Escape From Brooklyn

[dc_denizen]

Escape From Brooklyn

It was 7:30 p.m. and I was struggling to get my 2-year-old and my 4-year-old into bed. Techno music pounded directly below their bedroom, rattling the floorboards. I bounded downstairs, and after a heated exchange with the neighbor, who refused to turn down the music, I returned to our apartment. I put on my best “It’s O.K.” smile and announced a slumber party on the pullout couch in the living room, where a rhythmic pulse could still be felt, but eventually be ignored by children overcome with sleep.

There are many reasons my wife, Doreen Bucher, and I ultimately decided to leave Brooklyn — lack of space, access to good schools, greenery for the children — but when I look back, this was the moment, even if I didn’t know it then, that made the move, perhaps, inevitable.

In early 2013 there was a now-infamous article in The New York Times that referred to Hastings as “Hipsturbia,” about creative types moving there from Brooklyn. But the reality is Hastings, like every other suburb I’ve seen, is not hip. In some sense hipness is inextricably tied to urbanity and coolness with a certain aloofness. By contrast, the environment here simply seems friendlier. I chatted with our mayor at a party; the clerk at the mom-and-pop pharmacy smiles at me; my children lit up when we bumped into their babysitter in the stands at the high school football game. As a 41-year-old that’s cool to me.

But I recognize not everyone, including plenty of parents, wants that vibe. The city was a place I had called home in various neighborhoods and boroughs for nearly 20 years. Part of the lure was the anonymity it allows. And though New York no longer vibrates for me with the energy it did in my youth, it is still, of course, a dynamic place.

For some people, to be immersed in that is worth whatever sacrifices need to be made. And decamping to the suburbs without children, for some, can be a dubious move. Kathy Leo, a former colleague of my wife and now an executive at the Gilt Groupe, and Steven Schwartz, a media executive, for example, moved to Maplewood, N.J., from a Manhattan loft when Ms. Leo got a new job nearby.

“We knew we were going to have a family so we figured we might as well do it,” Ms. Leo told me. But feeling miserable and isolated, Mr. Schwartz said, they moved back to the city within two years.

As we house-hunted, my epiphany in Hastings wasn’t at the hipsturbian Mill, a tavern I frequent with an outstanding microbrew list and dangling Edison bulbs, but at Pizza Grill, a tasty yet generic slice joint you’ve seen in a thousand towns. Sitting at a table in the back, while my children fought over the oregano shaker and light FM crackled from an old speaker, I looked up and noticed through the winter-steamed windows a magnificent view of the Hudson River and the cliffs of the Palisades beyond. Gazing, I thought, how wonderful for witnessing such beauty to be so ordinary.

I may have felt pushed from the city, but now, even if my old grievances could magically be resolved, I would have no interest in going back. Every morning I walk my son to school on the Old Croton Aqueduct, what’s now a wooded trail that winds its way through several towns. As we share quiet conversation, pick up stones and marvel at the changing leaves in the canopy above us, the pace and color of life takes on a sweetly elegiac quality. I’m at once instantly nostalgic for the moments as they roll past yet feel a sense of serene presence.

To be honest, the one adjustment that most worried me was my self-consciousness over how other people would view me — and how I would view myself — after the move. For so many years I identified myself as Someone Who Lives in the City. Was I the type of person who lived in the ’burbs? But what does that even mean, or does it even matter, anyway?

So much of who we are is wrapped up in external definitions, an objectified self, as Sartre wrote of it. While working on my last book, I traveled around the United States, Europe and Asia, and whenever I said I lived in Brooklyn everyone knew it as some mythically hip place, especially so for a writer.

Is who you are defined by where you live? As I left the city I feared the answer. Now, I hope it’s yes.

[mhays]

Douchebag neighbors aren't everywhere. You can be in a very urban place with no music keeping you up. Concrete is helpful for starters.

[Crawford]

The author claims to live in a condo/coop building, then claims it was impossible to regulate the noise in an adjacent unit.

I think the author wanted the suburbs (which is fine) and needed some reason to rationalize internally. There is no coop or condo anywhere in the U.S. where there are no rules about disturbing the neighbors. And there are tons of neighborhoods in Brooklyn with good schools and where you can get a 3 bedroom for under 1.2 million or so (which seems to be about what he paid in Hastings). This guy is reasonably affluent.

Hastings, BTW, is kind of a place for people who want the suburbs, but on very specific terms. There are no big box stores, or tract homes, or malls, or really any of that, anywhere in proximity. It's old homes on hillsides near the Hudson, mostly occupied by left-leaning people in the arts, and now moreso left-leaning professionals. All those Hudson River towns from Yonkers north attract a very specific demographic, and it isn't soccer moms.

[dc_denizen]

this has got to be one of the most parochial, privileged NY Times articles ever.

from the comments section:

I also left an apartment in Brooklyn---that I rented---to live in Portland OR with my wife and new son. Though I came with little money and no job prospects, I found work, made friends, and enjoyed many of the attractions of life in the Northwest. I was also terribly depressed. I felt as if my life had ended, that I was growing into the sofa, that I knew almost exactly what each day of the rest of my life would be like. I returned to New York in dreams only, and Portland became a waking nightmare. One day I was watching Sesame Street and there was a segment where a little girl was riding the school bus home and it went right down my block and past my former apartment building. I cried as my son slept on my lap. Six months later we packed up a van and back to Brooklyn we went. It was rough starting over, but we made it, and I am back where I belong and hope to die...noisy, chaotic, over-priced, smug and hard-nosed Brooklyn.

oy vey...

[ThePhun1]

Ahh, the thread title! That could be a movie sequel, hopefully no Hollywood execs are watching the page and coming up for a new idea.

[Larry King]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

this has got to be one of the most parochial, privileged NY Times articles ever.

from the comments section:



oy vey...

I don't know about privileged, the guy sounds broke.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Larry King

I don't know about privileged, the guy sounds broke.

The guy just sold his apartment for seven figures, and, before that, bought a home for a similar price out in Hastings. He's fairly affluent.

You don't qualify for a mortgage on a 1.2 million home without significant income and assets, especially if you're still paying mortgage on another place.

[mrnyc]

was this some sort of halloween prank thread? well if so it worked. i threw up a little in my mouth while reading all this.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think the author wanted the suburbs (which is fine) and needed some reason to rationalize internally.

bingo. Brooklyn is one of the most intensely urban places in the nation, perhaps second only to manhattan itself. Raising a family in an intensely urban environment does present certain challenges, particularly for those with the expectations that come from being raised with a middle class background.

none of that is to say that there aren't loads of families happily raising children in brooklyn, just that it's not for everyone, particularly the author of this article.

[M.R.Victor]

What a curious, uniquely anglo-saxon malady, this not being able to raise children in cities....

[ardecila]

It's easy to be sentimental about suburbia when said suburb is in the middle of one of America's most beautiful natural settings.

Even the lifestyle aspects he talks about are not broadly applicable to suburbia, especially in the West and South where suburbia is not organized around old town centers. Scottsdale, AZ is unquestionably a suburb, but I doubt the author would find any of the social pleasantries he's used to in Hastings.