So Why Did You Move To Brooklyn?

meredithb

For me, after living in Manhattan and growing up in the suburbs, Brooklyn seemed like a good compromise between the two.

superclam

Meredith, your story is similar to mine. My parents, older brother & sister were all born in Brooklyn, but I was born & raised in Staten Island.
I lived in Manhattan from '95 to '07, when my wife got pregnant with twins & we moved to Greenpoint.

carmen

Wanted to move to "the big city" and couldnt afford Manhattan with my (at the time) nonexistant job.
I moved to nyc overall because...well... NC sucks and I wanted to get as far away, culturally, as possible.

anastasia beaverhausen

I moved in with my ex (in Bay Ridge). At the time, I figured I'd just be here long enough to find a spot in Manhattan. That was 5 years ago. My ex and I split and I chose to stay in Brooklyn. All the cool kids live here anyway.

ntfool

7-8 years ago, my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and I decided to move in together. She was out in Sheepshead Bay, I was on [shudder] Staten Island. The area around the northern end of Prospect Park seemed to be a great middle ground with lots of subway access to Manhattan (both of us worked, at the time, in Midtown). Walked around the immediate surroundings a few times, decided we liked it, and found an apt. That's pretty much it. Have moved once since, from a 1-bedroom at the corner of Eastern & Underhill to a larger apt. on St. Francis Place in Crown Heights. Still love the surrounding neighborhood and ever-burgeoning amenities.

Previously, I was born and raised on LI, went to school upstate and lived in the East Village for a few years after graduation, before moving to [shudder] Staten Island in the late 90's. She's a Navy brat, so has lived in more places than I can keep track of before ending up in Sheepshead Bay with her ex-husband.

opossumqueen

ntfool wrote: 7-8 years ago, my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and I decided to move in together. She was out in Sheepshead Bay, I was on [shudder] Staten Island. The area around the northern end of Prospect Park seemed to be a great middle ground with lots of subway access to Manhattan (both of us worked, at the time, in Midtown). Walked around the immediate surroundings a few times, decided we liked it, and found an apt. That's pretty much it. Have moved once since, from a 1-bedroom at the corner of Eastern & Underhill to a larger apt. on St. Francis Place in Crown Heights. Still love the surrounding neighborhood and ever-burgeoning amenities.

Our first "real" apartment in Brooklyn (and NYC for that matter) was on St. Francis P. It's this tiny street nobody else knows. I loved that little block (other than our landlord--is this you?). Lots of nice neighbors, but when I ventured down to Western Beef, I got non-stop racial threats among other things. It sucked, but at least our neighbors on the block were cool, esp the ones who had lived there forever (generations and such) and had all the gossip.

As for choosing Brooklyn, Prospect Park was the big draw for us and so it remains.

jay b

Because there's all types of gangsta sh!t going on out here.

scarlett

word

ntfool

OpossumQueen wrote: [quote=ntfool]7-8 years ago, my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and I decided to move in together. She was out in Sheepshead Bay, I was on [shudder] Staten Island. The area around the northern end of Prospect Park seemed to be a great middle ground with lots of subway access to Manhattan (both of us worked, at the time, in Midtown). Walked around the immediate surroundings a few times, decided we liked it, and found an apt. That's pretty much it. Have moved once since, from a 1-bedroom at the corner of Eastern & Underhill to a larger apt. on St. Francis Place in Crown Heights. Still love the surrounding neighborhood and ever-burgeoning amenities.

Our first "real" apartment in Brooklyn (and NYC for that matter) was on St. Francis P. It's this tiny street nobody else knows. I loved that little block (other than our landlord--is this you?). Lots of nice neighbors, but when I ventured down to Western Beef, I got non-stop racial threats among other things. It sucked, but at least our neighbors on the block were cool, esp the ones who had lived there forever (generations and such) and had all the gossip.

As for choosing Brooklyn, Prospect Park was the big draw for us and so it remains.

Sorry to be a dolt, but we've been renting our place here on St. Francis for about 4-5 years, and I have no idea where Western Beef is. Are you talking south of Eastern? Because, for whatever reason, I hardly ever venture down that way. Probably because we moved from Prospect Heights, so tend to gravitate back towards what we know when shopping. Fisher's, however, is a great and easy place to pick things up on the way home.

As for St. Francis itself, yup, a great little tree-lined, incredibly friendly brownstone block. Love it here... finally getting to be in the market to buy this summer, and I wish something was available on either this or over on the parallel St. Charles Place more suited to our price range. Lots of old-school Brooklyners here, some of whom were raised in the very brownstones they occupy now as adults. Love that, especially as we had our two-yr old here and are happy to raise her on this block.

Also lots of kids moving in for the last year or so too, which would bother me less if the little idiots would just look up at you and acknowledge when you say hello to them as they walk by! Jesus, that is frustrating. Note to dumb white kids - please adopt some sense of basic politeness or cordiality (as opposed to the unsubtle combination of fear + douchiness I've more often than not experienced thus far) when new in the nieghbohood, so as not to make us old dumb white kids who've been here for nearly a decade look bad.

whatchuwant

Moved here in 1998 for love. That relationship went sour right away (but dragged on for years and years on and off) - found an apt a few months later that I still live in. Love it.

antigone

We moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan (Hell's Kitchen) in 1986 b/c we had a 1 year old son and needed more space. I had heard about Park Slope and it sounded a lot like Hyde Park, the neighborhood where I grew up in Chicago. We lived in a PS co-op for 10 years before trading up to a house in Boerum Hill.

My Brooklyn roots go deeper than that, though. My dad (who died when I was 16) grew up in Brownsville. I didn't even think about that when I moved to Brooklyn but it is an odd coincidence that I ended up in his home borough.

stacey

antigone wrote: before trading up to a house in Boerum Hill.

I was born in Boerum Hill and it was such a great place to grow up. While Prospect Heights has my heart my soul will always belong to BH.

eatwell

Carmen - Chuckled at your post. I sent you a PM.