Thursday, September 6, 2012
Alek Wek: One of the Beautiful People
Posted by Kristin Iversen on Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 12:27 PM
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Wek is one of nine children and comes from a family with a strong scholarly ethic, so it makes perfect sense that promoting education is something she’s passionate about. Wek is never so animated and proud as when she talks about her large and impressive family, including the nieces who are studying at Cambridge and, especially, her mother. Wek’s mother sounds about as incredible as you’d imagine a woman who escaped a war-torn country and resettled abroad with nine children would be.
Wek says that when she first told her mother, who lives in London, she was moving to Fort Greene, her mother exclaimed, “You’re moving to Brooklyn? Why?!” Back then, Wek explained, “Fort Greene only had one really ‘fancy’ restaurant and there wasn’t the flea market yet, which I love. Now I love going to the Flea and the farmer’s market on Saturdays after I wake up early to walk my fox terrier off-leash in the park. But everyone used to ask me, ‘Why are you moving to Brooklyn?’” Wek laughed remembering this and told us how much she loves it here now, listing some of her favorite places, like the movie theater on Court Street (Cobble Hill Cinemas) and restaurants like the General Greene, Roman’s, Madiba, and Marlow and Sons, where she tried her first oysters.
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About The Author
Kristin Iversen
Kristin Iversen is the Managing Editor at Brooklyn Magazine and the L Magazine. She has been described as "a hipster buzzword made flesh." This seems pretty accurate.
