Brooklyn would not be what it is today without the contributions of the untold numbers of people who came here to create art, write novels, publish magazines, promote businesses, and build their lives. These are the people who have helped construct the Brooklyn we know today, the architects of our present and our future. Here they tell us what this crazy place we all call home means to them. First, we’ll hear from our own founders, Scott and Daniel Stedman.
Scott and Daniel Stedman, Founders of The L Magazine and Northside Media Group
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here to NYC?
We were basically kids, just out of college when we came to Brooklyn. It was the magnet that was calling creative types from all over the world. Manhattan was the former epicenter, and all at once, everyone with a dream moved to Brooklyn, and it become the incubator for all of the great artists and makers that have made it the cultural epicenter that it is today. Now people all over the world dream of making it in Brooklyn.
What does it mean now?
The intensity is a bit diffused with all the attention, and the cost of living, but it’s still there. There’s more talent in Brooklyn today than there has ever been. It’s still a great place for young dreamers and a great place for people who have succeeded. It’s a little tougher for people in between.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
The L Magazine was first conceived on a walk from Yabby’s on Bedford Ave back to the loft above a chicken processing plant where Scott was living. Other old haunts were Bar Between the Bridges in Dumbo, where many early L Mag meetings were held. Also Lillie’s in Red Hook is a good old one, near where Danny first lived. You couldn’t get in or out without a sweet kiss right on the smacker from Lillie.
What’s one place now?
The spirit of Brooklyn is as alive now as it ever was, and in fact, it’s even stronger, but it’s harder and harder to find the good old haunts where longshoremen sit mid-day to drink boilermakers. We moved our offices from Dumbo to Downtown Brooklyn, and the current favorite is Dining Room (famous for the peanut butter burger) and Harry O’s. They are a really good place to crack an egg into a glass of whiskey. And now every neighborhood has its own hot spot – they change almost every day.
Gavin McInnes, Co-Founder of Vice Media
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Kokies, duh. What’s more “Old New York” than a bar that sells cocaine? You’d drink these tiny Budweisers and navigate past Puerto Ricans dancing the plena to get to the secret “bump room” in the back. It was like being at the bar in Star Wars.
What’s one place now?
I love Nitehawk. The fries are perfect, the movies are great, and Joe the bartender is always playing some amazing song I’ve never heard before.
What has Brooklyn meant to you since in your time living here?
The Williamsburg metamorphosis from junkie to Disney has been fascinating to watch. The purists may hate it but I’m lucky in that it’s perfectly mirrored my own life. Brooklyn is the American dream.
Arnold Lehman
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here to NYC?
It was 1997. Brooklyn to me was extraordinary, a melting pot of cultures and languages and ages and what I saw as the beginning of a very vibrant community.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I may be bias but I think the Brooklyn Museum Community has been and always will be. It’s always been so special to me.
Brooklyn has meant a very special and very rewarding home for me and my family. Brooklyn has gotten even more diverse. It has become younger and more collaborative. Its become an ever more exciting place to live and work.
Chelsea Leyland
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here?
Brooklyn felt like a place that I could actually breath in, an escape from the crazyness. A realistic place to live….a place that felt a little more like somewhere I would want to call home it had an energy that felt a lot more similar to where I grew up in in London.
What does it mean now?
Now it means home…somewhere that I feel safe to walk around in my pajamas in. Somewhere where everyone cares if the cow they are eating was fed grass or not. And its still my escape from Manhattan. A place that lowers my heart rate rather then rase it haha.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Hotel Delmano
What’s one place now?
The canal in Greenpoint/the running track in Macaran Park
What has Brooklyn meant to you?
Brooklyn has allowed me to live a healthier life, that sounds dramatic but i feel that it has a totally different energy to Manhattan and once i moved here it changed the way I felt physically and mentally. Its a place where everyone is making their own chocolate and body scrubs and that itself stands for everything yummy that I love in the world.
Skye Parrott, Photographer
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here to NYC?
I came to Brooklyn to go to high school, so at that time it represented growing up, taking the subway by myself, breaking away from who I was as a kid and getting to pick who I wanted to be. So much of my identity started to take form here – since then it’s always felt like home.
What does it mean now?
Brooklyn still feels like New York to me. There are places here where you still can experience the friction caused by many different kinds of people living in close proximity, which gives off that energy that’s always made New York such a exciting and creative place.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
UTB – what used to be called Under the Bridge, which was just a kind of empty concrete landscape where kids would go to hang out and get up to no good. Now it’s called Dumbo.
What’s one place now?
I don’t know what could be more the apex of Brooklyn these days than the Brooklyn Flea in Ft Greene on a Saturday afternoon.
John Biggs, TechCrunch
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first moved here?
I rented my first apartment in Brooklyn in the summer of 1998 in Prospect Heights, and at the time it was the culmination of a 6 year exodus to get out of Baton Rouge and back to my parents’ home town and a place where I could finally be at home.Now, 17 years after sharing my first two bedroom apartment with an old college friend (and sharing several subsequent two bedroom apartments with a motley cast of characters) it’s hard to imagine living anywhere else.What does it mean now?So many people talk and write about Brooklyn as an aesthetic, or a state of mind. And maybe that’s one face of what “Brooklyn” is — but to me, Brooklyn just means community. It’s the community of strivers, strugglers and entrepreneurs in the arts, business, and civic life (homegrown or hailing from anytown else), who are looking to make themselves, and their home, something incredible.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
When I lost my first job as a reporter, after 9/11, I used to spend too much money and too much time sitting in Dumont (now, tragically, closed), failing to write the great American novel, and unsuccessfully flirting with a series of waitresses who were cooler than me. And when I got my next job — working overnight for a cable news channel — I’d spend my off hours in Union Pool, drinking at what was, perhaps, the greatest bar I’d ever had the pleasure of spending too much money in.
What’s one place now?
Herbert Von King Park on any weekend in the summer.
Jack O’Connor, Stylist
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
My wife and I moved to Hicks and Love Lane in Brooklyn Heights in late 2007. We had been living near Union Square before that. Living in Brooklyn meant we actually got to know the people around us. In the city, everything felt anonymous.
What does it mean now?
Now we have a five-year-old son and an eight-month-old daughter. So we’re pretty different people than we were eight years ago. Though that same idea of living in a neighborhood where people are familiar still means a lot.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Jack the Horse Tavern was on our street. We were in there all the time.
What’s one place that really represents Brooklyn now?
After Adam Yauch passed away a few years ago, they renamed the Palmetto Park in Willowtown after him. He was always someone I looked up to and admired. The dedication ceremony was small and quite moving. That place will always mean something special.
Marty Markowitz, Former Brooklyn Borough President
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
I was born here. Brooklyn was always the world to me as a child as well as as an adult. When I grew up it was Brooklyn and the rest of the country and it still is. When we grew up, everything was Brooklyn. The only thing we didn’t have was Broadway. But we had the Brooklyn Dodgers, which Manhattan didn’t have.
What does it mean to you now?
After serving BK for 35 years, Brooklyn is experiencing a full renaissance. In its time, similar to the 1950s, Brooklyn reached the zenith and now we’re back to people celebrating all things Brooklyn. People all over the world are fantasizing what life is like in Brooklyn.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
The great kosher delicatessens. Unfortunately, now we’re down to two, but back in the day, that’s how it was defined. And Brooklyn pizza. And Junior’s. Juniors was then and Junior’s is now.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
I like that Brooklyn is far more diverse. Not that it wasn’t then, but it’s far more diverse now. We represent many countries. Places reflect that international tone. And the Brooklyn Nets. Hopefully the Islanders too.
I grew up in total poverty, and it gave me the opportunity to become a little something and to make a contribution. It gave me a decent life and I think that experience is reflected with many others in the borough. It gave me a chance and a chance with flare and personality. You can live your life in Brooklyn and live it the way you want to live it. Almost anything goes here. We don’t make judgements.
Alan Fishman, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, BAM
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
I was born here so it meant everything!
What does it mean to you now?
Now it means a wonderful set of communities where people of all sorts are coming together.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I grew up across from the Botanic Gardens. It was my magic place when I was a little boy.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
Today, given my role at BAM, I would have to say the BAMcampus.
Shane Smith, CEO and Founder of Vice Media
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
When we first moved in 2000, it was the wild west. We had just gone bankrupt (nearly) and 555 Soul gave us free warehouse space in their office on North 4th Street. It was just as Williamsburg was beginning to blow up and the vibe was astonishingly good. It was the center of the universe in those days. The best art, music and people were coming out of here.
What does it mean now?
Now I think it’s evolving. What was once so rough and tumble is becoming the best neighborhood for the creative class in New York City. What once was an outpost now has not only the best music and cultural spots but the best restaurants, hotels and even architecture. Hell, there are even parks!
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Two places: Checks Cashed, which was a bar in an old check cashing kiosk. These teenage kids would play punk music and sell $1 beers right on the river. I remember thinking, “This is what the world aspires to. Berlin, London, Tokyo–they all want this, and it can only happen here.” So, Checks Cashed and Kokies. Because a place that sells coke called Kokies… I mean….
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
Hotel Delmano. Best bar in NYC.
Ben Greenman, Writer
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
It was a place to live. It was twenty years ago. That sounds like the beginning of a fairytale, and maybe it is. My younger brother was just graduating college, and I was living on the Upper West Side, renting a weird studio with a Murphy bed and excessively fancy appliances. The toaster spoke five languages. My brother had heard that Park Slope was a good neighborhood to move to, so we shared a fourth-floor apartment on 7th Avenue between 1st and 2nd Streets. I was actually a kind of place-holder, keeping the room for a friend of his who was working in Russia. We had rooms that seemed spacious then. We had a pizza place and a newsstand within steps of our downstairs door. That first year, the guy who owned the newsstand was killed by some thieves driving in from East New York. Later that first year, my brother’s friend came back from Russia and I moved up to 8th Avenue and 4th Street. And then to President, and then to 5th Street, and then to Berkeley. Now all you hear is people talking about real estate. Then, the addresses were mostly only just words and numbers on a map. It was a place to live.
What does it mean now?
Now it’s roughly half my life, and more than half of many things in my life: my friendships with other authors, my friendships with other people who aren’t authors, my entire existence as a married man, my kids’ friends, my kids—maybe I should switch that order—every storefront that has changed and every one that hasn’t, moving from the phase where you feel new and unmoored to the phase where you anchor yourself in your own neighborhood to the phase where you feel confident about walking any petal on the borough’s compass rose, whether west (through Gowanus, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Red Hook) or southwest (through Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, and Fort Hamilton) or south (through Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Midwood, Sheepshead Bay, and Brighton Beach) or southeast (from Prospect Park to Marine Park, with stops at Lefferts Gardens and East Flatbush and Flatlands). I guess along the way Brooklyn’s acquired some sort of reputation for hipster cool. I try not to pay that much mind.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
When I first arrived, I was a little discombobulated. Right near my apartment, there was a place called Ben’s Pizza. That was (is?) my name. Foolishly, that made me feel comfortable.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
I’d have to say the Barclay’s Center, if for no other reason that we all saw it go up. There was political debate. There was apprehension. But one day, there it was. I go by it almost every day, and it’s nice to feel that there’s a playoff team (infrequently) or a pop star or a circus in the vicinity.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
It would be easier to say what it hasn’t meant. Which is this: ”
Tucker Reed, President of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
To me, Brooklyn was the perfect combination of the kinetic energy of the capital of the world with the relaxed pace of neighborhoods and community. That balance is difficult to find, but I looked for it and found it here. History also played a big role. The ghosts of the greatness that came before us, both at a societal level for all the innovation birthed in this borough over the centuries, and for my family personally as my grandparents were either born here or established a toehold here upon which they built a life.
What does it mean now?
HOME.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I lived above the Brooklyn Social Club on Smith Street for 5 years in the mid-naughties. Place was my living room and often my last stop before bed, either alone or with the company a young man in his 20s keeps.
What’s one place that represents now?
Now I’m obsessed with the Brooklyn Cultural District. From Barclays Center to the Theater For a New Audience to that age old stalwart BAM. There is no better place, no more Brooklyn a place, to spend a free night.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
I believe F. Scott Fitzgerald once described NYC as having “all the effervescence of the birth of the sun.” In Brooklyn, I came to know this truth.
Jonathan Butler, Co-Founder of Brooklyn Flea, Smorgasburg, Brownstoner.
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
Adventure! I was a life-long Manhattanite when I moved to the South 4th Street in 2003. As you might imagine, the South Side of Williamsburg was quite a bit different 12 years ago!
What does it mean now?
Everything! My entire personal and professional lives are rooted in Brooklyn. Living here now doesn’t feel quite as adventurous as it did back then, but it never gets boring.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Diner, no question. We rented our first apartment from the owners of Diner and it became our home away from home for those first couple of years.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
Telling me to choose between the Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg is like asking a parent to pick a favorite child but, if I have to pick one, I would say my heart still lies with the original Brooklyn Flea location in Fort Greene, the place where it all began.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
Brooklyn’s been the place where I have been able to be involved in building communities, whether that’s been online with Brownstoner, in public spaces with The Flea and Smorg or the built environment with 1000 Dean and Berg’n.
Eric Demby, Co-Founder of Smorgasburg and Brooklyn Flea
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
The first time, in 1995, I was getting away from Avenue C, where the charm of junkie parks and rats had faded for me after graduating college, and Court Street across from Cobble Hill Cinema felt like Shangri-La: mellow, old-fashioned, even sweet-smelling now and then. The second time, after 9/11 in 2001, it was to escape the crazy-making feeling of Manhattan at that time, and a brownstone in Fort Greene helped level me, provide some sense of calm.
What does it mean now?
Now it’s just life itself. Family (kids and siblings), school, work, friends, food, shopping, everything. But it’s also still that feeling of respite, and a reward after 25 years of making the biggest city feel manageable, even intimate.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I used to take the 2/3 from my NYU dorm to the Botanic Garden when I was in school in the early ‘90s and smoke pot and write tortured journal entries (sorry BBG—busted!) near that little brook in the back. So Brooklyn was bright yellow sun and bright green grass, believe it or not.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
I really do love the Fort Greene Flea, but since Jonathan covered that I’ll say Prospect Park. It’s changed so much and is such an asset to so many—barbecues in every nook, soccer, cricket, the awesome new Natural Playground, Drummer’s Grove, the Lakeside sprinkler scene, Celebrate Brooklyn, and on and on. Every time we go as a family we end up in some random fun social situation that reminds me, weirdly, of why I moved to New York in the first place in 1990.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
Aside from the given of my wonderful family starting and living here, it’s been this feeling of constant, almost magical replenishment of people and places that inspire and motivate. That’s my New York addiction, and looking back, I feel like working for Marty Markowitz and then starting the Flea and Smorgasburg, it’s so fulfilling to feel like you can have an impact in such a gigantic chaotic place. Seeing the community of makers and entrepreneurs that’s sprung from the markets is also a daily warm fuzzy.
Brian Tate, Marketing Strategist and Co-Founder of Brooklyn New Music Festival
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
When I first considered relocating from DC to New York City, I visited Harlem over and over and it felt good. Then, just as I was about to make my move, a friend asked if I wanted to drive up to NYC and stay a few days at her girlfriend’s place in Brooklyn. I did and boom, that was it. I still remember my first stroll up Flatbush Ave, all the shops and vitality, and then into Prospect Park, walking beside so many diverse people beneath all those gorgeous trees. Brooklyn spelled paradise to me. Love at first sight and I never looked back.
What does it mean now?
The future and the past in one incredible package. I’m a marketing strategist, and marketing Brooklyn became a big part of my work. But more than anything it means home.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Prospect Park was pretty irresistible.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
Green-Wood Cemetery is phenomenal. So much history and storytelling, fully alive in a completely Brooklyn way.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
Family, music, arts, friends, work, life. Brooklyn is where the cycle began again, and it keeps spiraling up.
Rebecca Minkoff, Fashion Designer
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
Brooklyn meant more space and the ability to raise my family in a homier setting. I was tired of my son’s playground being a sidewalk.
What does it mean now?
Brooklyn is home. It’s where I’m raising my family and creating memories.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
The Brooklyn Bridge.
What’s one place now?
The view of the Brooklyn bridge from my apartment window, especially at night—absolutely stunning!
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
Brooklyn is my escape—I love going home and spending time with my family. I’m definitely a homebody.
Todd P, Concert Promoter
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
When I moved here (’00–’01), I didn’t know Brooklyn outside of the Honeymooners and Spike Lee movies and the Beastie Boys. My ignorant vision of the borough was a combination of a sense that it was sleepy and boring in that it was where people’s grandmas lived, plus terrifying in a monumental urban decay, post-apocalyptic wasteland stereotype. I was surprised when, first night in town, I walked down Kent and Milton Streets in Greenpoint with all the pristine red brick churches and classy stoops, and stumbled upon places like The Garden and Enid’s. It wasn’t at all what I expected.
That said, I’ve always lived in Queens.
What does it mean now?
Brooklyn now is the reigning cultural capital of the Western world, as well as ground zero for heartbreaking inequity, real estate disenfranchisement, the squeezing of the middle, working, and lower classes, a showcase of hyperextended mutated self-centered leisure class artisanal horseshit. And at the same time, it remains a place where, more than anywhere else in the world, you can meet, communicate with, and collaborate with brilliant hustlers in all walks of art and culture and business — people making things happen and exploiting whatever Achille’s heels they can find to subvert or make a mark on the monoculture.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Sweetwater on North 6th St, back when it was a piss-soaked punk dive frequented by lifer alcoholics/Crass roadcrew veterans/Unsane bandmembers/CBGB door workers, etc. was my first introduction to “scene” in Brooklyn, followed soon afterwards by the very different, super “psych”-oriented crowd on the rooftop at the original Mighty Robot space on Wythe. On display in both spots were very specific communities of music obsessives, and the particular sensibilities of neither spot corresponded exactly to any subcultures I’d experienced outside of New York.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
There’s a hole in the ground on Bedford Ave where they’re finally putting in that Whole Foods and the Apple Store. Also every $400/night boutique hotel lobby.
On a more uplifting angle, spaces are opening that intend to be more than playgrounds for privileged people, mixing in smart tastes across more diverse backgrounds, and devoting real time and energy to hosting programming with immediate community value beyond entertainment.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
There’s nowhere else I could stand to work or spend most of my time than New York City. I’d be bored anywhere else, and Brooklyn is the nexus of what’s happening in New York right now.
Eric Adams, Brooklyn Borough President
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
I was born in Brownsville and moved back here after growing up in southeast Queens. Because of that, Brooklyn has always meant home.
What does it mean now?
Brooklyn has changed a great deal since my youth, or even since my days wearing a bulletproof vest and standing on street corners to protect our borough’s children and families. We are a worldwide brand that symbolizes cool and chic, and that is no accident. Our brand is our people, their resilience and can-do spirit.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
In my days serving in the NYPD, my old haunt was Two Steps Down in Fort Greene.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
Prospect Park is the melting pot of the melting pot that is Brooklyn. Every kind of Brooklynite finds their own little space for some recreation or relaxation on a nice summer day. It represents so many aspects of what it means to be a Brooklynite, to enjoy a safe place for young people to learn and grow.
What has Brooklyn meant to you since in your time living here?
Diversity. We are a diver-city. 47 percent of Brooklynites speak a language other than English at home. That is an incredible statistic that translates into an incredible wealth of experiences and perspectives packed into America’s fourth-largest city.
Ric Leichtung, Founder of AdHocFM
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
Before coming here from San Francisco, my high school History teacher who’d lived in New York in the ’70s gave me a couple words of advice: “Don’t make eye contact with anyone on the train and don’t go into Brooklyn. It’s just not worth it.” And that was the attitude I had for a long time until I actually came to New York and realized I couldn’t get into any Manhattan music venues since I was under 21.
What does it mean now?
The borough’s seen a lot of change in the past 10 years I’ve been here, but despite that, I’d say Brooklyn is the place that feels like home. I love it here.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I used to work the door at this place called Uncle Paulie’s, located at the end of a sewage treatment plant. It was a plot of land owned by the mob, but I guess you could say it was a restaurant, even though they didn’t really have anything on the menu. It felt like a tent since the structure consisted of a few 2x4s and blue canvas for walls. You could smell the sewage coming in from the outside but we were having so much fun that we didn’t even notice.
Here’s a picture of reference: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atestofwill/375307555/
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
The Silent Barn. There’s an overwhelming sense of community and goodwill there, and you can feel it right when you enter the room. You’re surrounded by all these incredibly creative people all working towards a common goal and achieving it together– it’s an incredibly encouraging place to be, and that’s hard to find.
Sean Rembold, Chef at Reynard
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
I moved to Brooklyn in the mid 90s and initially it was because it was more affordable and friendly. The fact that folks actually said hello to each other on the street made me feel a little less homesick having moved up here from Louisville.
What does it mean now?
At this point I’ve lived in Brooklyn for 20 years. I met my wife at Marlow & Sons one New Year’s Eve. We’re now raising our daughter here and despite the higher rents, we consider ourselves lucky to rub elbows with the creative, hardworking, and hilarious extended family we have here.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came here?
While this may sound like a shill, Diner was (and is) the package deal. It wrote the script in terms of hiring a staff that were not just some subservient pack of individuals who acted nice to your face while secretly despising you. Instead, they made you want to be them or at least get to know them as they turned you on to killer (loud) music and humble, yet delicious food.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
I worked with John Clement, the owner of Clem’s at a bar in lower Manhattan when I was nineteen years old. I kind of couldn’t believe it when this bar opened up with his name and he was actually the owner. Though not as vintage as spots like the L Cafe, Verb or Turkey’s Nest, Clem’s has managed to still allow you a no-bullshit experience in Williamsburg for which I’m extremely grateful.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
Being able to walk, bike or jog to work is a luxury in life. Getting to cook for the customers we get to cook for with the staff I get to work with at the restaurants has been icing on the cake.
Danny Simmons, Artist, Chairman of Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
Moving to Brooklyn from Queens in many ways was like growing up. Brooklyn had a sense of adventure and freshness. The multitudes of cultures I was exposed to on a daily basis was heady. It was a learning curve about arts and culture that I wouldn’t have experienced in the more residential communities I frequented in Queens. While Queens was familiar and safe, Brooklyn was chock full of gritty adventures. Brooklyn was my door to greater and more varied horizons.
What does it mean to you now?
Over the years Brooklyn has changed greatly. While the arts that seemed so integral to the rhythm of life in the the borough flourished, so did the amount of people who moved here to be tangential to that creativity. Instead of artists, we have arts institutions finding a home here. The borough has lost much of its authentic and grassroots appeal. As with many communities that artists once called home, gentrification wasn’t far behind. What was natural and organic creativity becomes contrived and considered. Like Manhattan, Brooklyn has become a great place to take in cultural activities, but not so great anymore for cultural creators. Artists and other lower income residents, for the most part, are struggling to maintain affordable living space. Brooklyn has become a series of communities for the well-heeled.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
The most exciting thing back in the day was the Sunday drummer’s circle in Prospect Park. The West Indian Day Parade before it was cleaned up was a whole week of revelry that blew my mind. And there was an underground dance club in a basement of a warehouse in Fort Greene called Browns Guest House. You got there at 4am and left at 2pm. Lastly, Brooklyn’s grittier version of the legendary Paradise Garage.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
There is really no one place in Brooklyn for me now that defines what the borough means to me. If I had to choose a few, I’d say BAM, the Brooklyn Museum, the 40+ year-old Dorsey Gallery in Flatbush, Skylight Gallery at Bed-Stuy Restoration, and, of course, my 20-year-old Corridor Gallery. Brooklyn is now more defined by its long-standing institutions.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
Brooklyn has meant a place to explore great friendships great culture and finding my artistic self.
Steve Hindy, Co-Founder of Brooklyn Brewery
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
My first trip to New York City was in 1957. I was eight years old and came with my mother and grandmother for the Billy Graham Crusades (a Christian Evangelist event) at Madison Square Garden. Mom and Grandma got saved seven nights in a row. I fell asleep each night. We went to the last Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbett’s Field. New York, and Brooklyn in particular, fascinated me, and I vowed to get to the great city someday. I was impressed by the shady brownstone neighborhoods around Ebbett’s Field. I later encountered Brooklyn people during college. They seemed more worldly than most of us. Street smart. In 1984, I returned from a six-year stint in the Middle East for The Associated Press, and bought a two-bedroom co-op apartment on 8th Street in Park Slope. When I started Brooklyn Brewery two years later, I knew the beer brand had to have a Brooklyn identity. Some people, even life-long Brooklynites, questioned naming the beer Brooklyn. “Brooklyn doesn’t have such a great image,” they said. It was true that crime was out of control in Brooklyn and the borough was sometimes the butt of jokes. But I believed in Brooklyn–the Brooklyn that brought Jackie Robinson to Major League Baseball, inspired filmmakers like Spike Lee, and gave birth to thousands of incredible people like Mae West, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and, well, Mike Tyson.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn when you first moved here?
The brewery’s first site was in Bushwick, where crime was rampant and truck drivers refused to deliver after dark. We moved to a rundown industrial neighborhood of Williamsburg in 1990. Rent was cheap and there was a burgeoning art community. Artists hung out at Teddy’s Bar, one of the first to feature Brooklyn Lager. We opened the brewery doors on Friday nights. We were lucky to get a couple dozen people, and most were relatives of brewery workers. A few years later, the L Magazine appeared in the shops on Bedford Avenue. Wow. Williamsburg had its own magazine. Eventually, more bars and restaurants opened. Music clubs moved to the area as young residents occupied the old industrial loft spaces. Eventually, the developers came and built new apartment towers. Today, Williamsburg is one of the hottest culinary and nightlife destinations in New York City. The Brooklyn Brewery draws 3,000-4,000 visitors every year–all we can handle. And our Brooklyn Lager is now sold in 25 states and more than 25 countries around the world. I think we proved the Brooklyn-doubters wrong.
Ben Pundole, Hotelier
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first came here?
I first moved to Brooklyn in 2000. To Smith Street before it was strollerville, but only for a year, and then again to Williamsburg, in 2008, which is where I am now. It meant space and community, creativity and a more relaxed attitude.
What does it mean now?
Now it means home, real home. This is where I live, where my friends are, where my family is. It means creativity, experimentation, comfort and hedonism all rolled into one. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else in the world.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to visit?
Prospect Park! As you run or cycle around the track in the summer, each community and culture is represented depending on location: The drum circle, the preppy boys playing frisbee or hacky sack, the Jamaicans playing football, the Indians playing cricket, the Euros and South Americans playing soccer, the BBQs. I love it. It’s still my favorite place in New York.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
The performance theater, street fairs and raves in Bushwick.
Andrew Tarlow, Restaurateur
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
Brooklyn originally meant a sense of freedom and expanse for me. It was like the Wild West, and a bit deserted on South Side.
What does it mean now?
Now, it means family and community.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
The L Café.
What’s one place now?
Hopefully my restaurants, especially Diner!
Jake Dobkin, Publisher of Gothamist
What did Brooklyn mean to you when you first moved here?
I arrived here a few days after being born at Albert Einstein Hospital in the Bronx back in 1976. Our apartment was on Pacific Street, and I remember thinking that the block really seemed primed for some good gentrification, what with the beautiful brownstones and Jonathan Lethem living across the street.
What does it mean now?
Brooklyn is my whole world, with my family and friends and work all here. I feel lucky to get to share it with my kids, and I hope my descendents stay here until the borough disappears under the waves.
What’s one place that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I liked the lemon ices and tri-color cookies at Monteleone Bakery on Court Street then, and I like them now.
What’s one place that represents Brooklyn now?
I also get ices at Uncle Louie G’s many fine locations in Park Slope.
What has Brooklyn meant to you in your time living here?
You know how Dracula has to travel with Transylvanian soil in his coffin otherwise he dries up and dies? Kind of like that — I take Brooklyn with me everywhere I go.
Wes Jackson, Founder of Brooklyn Bodega and Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first moved here?
It was the center of cultural energy when I came back to New York after college.
Biggie, Jay, Yasiin Bey, Kweli were bubbling up or running the game. It was the place to be.
What does it mean now?
As strong as ever. More energy. More people. We just need to make sure we maintain its diversity because that is where the energy comes from.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
Southpaw on 5th Ave. It was the only venue dedicated to bringing quality Hip-Hop.
What’s one place now?
Habana Outpost on Fulton. Mix of hipsters, familes and the HBCU crowd. Real Brooklyn. Good food. Good beats.
What has Brooklyn meant to you since in your time living here?
It’s where I have laid roots. Hot married. Had kids and are raising my kids. Built my business.
It’s The Planet like Guru said.
Pete Shapiro, Owner of Brooklyn Bowl
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first moved here?
We started work on Bklyn Bowl in 2007 and back then the Wythe Hotel looked like Herman Munster’s home. I miss that.
What does it mean now?
Brooklyn means creativity.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
North Six (which later became Music Hall of Williamsburg)
What’s one place now?
Wythe Hotel
What has Brooklyn meant to you since in your time living here?
Brooklyn (Bowl) has changed my life so it will always be with me, and I feel lucky to bring “”Brooklyn”” to places like Las Vegas and London (where Brooklyn Bowl venues exist). Its a lot of responsibility to carry that name into far off geographic locations….but we’re doing our best to represent strong!!!
Adrian Grenier, Actor
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here?
It meant a place that I could afford in order to be a creative person. But this was 20 years ago, I’m afraid it’s not as affordable today. I think it’s partly my fault.
What does it mean now?
It’s still my home, my heart and as far as I’m concerned, the envy of manhattan.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
It would be Main Drag music. We were in there every other day, getting amps fixed, trading in guitars, cultivating the rock scene in Brooklyn.
What’s one place now?
It’s hard to say with the onslaught of gentrification; there’s so many great restaurants and cool scenes. But now that I’m in Clinton hill, I’ll have to give a shout out to Speedy Romeo, one of my neighborhood favorite restaurants.
What has Brooklyn meant to you?
Brooklyn has been a source of pride and has given me an escape and respite from the constant intensity of the city.
Kurt Andersen, Writer, Radio Host
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first moved here?
Not much. 25 years ago, it was not a “”brand,”” not remotely groovy. I had visited from Manhattan exactly twice. But it was a pleasant, low-rise, greenish place in the city, not the suburbs, where my wife and I could afford enough space for the two daughters we suddenly had. (We both grew up in the midwest, so we were also after what our friend and fellow midwesterner Bud Trillin always said about bringing up his two daughters in New York: he wanted them to feel, “”despite all the evidence to the contrary, that they were being being raised in Kansas City.””)
What does it mean now?
The place I’ve spent most of my adult life, which became bourgeois right along with me. And where my children have decided to live. Therefore: home.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
The Van Westerhout Cittadini social club on Court Street in Carroll Gardens, whose membership was limited to immigrants from Pozzallo, a town on the southern coast of Sicily.
What’s one place now?
Brooklyn Social on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, a pleasant bar meant to evoke Italian social clubs, whose clientele consists of newcomers more or less like me.
Adam Green, Musician
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first moved here?
My idea of Brooklyn growing up was that it was a bunch of old brownstones and cigar shops. I’d been hanging out in the East Village since I was pretty young. I was happy in the East Village. Then one day my friend told me that Williamsburg was the new East Village, so I moved there!
What does it mean now?
That’s an interesting question. Brooklyn in one sense is a moon of Manhattan. Some people have more of a settler mentality and they want to populate the moon. I think there is an otherness to what goes on in Brooklyn, people are allowed to develop sort of experimental communities because they live inside “”small towns.”” Look at what’s going on in Red Hook, it’s crazy! Also people go out to some parts of Brooklyn cuz it’s cheaper. Still there are the bridges connecting everywhere and people are aware that from the bridge they can see the Statue of Liberty, they can see the Empire State building, etc… So I guess there’s a sense that we’re all in New York City together.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I guess Kellogg’s Diner was where I met some of my first Brooklyn friends. I was always eating breakfast there and I’d notice the same people eating there day after day. We started talking, it was like Kindergarten when you just walk up to a kid playing with blocks and you become friends. The food was pretty shitty though, but I enjoyed it.
What’s one place now?
The Artist and Craftsman store on Graham Avenue and Metropolitan. I love that place! If they go out of business I will be seriously depressed cuz then there will be no art store in Williamsburg.
What has Brooklyn meant to you since in your time living here?
When I first moved here there were these great parties at a place called Rubulad and a strange coke-bar called Kokies – I guess it made the neighborhood seem sort of wild. But although I lived in Williamsburg during this 2001 time that people romanticize, I think I honestly didn’t realize that there was so much going on. I had a few friends who lived along Metropolitan Avenue and we would hang out at each other’s houses and play music and go to Kellogg’s diner. I guess everyone had their own little world in Brooklyn, but that was mine.
Oh Land (Nanna Fabricius), Musician
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first moved here?
To me, coming from Copenhagen, it meant a more affordable place to stay and big loft like spaces we could use for art and music.
What does it mean now?
The same except a lot more expensive and a lot more coffee shops (-:
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
When I first came it must have been the silver diner on north3rd! And Brooklyn bowl.
What’s one place now?
Nitehawk cinema. Is probably the one place I love the most in my neighborhood.
What has Brooklyn meant to you since in your time living here?
A village in the middle of New York! So close to the hustle and bustle of Manhattan and still quite sleepy and a lot easier to concentrate creatively.
Jen Mankins, Owner of Bird
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here?
When I moved to Brooklyn from Texas in 1999 (I had already sworn off Manhattan after a summer internship and a tiny shared 1BR furnished apartment went wrong) I was looking for a place to call home that had an edge and felt new and exciting, but still had big sky and trees and a bit of quiet. I wanted the bright lights of the big city, but also needed to be able to slow down and hear birds sing.
What does it mean now?
I still love the slower pace and community feel of Brooklyn. I have lived and worked in many Brooklyn neighborhoods and the diversity of people and the sense of wonder and possibility never ceases to amaze me. And I still start every morning hearing the birds chirping.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
I have always adored Prospect Park and I really feel it is the heart of Brooklyn. The park is used by so many different people for so many different activities (from morning runs to evening concerts in the summer) and to me represents all the things I love about Brooklyn in general: a respite of trees and sky in the middle of a crazy big city.
What’s one place now?
I currently live a dual Brooklyn life split between work in the never resting, always changing Williamsburg and home in slow, sleepy residential Ditmas Park. I love the duality and thrive on having both in my daily life. One of my favorite places that remains unchanged and has been the center of my Brooklyn for over a decade is Diner in Williamsburg. It is always filled with interesting people enjoying amazing food and sums up so much of what I know and love about this city.
What has Brooklyn meant to you?
Brooklyn has been my education, my home, my family and my friends for over 16 years. It has shaped and informed me in every conceivable manner and I can’t imagine living anywhere else in the world.
Tom Fruin, Artist
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here to NYC?
When I moved here in ’96, Dumbo seemed like a no mans land where anything was possible. It was crazier, it was desolate, it was untamed. Of course there have always been families and communities, but industrial parts seemed more raw; the perfect setting for all night raves, people on horses, impromptu DJs on waterfronts, people burning the plastic off copper wires to recycle them. It was crazy.
What does it mean now?
It’s a safe clean alternative to manhattan just a couple of subway stops away.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
In Dumbo, the Superfine girls ran a grilled cheese joint out of the back of a bridge workers bar called Between the Bridges. Now they’ve got a full on restaurant in a neighboring building, called Superfine.
What’s one place now?
Brooklyn Bridge Park represents the new Brooklyn. It’s another former industrial off limits zone converted to a park, marina, sports and arts destination.
What has Brooklyn meant to you?
Brooklyn has been a creative workspace, both inside it’s buildings and in the streets themselves.
Athena Calderone, Interior Designer
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here?
I moved to DUMBO in my early 20’s – everyone thought I was crazy to move to bk in 98’ but we felt proud to discover something new and be on the forefront of an undiscovered neighborhood. It was equal parts magical and desolate. The now brooklyn bridge park was a dirt parking lot that housed massive mack trucks – to us there was an obvious sense that DUMBO would explode with the dramatic bridges and cobblestone streets. Was the best move we ever made.
What does it mean now?
I still fall in love with Brooklyn every day. When the light turns to that swoony midnight blue and the lights of NYC twinkle beyond, you could feel the old world charm and beauty – still gets me. I also feel like Brooklyn has been the catalyst that inspired my culinary journey. The boom of Brooklyn cuisine cracked open this idea of new flavors and textures and more than anything local, seasonal eating. I feel proud to have been there from the beginning to have experienced how food defined Brooklyn and ultimately guided my path and consciousness surrounding food. And i still think there is more room to grow – particularly in DUMBO where we still struggle to find the restaurants that essentially every other Brooklyn neighborhood had found.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
hummmm – well the Dumbo Arts Festival was incredible when we first moved here – all of the now condo buildings were still true artist studios back then and the creativity and art was just palpable. For restaurants? – we went to the original Superfine and frequented Grimaldi’s for pizza quite often.
What’s one place now?
Now we go to places like Frannys and Roberta’s who have obviously majorly upped the pizza game! And I suppose the Brooklyn Smorgasburg has defined Brooklyn.
What has Brooklyn meant to you?
Everything. Every major milestone in my life. The first home I ever owned, getting married, having a child, discovering my love of design and architecture and establishing my interior design business (I have owned and renovated over 7 apartments over the 17 years i have lived here) and finally developing eye-swoon.com – and my discovery and experimentation with food, cooking and entertaining. Brooklyn has very much shaped every aspect of my life.
Mikhail Prokhorov, Owner of the Brooklyn Nets
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here?
It was at the beginning of the 1990’s and I went to Brighton Beach, a pilgrimage every Russian must make! The way people spoke, the shops, the smell of home cooking – reminded me of the Russia of my childhood. It felt very familiar.
What does it mean now?
It’s the capital of cool. There’s a hipster vibe, but also something electric and gritty, fueled by the mix of people from all over the world. Also, for me, of course, it’s the home of the Brooklyn Nets.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to visit?
I remember being taken to the Rasputin Club. It was super kitschy – just like something out of a movie, totally stereotypical. But I have to admit I had a great time!
What’s one place now?
Barclays Center for sure.
What has Brooklyn meant to you since in your time knowing and loving Brooklyn?
For me, it’s a symbol of great adventure and opportunity. I will be forever grateful to Brooklynites for the way they have welcomed me and my team into their fold.
David Macklovitch, Chromeo
What did Brooklyn mean to you, when you first came here?
I moved to NY in 2002 and I hadn’t spent much time in Brooklyn yet. So the main things I associate with it were what I could gather from the music I listened to growing up in Montreal: Biggie, Jay, Bootcamp Click, M.O.P… Spike Lee movies too, obviously. Marcy, Flatbush, Crown Heights…I knew these names by heart but they represented something totally abstract to me.
What does it mean now?
There’s no place I’d rather live.
What’s one place (bar, park, restaurant, grocery store, anything) that really represented Brooklyn back when you first came to town?
In the late 90s I would spend time in the summer at my friend (the rapper Ill Bill)’s apartment in Staritt City. You’d have to take the L all the way to Rockaway Parkway and then a 5 dollar gypsy cab. Bill and his crew really took me under their wing and when I moved to NY a few years later, their Brooklyn—Staritt and all the Canarsie spots they’d take me to—is what represented the borough to me.
What’s one place now?
I now live in Williamsburg, a long way from the Canarsie projects. But when I first started exploring the area in the early 2000s, someone took me to Diner on Broadway and Berry. That restaurant was the first of its kind in the neighborhood and, I would say, in the city as a whole. A real trailblazing spot. Still one of my fave places to eat to this day, so it deserves a shout!
Favorite Brooklyn story?
I don’t know if I have a favorite Brooklyn story but I have a BK story that I’m the most proud of: that of Fool’s Gold Records, the company I own with my brother A-Trak and two other friends. A-Trak moved to NY in 2006 and a year later, he decided to found an indie record label. A couple of years after that came the storefront on Grand and then the events, the biggest of which the Day Off festival on Labor Day. I’m so grateful that we were able to make our mark in a borough, a community, a neighborhood that we only knew at first through song lyrics…and that we can now call home.
