The Park Slope Blues
Park Slope has everything I want in a neighborhood. Lots of trains, a humongous park, good grocery stores, loads of restaurants and bars, stunning architecture, garbage-free sidewalks, huge trees on skinny streets, even cyclists. So why do I hate every fucking inch of it?
Who am I to complain about yuppies? I drink fancy coffee and read the New Yorker; I despise the dollar stores and nail salons that dot this city. So what if there are "children's clothing boutiques" and doggie daycares and a million other frivolous ventures? I don't exactly take full advantage of the fortune tellers or the Polish bookstores in my own neighborhood. The stroller jockeys are obnoxiously self absorbed, but at least they clean up the sidewalk in front of their house.
I've concluded that I hate Park Slope because it's static. It's come all the way from bombed out slum to hippie haven to rich rich rich, and it has nowhere left to go. No longer a neighborhood in transition, I'm unable to enjoy the unique entity Park-Slope-circa-2008. It's just Park Slope and it will always be that way: a stable demography and a stable streetscape- in other words, dull.
Montgomery Place:




