Brooklyn: One big room full of bad hipsters?
On a scale from American Apparel to Hipster Ariel, Park Slope ranks about “thick rimmed glasses.”
If you’re looking for somewhere scenic with interesting sightseeing (check out the ridiculous signs I saw there below) or some great thrift stores, you’ll be at home in Park Slope.
What do you even call this restaurant?
Sara Garner/Spec
Rest of the photo tour of Park Slope after the jump!
For those who are fans of Helvetica and cool design, Park Slope will be your typographical heaven.
Sara Garner/Spec
How annoying is it to get there? A little bit: ride’s about an hour. Take the 1, transfer at 96th Street to the 2, get off at Grand Army Plaza, and you’re in Park Slope.
Did it break the bank? No, window shopping and touristy sightseeing are always free.
However, I did pay just $7.50 for this awesome sailboat drawing I picked up at a thrift store.
Sara Garner/Spec
Worth the trip? Eh, somewhat.
If you’re looking for something intellectually stimulating, don’t go to Park Slope.
However, if you’re looking for somewhere scenic, cool, and new to explore, Park Slope’s an awesome place.
There are countless thrift stores to comb through (highlights included cool old records, paisley suspenders, and a ton of great bow ties). The area’s also really scenic, with some beautiful buildings.
Sara Garner/Spec
And, if you take the F train part of the way home, you’ll get an awesome view of Brooklyn and the New York skyline; a few minutes of the ride are above ground.
Sara Garner/Spec
TL;DR: Park Slope is a medium-sized room full of kinda cool hipsters.
Getting Out of Morningside will feature a different adventure every Saturday.
lol, love the tldr.
and as a one-time park slope visitor, not worth it.
luckily, as a one-time park slope visitor, your opinion matters less than someone who has experienced more of park slope than you have.
Take the 23 to Bergen or Grand Army Plaza. Skip the transfer and enjoy the walk.
sounds awesome, gonna hit that up soon
First off, take the 1 to 96 and transfer to the 2 until Grand Army Plaza. That’s *one* transfer, making it extremely easy to get there. You definitely did not do any research because this article was vapid and lazy. Get it together, Spectrum.
Thank you for your help, incredibly ignorant! Post has been edited to reflect these changes.
Hey incredibly ignorant, just popping in to say you are rude. She missed a transfer so she “obviously didn’t do any research?” There are pictures from her journey so it’s pretty obvious that she went there. What made you decide to write such a rude comment rather than politely giving her the same tip? So tired of people who think being on the internet means it’s ok to be an asshole to everyone they come across. Or would you act the same way in real life? Either way, learn some manners.
I found her article pretty rude. She’s cleaned it up a bit since this morning.
sorry, but staring blankly up at a cafe grumpy sign and asking, “what do you even call this restaurant?” pretty much qualifies as not doing much research at all.
the top photo is cafe grumpy! it’s a pretty decent coffee shop with a grumpy face for a sign
what about the brooklyn museum? that’s pretty intellectually stimulating…
The Brooklyn Museum wasn’t included because it’s around a 30 minute walk from Park Slope. But, that would definitely be a great (and intellectually stimulating) place to visit if you wanted to explore other parts of Brooklyn.
it’s .5 miles from grand army plaza. i guess if you walk really really really slowly….
SPEC IS HIPSTER: specsucks.wordpress.com
Dear Cloaked Figure,
There is room for only one obnoxious troll here on this website, and that would be me. That being said,
YOUR MOM IS HIPSTER: cloaksare4.captainobvious.com
anonymous likes The Cloaked Figure’s post
Great article. I have never been to Park slope, but you are wetting my appetite.
Hey Spectrum, what’s up! Before I begin my rant, I should say I’ve been enjoying the blog—keep up the good work. But moving on…
I grew up in Park Slope and lived there for almost 20 full years of my life. My family and a number of close friends live there, so I’m in the neighborhood frequently.
There are plenty of easy shots you can take at the neighborhood—it’s overpriced, excessively bougie and white, and there’ are two real estate offices on every block along 7th Avenue. But Park Slope isn’t a “hipster” neighborhood, if you’re going to use that term to describe whole neighborhoods. It’s a family neighborhood and has been for generations. Unlike the Soho of the 60s and 70s, the Williamsburg of the 90s and early aughts, or the Bushwick and Red Hook of more recent years, Park Slope has no lofts or old warehouses. It’s full of brownstones and row houses, which appeal mostly to families with children, not hip 20-somethings.
In terms of “intellectual stimulation,” I’m not sure what one might be looking for in a neighborhood. Park Slope is tiny residential enclave, not Midtown, but it’s not devoid of “intellectual stimulation.” As other commenters have pointed out, it’s walking distance to the Brooklyn Museum. It’s also walking distance to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, as well as BAM (the oldest continuously operating theater in America). Red Hook and its art spaces aren’t far away manageable walk. Within the neighborhood proper there are tons of restaurants and a few places to hear live music. There’s local favorite Community Books, which has writers in frequently, and a decent Barnes and Nobles (which does the same).
“Celebrate Brooklyn” brings out huge crowds in the summer for movies and music (seeing Philip Glass conduct live the score he wrote for a film, while the film plays, is a decent cultural experience). And the Met and the NY Phil come to the park in the summer, so there’s also opera or classical music to be heard.
There’s also Prospect Park, which—as many a dyed-in-the-wool Brooklynite will proudly remind visitors—Frederick Law Olmstead considered his masterpiece. I’m glad this post mentioned that the neighborhood is scenic, but to go to Park Slope and not visit (or at least not mention) Prospect Park is no small sin of omission. You might also consider hopping over to Greenwood Cemetery, which is gloriously verdant and peaceful, not to mention full of famous dead people like Leonard Bernstein, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Henry Ward Beecher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Also Boss Tweed.
Grand Army Plaza, particularly when it’s lit up at night, is one of the more beautiful open spaces in the city, and for those folks who care about such things, the equestrian statues of Grant and Lincoln under the triumphal arch were sculpted by Thomas Eakins (in collaboration with William Rudolph O’Donovan).
One might also visit the Park Slope Food Coop and ask for a tour. It’s the largest member-run food cooperative in America, so if you’ve ever been curious how a large-scale cooperative (it has 15,000 members) operates, it’s worth checking out.
You can also see the block where Al Capone was born (Garfield Place) and the building that had its cornice sheared off when a plane fell out of the sky over Sterling Street in 1960.
Or just grab a burger at Bonnie’s Grill. It’s one of maybe three places left in the city to get a great burger without maxing out your credit card.
Look, having seen Park Slope change from a place where teachers could settle down and raise a family in a house with a backyard to a place where two teachers could maybe afford to rent a studio apartment, I know the neighborhood can be irritating. There are too many strollers and too many nannies, and they closed Snookie’s, an old-time bar and grill, which my family loved but which probably (despite the fact that it had the best burgers and best French onion soup in the city) stopped attracting new customers in 1986.
Still, it’s a beautiful neighborhood, and there is still a lot to see and to do there. The night spots on 5th Avenue aren’t the trendiest, but if you want a dive to grab a beer at with friends, Bar Reis and High Dive are both top notch.
I apologize for the long and overly detailed diatribe. I’m just tired of seeing the neighborhoods of Brooklyn (and yeah, I’m a bit sensitive about my own) or Queens reduced to a few cliche sentences or flip remarks. Whether you’re reading here or writing here, take some time to really explore a neighborhoods before you pass judgment. Forget what you read in the New York Times Styles section and do some research, talk to the locals, or wander around for a few hours on more than one occasion.
I’ve lived in New York my whole life, and I still know only a fraction of the city. You’ll be best served if you take a page out of Socrates’ book and remember that he who knows how little he knows knows the most. About New York. Unless he actually knows nothing.
But yeah, give Park Slope a break. At the least, it deserves better than being called a “medium-sized room full of kinda cool hipsters.”
-Raphael
Well argued, RPS. That being said, I would point out that unlike you, most Columbia students probably haven’t had the benefit of living their whole lives in NYC — and first impressions count. Sara’s blog post was a first impression, and I would argue that it’s unfair to expect her to understand the neighborhood as well as a native. But since most Columbians aren’t natives, she’s given folks a good idea of what to expect.
I just spent the evening in Park Slope and had a great time, exactly as Sara’s article suggested I would (“scenic, cool, and new to explore”). It continually amazes me how people (not talking about you, of course) are completely unable to take even the tiniest of jokes about places or things that they like — despite the fact that many of these same folks feel completely comfortable leaving unconstructive and rude comments behind, rather than just skipping the article or politely offering a tip about something the author had missed (a train transfer, etc). Your comment was the opposite of that, so thank you.
I agree that saying, “You’re an idiot because you missed a train transfer” is obnoxious and silly.
But I don’t think your point about people not being able to take a joke applies here. It is absolutely true that many people can’t take a joke about things they like. A neighborhood isn’t a “place or thing” that one likes. It’s a home to tens of thousands of real people. So yeah, people do get frustrated when the place they grew up is summarily written off in a sentence, particularly if that sentence does not accurately describe that place.
I was wondering when I’d see your response to this…
haha i was fully expecting it too
Idea is nice but execution was rehhh. Missed Brooklyn Library, architectural history, role in the American revolution, Tea Lounge intrigue…and “room full of dirty hipsters” better describes Bushwick. Its hard to believe you were actually here in Slopetown based on the article.
Yeah it’s really hard to believe you were in Park Slope. The pictures do not convince me. To the author of this blog post: I would like to see your metrocard and take it to have it analyzed by the MTA. Also I want to see your long-form birth certificate.
also, cafe grumpy is a small chain in brooklyn, so it’s not really the most unique thing in the hood…
also, cafe grumpy is a small chain in NYC so it’s not exactly the most unique thing in the hood.
as for the brook vin sign, it’s so nondescript i’ve never noticed it really and i pass it twice a day.
A note on typography: while the author mentions the ubiquity of Helvetica on Park Slope store signage, the photo immediately following that statement features a typeface that is clearly not Helvetica. In fact the closest thing to Helvetica in these photos is the Department of Health’s A-grade displayed in Cafe Grumpy’s wiindow.
I was waiting for a designer to jump in on that one!
Park Slope is not for 21 year olds (thank God).
Her “review” is the best thing that could have happened for the Slope (I, too, question whether she actually gave the slope an honest glance, or more just wanted to get back to campus as fast as possible so as to not waste any more time on a spec assignment.)
As an alumni, such sloppy journalism makes me very sad. She’ll eventually grow up in a few years and realize the slope is awesome. Maybe then she’ll be intellectually mature enough to appreciate all the culture it has to offer.
This article was great. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Park Slope from reading everything on this page, it’s that the neighborhood is full of uptight defensive assholes who can’t take a couple of small jokes in what was otherwise a positive review of the neighborhood. Glad the author enjoyed it, don’t think I’ll be heading out there anytime soon.
Oh, gee, you won’t be coming anytime soon? How devastating for us “medium cool hipsters” in Park Slope.
A quick review of the comments on this page up to here shows about four or five that are somewhat critical of the piece, with other comments supporting the article. I’m impressed that “Good article” can unequivocally state that “…the neighborhood is full of uptight defensive assholes who can’t take a couple of small jokes in what was otherwise a positive review of the neighborhood…”
Seems like Columbia isn’t devoid of “uptight defensive assholes” either…
white people’s problems
lol wut park sloep is not for hipsters u guys should go 2 lolboken. rps is so cool.
i also want to say, for the record, that i am a big fan of “gucci gucci”