journalist request: (still) hating on the Slope

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!!

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?

Subject: It's the Real Estate Agents

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?

Subject: Re: journalist request: (still) hating on the Slope

filmlover44 wrote: They hate it because it was always different, even when it only took up a few small square blocks.

I have to agree with this, although I dispute that there's really that much hatred direct this way. (More on that later.)
Since at least the '70s PS was the Berkeley of NY, with space for queers, interracial couples, vegetarians, leftists, musicians and writers, teachers and plumbers. It's was (before the rental market exploded) a place that people lived when they moved away from the segregated Brooklyn nabes of their birth, when they were looking for something different than they had grown up with (I get this particular impression from the PSFC members in their 50s-60s-70s who were raised from Gravesend to the Bronx)
So then the market closed up somewhere in the last fifteen-ten years, and many of those awesome rebels could no way afford it here, had to move or didn't arrive in the first place. Although some bought cheap when they could, and remain. Often blissfully unaffected by the Hate phenom, or by the investment bankers that pour millions into real estate and gut rehabs that are the focus of a different kind of *hate* direct this way.

But the whole hating thing is an exaggeration -- do you think if you stood on street corners around NYC and polled people "what do you hate?" and "what neighborhood do you hate?" you'd get that much Park Slope?
(hey . . . that would be a fun thing to do for a trashy weekly magazine...)
People *hate* the president, war, or broccoli.
Park Slope...I doubt it.

So....I think the *Hating* of Park Slope is a largely opportunistic print media stoked fire, and I'd include in that category plenty of articles by journalistically lazy and lame opportunistic people who live here and love it and manage to write books and articles and blogs that irritate with their trite hack writing.
I don't know anything about you lynn, so only take that personally if it applies. Your mention of how the Time Out article got out of your control and how you love it here made me want to speak to that particular bit.

I love Park Slope. I "hate" *smart mom*, but she's just one writer and doesn't represent all that PS is to me. When I was in my 20's I guess I hated the Upper East Side, because to me it was a caricature of wealth, surrounded by virtual dorms of robots who aspired to that wealth. Is that the kind of thing people are supposed to be hating on the slope for now, but with a minor greenwash on the bugaboos?

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.

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.

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.

Subject: Re: journalist request: (still) hating on the Slope

pitu wrote: [quote=filmlover44]They hate it because it was always different, even when it only took up a few small square blocks.

I have to agree with this, although I dispute that there's really that much hatred direct this way. (More on that later.)
Since at least the '70s PS was the Berkeley of NY, with space for queers, interracial couples, vegetarians, leftists, musicians and writers, teachers and plumbers. It's was (before the rental market exploded) a place that people lived when they moved away from the segregated Brooklyn nabes of their birth, when they were looking for something different than they had grown up with (I get this particular impression from the PSFC members in their 50s-60s-70s who were raised from Gravesend to the Bronx)
So then the market closed up somewhere in the last fifteen-ten years, and many of those awesome rebels could no way afford it here, had to move or didn't arrive in the first place. Although some bought cheap when they could, and remain. Often blissfully unaffected by the Hate phenom, or by the investment bankers that pour millions into real estate and gut rehabs that are the focus of a different kind of *hate* direct this way.

But the whole hating thing is an exaggeration -- do you think if you stood on street corners around NYC and polled people "what do you hate?" and "what neighborhood do you hate?" you'd get that much Park Slope?
(hey . . . that would be a fun thing to do for a trashy weekly magazine...)
People *hate* the president, war, or broccoli.
Park Slope...I doubt it.

So....I think the *Hating* of Park Slope is a largely opportunistic print media stoked fire, and I'd include in that category plenty of articles by journalistically lazy and lame opportunistic people who live here and love it and manage to write books and articles and blogs that irritate with their trite hack writing.
I don't know anything about you lynn, so only take that personally if it applies. Your mention of how the Time Out article got out of your control and how you love it here made me want to speak to that particular bit.

I love Park Slope. I "hate" *smart mom*, but she's just one writer and doesn't represent all that PS is to me. When I was in my 20's I guess I hated the Upper East Side, because to me it was a caricature of wealth, surrounded by virtual dorms of robots who aspired to that wealth. Is that the kind of thing people are supposed to be hating on the slope for now, but with a minor greenwash on the bugaboos?
I think Pitu hit it right on the nail. A lot of the hating is journalistic laziness.
For example, one person [Louise Crawford] starts a blog that gets some interest. Someone googling PS and trying to find a neighborhood voice gets her while doing research for a story. She's talked to and quoted. The story gets picked up, and is now available on numerous databases and of course Google. And the circle continues, with added snark [yes from this writer too] and the semi-professionals at websites like Gawker and Gothamist, plus those freelancers pitching for New York, Time Out, etc. etc. It's one big circle.
There's one writer named Mooney who works for the NY Times whose livlihood seems to come out of working up articles from blog posts [with and sometimes without] attribution for the Old Gray Lady.
I enjoy my life here in PS. It has almost everything I need, and it's almost too easy to get to work and play from here.

Subject: Re: journalist request: (still) hating on the Slope

lynncorinne wrote: Hi all,
I'm the writer who wrote the Time Out New York Kids article last spring about why people hate Park Slope.

I didn't read "the article" or know that "people hate Park Slope."

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.

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.

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 wrote: [quote=WTGirl]No offense, but you guys are delusional if you think that Park Slope doesn't represent something that is hated.

I disagree, the entire hate PS thing has a very manufactured feel to me. Remember the silly rant about North Brooklyn vs South Brooklyn? Hipsters don't like baby carriages except when they do. There's the meat of your story.

All I am saying, is I don't live in the slope and I hear derisive comments all the time about the slope: eye-rolling, derisive laughter, scorn etc. (Just go on the neighborhood list serves and read the fear that the slope is spreading over here like an infection or something). I don't believe it is manufactured--I think the journalists capitalize and exaggerate something that is there and it isn't a very interesting story because it is filled with stereotypes and archetypes. Whatever the real story is, it could be interesting but that would take some thoughtful writing. The same old tired story though is a waste of time.

WTGirl wrote: ... it isn't a very interesting story because it is filled with stereotypes and archetypes. [...] The same old tired story though is a waste of time.

That I can agree with.