The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 100 to 91
Some of us might blame Betty Smith for the literally thousands of “A ___ Grows in Brooklyn” headlines that have cursed the Fifth Estate nigh on these 50 years; and while, yes, that particular construction is deeply irritating, it’s unfair to blame her lovely tale of a Williamsburg childhood for the sins of headline writers. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a lovely, bittersweet book, immensely popular in its day, and is perhaps more valuable to us now as a time capsule of Brooklyn at the beginning of the last century, than it is as a literary masterwork.