The Near Burbs

Like Manhattan, Brooklyn is a borough of distinct neighborhoods, but whereas in Manhattan most blocks look pretty much the same -- apartment buildings, old or new, high-rise or low-rise, brick or brownstone or glass -- in Brooklyn you have all of that plus real houses. Plotnik rode The Great PD's 10-speed through several of those neighborhoods yesterday and took pictures of these houses in Ditmas Park.



Out on Flatbush Avenue it looks like all of Jamaica has emptied out and reassembled itself in Brooklyn, with Jamaican jerk chicken stands and bbq restaurants and hair weave shops and restaurants and outrageous traffic snarls caused by hundreds of people walking and biking on the sidewalk and street, but turn off the main drag into the neighborhoods and you get houses that look like these.



Like the Great FiveHead says, many people want the "Brooklyn Experience" of living in a brownstone on a street with many other people, where everyone walks or bikes to do their errands and there is a center to the community. But there is something to say for a large house and a yard too, especially on an express subway stop only a short distance from the city center.



Tonight Isabella has a baby sitter and Plot and Duck and The Greats PD and 5H are heading into Manhattan to see a documentary and have dinner. But then we all get to come home to Brooklyn. That Manhattan is starting to feel like a slightly alien place to Plotnik has him wondering whether he's getting fuddy or duddy or both.