Architecture: A Microcosm of NYC's Diversity
Exploring an unfamiliar neighborhood in Brooklyn.
A confession: I’ve lived in Brooklyn for 23 years and have barely scratched the surface of the borough. Besides DUMBO, I’m familiar with Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Park Slope, Vinegar Hill, the Navy Yard, and Williamsburg. If I’m being honest, I really only know DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, and Brooklyn Heights.
How lame of me.
Fortunately, a close friend recently moved into Kensington, providing me with a motive to venture outside my well-trod stomping grounds.
I hopped on the Church-Avenue-bound F train from York Street to exit at a stop I’d never traveled to before: Fort Hamitlon. After a short walk, I arrived at my friend’s street in Kensington. The residences were certainly of a different size and style compared to the apartment buildings of DUMBO and the brownstones of Brooklyn Heights, but neither unseen nor unexpected; the rows of single-family houses in Kensington resembled those I’d seen in Dyker Heights and neighborhoods of Queens.
After my friend showed me around her spacious, tidy, and mercifully air-conditioned apartment (contained in the only apartment building on the block), we got dinner at this delicious—and affordable—Moroccan restaurant.1 After dinner, my friend recommended we go for a walk to check out the sprawling suburban-style houses of Flatbush.
Suffice it to say, I was incredulous. After all, I thought, we aren’t out on Long Island, Staten Island or even in remote parts of Brooklyn or Queens—we were smack dab in the middle of the borough, sandwiched between Prospect Expressway and Caton Ave.
However, my preconceptions were wrong (I know; I can hardly believe it myself!); after walking for a few minutes and a couple of blocks, we were feating our eyes on McMansions like this one:
I mean, are you kidding me? I could hardly believe my eyes. The whole experience was “uncanny,” “surreal,” and “liminal,” to mention just a few of the adjectives we vainly employed to try to describe the experience.
Another apt descriptor would be wonderful.
New York City contains boroughs with unique characters, and those boroughs contain neighborhoods, blocks, and streets with distinct sights, sounds, smells, and, for lack of a non-GenZ term, vibes.2 If variety is the spice of life, New York is about as far away from bland as possible. And thank God for that! After all, who would want to live in a milquetoast city like Boston. . .
Friend in question, please text me the name of this restaurant and that sweet and savory pastry dish we shared.
I’ll leave it to my readership to decide whether “vibes” was better to use than je ne sai qua.