Brooklyn Idea

Brooklyn has been a neighborhood to many known as one of violence, illegal activities, low class, and consisting of mainly minorities. I'm not going to say that this isn't true but it doesn't embody all that the neighborhood is. It isn't the "slums" or the "ghetto" like so many people perceive it. It has its bad parts like every other place does. In the past it was worse. Crime was widespread. However as time goes on things change. It just seems that this concept is too much for people to understand. Brooklyn has become more of a community. When I say community I don't mean it's just a group of people either. Rather it is a group of people who have established a relationship between each other, almost as close as a family bond. The old ideas of this neighborhood are not completely gone but now are mixed with new ones creating a whole different perspective on what exactly Brooklyn is. A shining example of this new Brooklyn idea is the area I live in, Bushwick.

The most commonly associated term with Bushwick and most of Brooklyn for that matter is low class. It is for this reason people think the value of education here as a very low standard as well. Even the "elite schools" aren't so elite when compared to others. When people see you come from Townsend Harris it holds a great deal more than going to Brooklyn Tech. It doesn't need to be a queens school either. It can be a city school or any school outside the Brooklyn area. People view us as uneducated simply because of where we live. However, this is not the case. Of course there are the below average schools but there are ones just as good as if not better than other schools. I was sent to St. Pancras in Glendale, Ny, for elementary school based on this idea that Queens schools were better than Brooklyn ones. To many people's surprise, when it came time for State examinations St. Brigid elementary, one of the local Bushwick schools, did much better than most of Queens elementary schools including my own.







Diversity is another thing people don't really see Bushwick as. They figure it's just inhabited by blacks and hispanics because that is the "essence" of what a ghetto is. Minorities living in poor living conditions. This is most likely one of the biggest misconceptions of all. First to address living conditions of the area, the building are actually above the basic standard. They are pretty clean and rooms are actually bigger than newer houses based on some of the homes of my friends who live in Queens. Also "the dirty factories that make up over 50% of the area" are actually now extremely beautiful lofts now. In regards to the inhabitants of the area, it is true there are blacks and hispanics that live here. However they do not make up the entire population. On my block alone only about half the block is hispanic and there are no blacks. There are a certain percentage of Asians as well as people from the middle east. Another "shocking revelation" is there are many white people moving into Brooklyn. Yes it's true, whites in Brooklyn are not a myth! There are even shops here where I see them hang out at like a coffee shop on Wycoff Avenue or even a local pub.



The last of the major preconceived ideas of Bushwick is violence. Everywhere I go outside of my neighborhood it seems like that is one of the first things said about it. People always say, "How can you live in Bushwick? Don't people get shot, stabbed, and robbed there?" The answer is yes they do. However personally I have never encountered it. I feel you need to look for trouble in Brooklyn for one of these things to happen to you. Trouble doesn't look for you. Also it is not as often as people make it out to be. You're not going to walk out your door and hear a gunshot. The Bushwick community is actually for the most part a family of sorts. The people here try to help out each other as much as possible and have fun together. During block parties people seem to let go of everything and just try to have as much fun as possible. Enemies, if there are any, become friends and enjoy laughs together. The day of the major New York blackout people seemed to put aside any differences they had and come together. It really gave me a look at the character people had when everyone went and checked to make sure everyone was ok with battery powered lamps and people shared ice to make sure their food didn't spoil. People even gathered around a portable television to watch the news on the street. Everyone essentially watched each other's back. For a place so bent on creating chaos and bound on harming one another, people were very concerned about each other's well being and knew how to have fun.

The public's problem is that they are taking the initial ideas of areas from years back and thinking that it is static. However, the complete opposite is true. So many neighborhoods evolve. Yesterday's ghetto can change over time, becoming a safer and more interactive neighborhood. People change, especially with each generation born. Thus the bad habits of the previous citizens die with them and a new set of ideas born with the new generation. These preconceived ideas based on the past need to be let go and these neighborhoods taken a new look at.