We moved to Brooklyn in 1985 and, two years later, our son was born.  We lived up the hill from the scene you see here.  From our living room window, we were surrounded by three church steeples clustered at the corner.

I’ll never forget the look on my grandma’s face when I told her we were headed to Brooklyn.  “Vhy?” she asked, in her heavily accented English.  To her, it was as if I said I was moving to hell.  Bear in mind, she had to flee the fires of persecution in Russia, chased by Cossacks, and became a Real New Yorker in 1913.  Then, 60 years later, my parents dragged her from her home in The Bronx, kicking and screaming all the way.  They, too, had to flee.  Between the fires and murders, it was not a lifestyle decision.  It was a matter of life or death.

Our Bronx neighborhood, once upon a time, was far from idyllic, but it was a real neighborhood.  Then the 70s came, and it went up in smoke, quite literally.  

After living in Manhattan and Queens for some years, it was finally time for my wife and me to “settle down.” We found a Brooklyn neighborhood where newcomers who loved city life, and actually chose it over the suburbs, were living in relative harmony alongside the “old-timers.”  It was like The Bronx used to be, but even better.

Back then, I was amazed by Brooklyn.  It was rough and tough, but the people had heart.  And it was so different looking from the hilly, dingy rows of University Heights walk-up apartment houses where I grew up.  From our windows on the top floor of our former rooming house in Brooklyn, from our rooftop, we saw, we smelled, we heard our harbor. New York was a seaport!  Gulls, ferries, barges, ocean liners – there they were!  There was the Statue of Liberty – so close!

There was no denying it, though.  Of all the sights in my new Brooklyn, the view of the World Trade Center captured my attention. 

The Towers were so majestic.  I’d look out the window and see them, just beyond the church, standing fast against the winds off the river, preening in the sun. 

On 9/11, I lost a neighbor.  He worked at Cantor.  That chaotic morning, soon after the Towers were struck, his wife and I passed each other on the street.  I was rushing back from school with my son.  She was rushing to the school to pick her two kids up.  At that very moment, she had to have known that her husband was gone.  We looked in each others eyes as we passed.  We spoke not a word.  We just knew.
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In the ensuing days, a yellow cast hung over my Brooklyn neighborhood.  The air was foul with the smell of a massive electrical fire, but worse.  It was the smell of a crematorium.

One day, maybe it was the Thursday after that sunny Tuesday, while walking my dog, I sat on a park bench, deep in thought, so angry, confused.  Suddenly, someone I barely knew, a fellow dog owner I’d seen a few times in the park, stopped and asked if I was OK.

I put my face in my hands, embarrassed, but I just let go.  My neighbor sat down with me.  We talked a bit.  We talked about some dog-related thing.  I wiped my eyes.  My dog rolled on his back for a belly rub.  We laughed at the big dope.

Soon it was time to go.  We said our goodbyes.  I felt a little better. 

Brooklyn is known as the “borough of churches.”  After I’d lived there 20 years, I had a better understanding of what that really meant.  A place of worship is made of stone and glass.  But it is much more.  It is people, it is a community, with neighbors who understand and, when needed, reach out and help.  It’s about faith, and hope and heart.

My son was born there and, as sons do, he left to start the great adventure of his life.  I am convinced he was fortunate to have grown up in that Brooklyn crucible.  In the early life of this young man, he saw both cruel poverty and incredible wealth.  No wonder he is comfortable and secure no matter what the social context or circumstance.   He is a good, balanced kid with a head on his shoulders – and a wisecracking Brooklyn mouth. 

He is a Real New Yorker and, after his college days in a rural Red State town and a year out west in eastern Montana helping the less fortunate, for Americorps, he has returned to Brooklyn.  Greenpoint, to be precise.  He did not have to flee. 

But things changed in my part of Brooklyn.  And I did have to flee.  Once again, my neighborhood caught fire.  But not in terms of arson.  TO BE CONTINUED…