Welcome to Brooktopia

Hey everyone. Welcome aboard, grab a bagel and a cream soda, take a seat on your stoop and come reminisce with me about the good old days of Brooklyn. Or, if you're new to this borough, like so many Brooklynites are these days, take a look from the POV of a kid who grew up one of the most utopian, peaceful, mutli-ethnic and inviting neighborhoods in the whole of New York City (in my biased opinion) Ditmas Park!

Never heard of it? Well, it's wedged right between Flatbush and Kensington, about a mile south of Prospect Park. It's also known as Victorian Flatbush, because of the beautiful and spacious three-story houses with triangular shingled roofs and wraparound porches, way back in the late 1800's in was a blueprint for the very first suburban community in the country, of course, before suburbia went sprawling out into a bland, sprawling picket-fence purgatory.

It's a neighborhood where there isn't much concern about leaving the front door unlocked for a few hours, where children play on their front lawns with sprinklers spraying, where the trees outnumber the cars, and people smile and wave from the street. Then again, walk two blocks and you find yourself surrounded by section eight housing, unsurprising populated by minority families, black and hispanic in throw-back jerseys, hanging out on the sidewalk, eyeing the more affluent as they march head-down from the subway station to their safe, green blocks.

It's a neighborhood of the Q train, quite proudly at that, even though there seem to be far, far too many stops between us and Park Slope, the closest Big Brooklyn satalite 'hood, and obviously one that others recognize much more easily by name. Where many of us go to shop, run errands and have dinner and drinks out on the town. Such as the frustrating " stops within 4 blocks" of Cortelyou, Beverley and Church (rd. rd. & ave, respectively.) Why this is necessary, I will never know, but I'm sure to always give myself a solid 45 minutes from my front door to my Island destination (note: in Brooktopia, Manhattan will here and always be referred to as The Island) more than 30 on the trains seems to be what divides "accessible" Brooklyn from the rest of the rapidly developing 'hoods

But the need to leave the neighborhood for a social venue all seems to be changing in Ditmas Park, particularly on the thoroughfare of Cortelyou rd. For most of my childhood, it was the destination for the neighborhood grocery. (Associated. Medicore selection, but there in a pinch.) Of course, the bodegas, who silently agreed to stop IDing me for beer around 19 years old. The local pizza shop San Remo, which was the lifeblood of every kid at the elementary school P.S. 139 (and then again for many years after) and the deli shop/bakeries. Providers of the obligatory bacon/egg/cheese breakfast to go I was dependant on for too long, before I starting taking a healthier, though more caffinated approach to breakfast.

Then came The Cornerstone. A no-frills neighborhood dive which dared to establish itself in the midst of a family neighborhood claiming up the corner outside of the Cortelyou rd. train station, thinking it would draw many a long-time-riding passenger out for a quick beer before home. The blocked path construction work didn't help business. Neither did the unsavory crowd, kerosene stove, and generally bleak atmosphere.

But two more pioneers soon put our quaint little 'hood on the map, first being an NY Times restaurant review darling, named (quite aptly) Picket Fence, a friendly, small and often packed haven for comfort food, treating it's customers to bowls of popcorn instead of baskets of bread. But even more daring and proud in it's mission and cause was Vox Pop, Ditmas Park's new home for Coffee, Books, and Democracy.

A coffee shop! How in the world did we survive this long without one? Brooklyn is quite unapologetically proud of the fact that we've kept Starbucks to a bare minimum here (two in the Slope, though. HAH!) and instead, has opened it's arms with full-throated glee to a place of community and thought-provocation, a place that welcomes all points of view from a neighborhood that welcomes all walks of life, and people of every nation and heritage of the world. the 2000 census proclaimed the Cortelyou neighborhood as the most ethnically diverse in America. How about that?

I guess once the 2010 census comes around, we'll see if we can maintain the title. With once secular Jewish family on our block (us) one White Christian family, an Albanian family, an African American family, a Jamaican family, a Cambodian family, a Latino family, and I'm sure many more I just haven't met yet, I'm guessing it will stay as such.

Then again... I;ve been seeing more and more young, white faces strollin up and down my block. I, sitting on my soft porch-chair, computer in my lap, and wary eye on them, almost tempted to jump up and shout: "You there! Where are you from, and what brought you here!" More young people introducing themselves at the stained wood counter ordering the same coffee drink.

With rent prices spreading higher on proximity to The Island, Perhaps 45 minutes to the city has started to seem like an okay deal.