When last I wrote, dear reader, I noted that I had to flee Brooklyn because it was “on fire.”  This time, there was no arson involved.

This time, the economics in my Brooklyn neighborhood, Park Slope, had changed dramatically.  For the better — unlike my earlier experience in 1970’s-era New York, when my University Heights neighborhood was ravaged in a matter of years.

The Real New Yorker  knows that this city is ALL ABOUT change.  In this case, however, the influx of affluent young out-of-towners with seemingly unlimited funds, tilted the playing field to the point where I finally agreed with those who had spray painted construction sheds years earlier: “No Mas Yuppies!”

Consider the following behaviors from the new Park Slope elite:

• (in reference to a building employee who asked for a $50 salary advance to pay for car repairs): “People like that shouldn’t be allowed to own cars.”
• (in response to hard questions about the price of a capital improvement, after failing to get multiple bids): “Look, that’s what it costs.  If you can’t afford it, maybe you shouldn’t live here.”
• (in response to being asked to remove their errant, running amok toddler from our booth at a local restaurant, at 8 p.m.): blank stare, followed by resumption of their conversation.

buy cialis uk If there is a borderline component contributing to the development of erectile dysfunction. This problem is also known as premature ejaculation, this condition http://aimhousepatong.com/item8040.html buy cialis is common with men who often ride and drive, men who often walk have much less possibility to have erectile dysfunction. Causes of impotence and treatmentThere are several psychological causes of impotence such as fear of failure, fight with partner, fatigue, anxiety and depression. cialis 10mg generico Just like the normal viagra online purchasell, cialis Once Daily is clinically proven to be safe and effective for another treatment to write an “off-label” prescription.
OK, maybe out of context, such remarks are no reason to move from a hot neighborhood.  But after 25 years, enough was enough.  Prospect Park was my backyard.  The Farmer’s Market was at the corner.  And, yet, I felt that I’d lose my mind one more day cheek-by-jowl with such self-important, inconsiderate, nabobs-in-training.

It proved to be a serious dislocation, but we moved, after 25 years, from the most fashionable neighborhood in NYC to arguably the sleepiest: Riverdale, tucked into the very northwest reaches of The Bronx.  Yes, the borough from whence I started my journey, decades earlier.

But, surprise: here is a hardy bastion of Real New Yorkers.  Here are people who have polite, well-mannered children who need not be lectured about staying seated in restaurants.  Here are elderly people getting out and striving, living with the middle-aged, and the young — three generations, sharing space in the city.  Here are people of affluence shopping for groceries elbow to elbow with those less fortunate.  Here is a vibrant college town environment (Fordham, Manhattan, Columbia, and Mount St. Vincent are all nearby).  Here is a nascent community theater culture…a hotbed of book reading and animated discussion…a home to now-graying old-school, hemp-and-Birkenstock liberals with ties to Sullivan County.  No hipsters.  Not a one.  You can go weeks before seeing a single Trilby.  Forget fixies: too many serious hills here for that affectation.

It has taken time to acclimate.  It is sleepy here.  Sometimes I get impatient with the glacial pace of life.  But, other times, I see the value in sharing an old-time bedroom community with — as in the early days of Park Slope — people who CHOOSE to live somewhere special, in quiet harmony, because they know they have something good going on.  That no one really knows about it here is absolutely the point.  They do not want a “scene.”   (And, if that’s what you want, Manhattan is 20 minutes away by car.)

They enjoy the peace of watching red tail hawks soaring over the trees that line the Hudson, a 6-iron shot away.  They revel in Saturday evenings around a big round table at Hunan Garden, kibitzing, laughing with old friends — and the devil should care if the tableau looks like it was cut from Broadway Danny Rose.

They gather — in the hundreds — at the Temple, some with walkers pimped out with tennis balls on the legs, to hear a YIVO lecture on the commonality of themes in fiction from Sholom Aleichem to Isaac Babel to Philip Roth.

It’s not a cool neighborhood.  It’s anything but.  

As previously mentioned, my son returned from Montana, got a job in Manhattan, and moved right back to his Brooklyn, in Greenpoint.  He loves it.  And yet, he is excited about visiting here on Thanksgiving, with our closest relatives.  He plans to sleep over Thursday night.

“I’m looking forward to coming home,” he said.  We’re only here a year, but our lovely but sleepy Riverdale apartment is “home” to him.  And the light bulb went on in my head.  To our Real New Yorker  “Riverdale” means: the place where his parents live and are comfortable, secure and happy.  Yes, Riverdale is far from Park Slope, in so many ways.  But it is home for us, now, at this stage of our lives, populated with, as Sholem Aleichem wrote, “People with glasses on their noses and autumn in their hearts.”

And, I’d add: with people who have human decency, respect and basic consideration for others.