters rag on the strollers, firefighters rag on the wealth, conservatives rag on the hipocrisy, people like me rag on the nazi-mammas.

[bluecat]

[WTGirl]

[daver]

[bluecat]

[bluecat]

[sweet tea]

[daver]

[LongTimeSloper]

Ah-I feel the love! LOL

But,again, truly, with all my complaints, i love it here-always have!

[MattyV]

The reason Park Slope seems to get singled out over other nabes is because of silly articles like yours. They reinforce stereotypes under the guise of examining them.

The story just sounds like tired re-tread, but people are going to eat it up. Good luck.

[doldrums]

When somebody attacks Brooklyn, all these neighborhoods band together and attack back. Why , because basically these Brooklynites are pretty much the same people with the same attitudes and ways of life. PS is a convenient way for people in other Brooklyn neighborhoods to express their self hate and aim it at an agreed upon target.

[belzjm]

i can't believe someone said they hated park slope because cocotte closed.

that place was mediocre, at best.

went once. never again.

[Garfunky]

I thought it might be worthwhile to read op's article.
too bad links on time out all come up error 404

i did , however, find what i thought was a well thought out response to this article written by local Nancy McDermott on spiked.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/printable/3532/

several quotes in particular sum things up nicely,

that’s what makes it feel like there is something more subtle at work than lazy journalism or a crass critique of local parenting culture. It feels angry. It feels personal, and in much the same way that neighbours fight and family members drive each other crazy, it is.

As for attacks on Park Slope: perhaps the question is not what’s wrong with parents there but how have we got to the point where the minutiae of their personal lives can be elevated to the level of a moral crusade?

Nancy McDermott is a writer and a parent living in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

[daver]

[bluecat]

[Slope4-35Yrs]

In my long-term view, Park Slope was at its ideal before 1980 when it really was laid back and diverse when other parts of the country really weren't: bus drivers, legal aid lawyers, librarians, artists, teachers and bankers all hung out on stoops and talked to neighbors passing by. But, there were only a few restaurants back then too. People would sit around saying, What we need is a good bookstore/bakery/chinese restaurant...and soon one would open.
A smart friend once told me that Park Slope was described by Marge Piercy, the writer, as a place where old radicals from the 60s went. (btw, I've looked for but never found the quote, so it could be bogus). It certainly felt true.
Once people - Wall St types - starting moving in, primarily because they could get better rents/real estate deals than in Manhattan, things started getting sharper, more ugly.
I still love Park Slope in all its expanding borders (a woman couldn't go safely south of 3rd St or west of 7th Avenue back then and there were frequent gang dust-ups at Union and 5th) but hate what money has done to it. Nothing except realtors and banks are left on 7th Ave.
I am so sick of hedge fund scum moving in and immediately gutting their new "investments." Every summer my quality of life is ruined by some nearby construction project only inches from my outdoor space, kicking up noise and toxic fumes.
But where people "hate" us, it's become we - like Berkeley and the Upper West Side - are the ultimate Liberals, with a capital L, and "Liberal" has been a dirty word. When there is a spirited foodfight over a kid's hat (that makes the Times) we flesh out that stereotype. And then the media move in. By the way, the poster who pointed out the circular aspect of the media and "experts" is absolutely correct! Also, it's a MSM thing to point out the foibles of Liberals or to imagine conflict where none exists.
Finally, as much as I dislike what the Slope has become, I still love living here among the beautiful architecture, near the great cultural institutions and the park, and, yes, even the smarty-pants people. Until the time Atlantic Yards starts backing traffic up to my block, I'm staying put.

[daver]

[LittleRedMenace]

As someone who lives in Crown Heights, I sometimes hear some smack talking about the Slope. It mainly involves the same tired talk about a-hole parents and tripping over strollers.

I like Park Slope. I do a lot of my business there and work in the neighborhood about once or twice a week. There are quite a few restaurants that I enjoy and I really love Community Bookstore. I even belong to a book club there. Admittedly, I'd consider living there if I could afford it. I'm not going to lie.

That being said, I also really like Crown Heights. Although sometimes I feel like I'd take tripping over strollers over trash on the sidewalk any day.

[Frank Lloyd Wrong]

What people are really talking about when they say, "I hate park slope" is that they don't like a few people they know who live there, or met there, or had a bad experience there. Hell, I was hit by a motorcycle in Naples, and I can't stand the place because it's indelibly linked to a bad memory. Doesn't mean Naples is a horrible place.

The bottom line is, Park Slope has an enduring, eclectic population and an incredible conglomeration of personalities. Some of them a person is going to be compatible with, some of them, not so much. I find it ironic that the neighborhood is assigned so many contradictory stereotypes. This should be a sign that perhaps stereotypes aren't applicable here. Gay, straight, single, married, rich, poor, unemployed, 1 baby, 2 babies, trust fund baby... they're all in Park Slope at different corners. Not everyone you meet in life you're going to want to share a meal with. It is is the same with Park Slope.

People should look deeper into this complex community before they make judgements.

[LongTimeSloper]