Brooklyn Timeline: Brooklyn Heights
1970s and Onward: Was It Only Yuppies?
No! A thousand times no. Well, maybe a hundred times no. But still. No. I guess my point is that Brooklyn Heights definitely has a reputation as being pretty much always yuppified, full of the kind of bourgeois people who fail to be, well, interesting. I mean, I’m sure their mothers find them interesting, but for our purposes? They’re not that interesting. Anyway, as with any Brooklyn neighborhood, there actually was some diversity. Maybe not so much as in other parts of the borough, but it was there. And a good place to start learning about it is to check out Nancy Rommelmann’s “The Queens of Montague Street.” Rommelmann writes about what it was like to grow up in the Heights in the 70s, and it wasn’t all popped-collar polo shirts. (Side note: that was the 80s, duh.) These are some of the guys she knew back then, “There was Chavo, a scrawny cat with pointy teeth who was reputed to do heroin; the first time I saw a gun, it was sitting on the cardboard box he used for a table in the room he rented half a block from my mom’s house. Dave borrowed my bicycle one afternoon, and later told me that Chavo had been riding it and had been hit by a bus; that the bike was totaled. I was 15, and didn’t want to think a guy I still pined for had let a junkie sell my bike. I started seeing E., who fell into days-long silent funks and flew into rages and who, one sunny afternoon, kicked me in the face and gave me two black eyes.”
So, who’s a yuppie now? Well, many people who currently live in Brooklyn Heights, that’s who. Not like there’s anything wrong with that. But there is a lot of history there as well. And it’s important to remember all that history before totally writing off a neighborhood as being nothing more than where rich Brooklynites send their kids to private schools or where Lena Dunham just bought a co-op. Not every neighborhood can have as much diversity—either historical or contemporary—as Brighton Beach or East New York or Greenpoint. But Brooklyn Heights is still one of the oldest settled areas in the borough, and one with a rich past. Literally. It has a rich past. Lots of wealth here. I mean, Cliff and Claire Huxtable settled down to raise their family on Cranberry Street. It’s a magical place!
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