I'm not a hater of all neighborhoods frequented by a certain income-strata or liberal political mindset. I love the Village. I love (and used to live in) Brooklyn Heights. I can even get behind the Upper West Side at times. But I just do not get the appeal of Park Slope.
Park Slope is an example of a strange kind of social ponzi scheme. The neighborhood has no intrinsic value - no decent trains (unless you're up by Flatbush), no real character, overpriced amenities - its only value for people is derived from having other, similar, people give it value. $2,250 for a one bedroom on 4th ave & 19th street (which is not really even Park Slope) to live by a local train that takes 45 minutes to get to Midtown? Pay half as much to live by the 36th street stop, where you can actually grab a decent meal for 5 bucks and have an express train.
Even though this was the first part of New York I visited in my adult life, and I have done my fair share of schlepping around the neighborhood, I can't really come up with much new to say about it. And anyway, this neighborhood is probably the blogged about, meta-online-analyzed place in the United States. Read what other people have to say about it. The only reason I'm writing this up is to knock off another dozen tracts. I'm leaving off the tracts north of Union which is an area that doesn't really apply to this post.
Neighborhoods: Park Slope. Tracts Walked: 133, 135, 137, 139, 141, 149, 151, 153, 155, 157, 165, 167
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Park Slope
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If you believe the value of a neighborhood is how quickly you can leave it to get to Midtown (the armpit of New York City) then I don't care how much of NYC you have walked or what you think about the neighborhoods therein.
ReplyDeleteOoh, my first negative comment. Adequate public transportation is one of the things that add value to a neighborhood for me, and most New Yorkers. I don't disagree with you about Midtown, but that's a separate post. Think of it as 40 minutes to Union Square if you like, or an hour and a half to Forest Hills.
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