By Matthew Lysiak
After my last column, I received a simple, eloquent and to the point piece of mail:
“Take your Yellow Hook yuppie bulls—t back to Pennsylvania,” the hate mail read. “I’ve lived in Bay Ridge my whole life and am sick of you dark-rimmed-glasses-wearing pseudo-intellectuals and your small-town minds.”
The column, if you recall, was about the funereal mood that has covered Bay Ridge, which has seen the deaths of three children since February. In the article, I did mention that I grew up in Pennsylvania, which, apparently, set off my dear reader, who gave only his email address: fu@aol.com.
Of course, the letter writer’s critique was absurd; Yellow Hooker doesn’t wear glasses. And, more important, the writer was under the mistaken belief that I’m some kind of Yuppie newcomer. I may have moved to Bay Ridge at night, but I didn’t move last night.
But the missive writer did hit onto one important trend: The Yuppies are coming, the Yuppies are coming. And they have a few demands. They’re attracted to Bay Ridge because of the prices, but they have no interest in letting Bay Ridge be Bay Ridge.
What they’d prefer, actually, is Park Slope — but they can’t afford the rents there, so they come here.
“I moved to Bay Ridge because renting in the Slope is prohibitively expensive,” said Rachel Chaput. For the most part, she’s been happy. But, still…
“Bay Ridge’s infrastructure is lacking,” said Chaput, who still does her shopping at the Park Slope Food Co-op, that bastion of organic shopping, once-a-month shifts and vaguely Utopian aspirations.
“Enlightened, community-friendly businesses like you find in Park Slope, with an emphasis on natural and organic food and leisure are missing in Bay Ridge.”
That wasn’t all this Sloper wanted to change about the Ridge.
“We don’t have a preschool co-op in Bay Ridge,” said Chaput. “They have several in Park Slope.”
There goes the neighborhood — and here come the 3-year-olds in their Misfits T-shirts.
The most recent example of the Slopization can be found at the new trendy Third Avenue and 81st Street kids clothing store “Hip Squeak” — with its angry monkey logo shirts for $59.99 — which will most likely be standing long after Bay Ridge’s cherished centurion churches are reduced to rubble.
Exhibit B: A mother, out to breakfast with her small children on Easter morning at the Bridgeview Diner on Third Avenue, needed to change a dirty diaper — which she proceded to do on a chair in full view of the breakfast crowd (euphemistically speaking, let’s just say the diaper wasn’t merely wet). Eggs Benedict anyone?
Just as Park Slope was once filled with bridge-hoppers from Gaphattan looking for more bang for the buck, Bay Ridge is filling up with Slopers being seduced by the lower cost of living here.
“Everyone is making the move from Park Slope to Bay Ridge,” said 36-year veteran real-estate broker Lewis Volakos of Three Star Realty. “It is no great secret why: Park Slope is far more expensive while Bay Ridge is a better place to live.”
But who would ever want to leave Park Slope, which is the hippest, coolest, happiest place in the whole world, right?
“Bay Ridge is actually a much nicer area,” Volakos continued. “The houses are spaced out more and it is right next to the water.”
Ridgites may have to accept the concept of Slopization as part of our reality, because as the number of Slopers increase, the merchants looking for their money are sure to follow.
Once it was Tony Manero walking down the street while eating two slices pressed together. Now, it’s a guy pushing an $800 stroller while listening to Life in a Blender on his iPod.
Where will it all end? In Dyker Heights, of course.
“Bay Ridge real estate is now going up,” said Volakos. “So some people [from Bay Ridge] are moving into Dyker Heights.”
The Bay-Ridging of Dyker? That is a lot to grasp, especially for this pseudo-intellectual small-town mind.
The Kitchen Sink
Community Board 11’s District Manager Howard Feuer is having back surgery, a source told The Stoop. Everyone wants Feuer to get well soon, but there is a silver lining to his health cloud: “At least the golf course will get a breather from that mad swing of his,” our source said. …
We love Cebu on Third Avenue and 88th Street, especially for the French toast brunch special, so we were disappointed to learn that they had to close shop for a few days to fix the damage done by a water main break. …
More restaurant woes: Amelia Ristorante on Third Avenue and 83rd Street has been “seized by the landlord,” according to a sign in the window. Thankfully, we can still find homemade ravioli at Gino’s on Fifth Avenue and 74th Street. …
Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer may be a freshman legislator, but she has some power. “Wow, that lady really knows how to throw,” said one Little Leaguer at last Saturday’s opening ceremony of the 68th Precinct Council baseball league. …
Councilman Vince Gentile took exception to our headline two weeks ago linking him to Bruce Ratner. “I am a big fan of the Yellow Hooker,” he said after reading the recent column about his efforts to save the Green Church. “But let me make one thing clear, I would never try to pull a Ratner.” Then he followed up with an e-mail: “I just got a call saying, ‘Bless you for all you’ve done to try to save the Green Church.’ I wonder if Bruce Ratner gets those calls?”
No comments:
Post a Comment