:: Midwood is where my parents would live, if they decided to buy a home in Brooklyn. There are nearly 5x as many synagogues in the neighborhood as there are bars (37 synagogues vs. 8 bars) and tons of single family detached homes.
The biggest strike against Midwood is its distrance from Manhattan. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Times Square by subway (about 10 minutes longer than getting there from Bay Ridge), which appears to be the time it takes me to fall asleep, since that is what happened on both the trip there and the trip back. True, I tend to fall asleep often in moving vehicles, but achieving R.E.M. is not exactly what I shoot for on my commute to work.
Fortunately, Midwood has one giant ace in the hole: Di Fara’s Pizzeria! As anyone with a Zagat guide can tell you, Di Fara’s has the best pizza in NYC, hands down.
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:: The historic district in Fort Greene is decidedly awesome and rivals Park Slope and Carroll Gardens as the most picturesque places to live in Brooklyn. Everywhere else in Fort Greene sadly is not.
In the historic district (and the streets right around it) there is an absurd number of gorgeous single-family homes, in addition to Fort Greene Park and some of the most well-respected cultural institutions in all of New York; including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Technical High School (one of NYC’s most competitive schools), and Lafayette Church, which has underground tunnels and secret passageways that were an instrumental part of the underground railroad.
Outside of the historic district there are a bunch of eyesores and traffic congestions; including Target, Applebee’s, the Barclay’s Center, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and poorly lit streets that are probably urinated on semi-frequently.
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:: Williamsburg is our home and we love it. Many of its residents are affectionately referred to as hipsters and were recently sought after by MTV for their esoteric style.
Here is the casting call that MTV put out for a show called “I just want my pants back”:
Do you own skinny jeans, old school chucks, cabbie hat, the 70’s vest, an ironic t shirt or hat, a fitted sweater, flannel shirt, or chunky lens-less glasses? Do you drink PBR, have an ironic mustache, have a blog that allows you to post pictures you took with your digital camera? Been called a hipster? Deny being a hipster, but own various wardrobe and sport an asymmetrical hair style that is considered Non-Mainstream? Smoke Parliaments? Got any cool tattoos? Perhaps one of a star, maybe on your wrist or elbow? Own a vintage dress or have an awesome beard?
Yeah, those are our neighbors. Williamsburg has a vibe that attracts a unique crowd (including street artists like Banksy and others) and even though we are not the prototypical hipsters, we still enjoy throwing back an occasional PBR and writing it off to peer pressure.
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