In a prior post about Detroit, I mentioned Hipster Brooklyn – how young, creative people brought it came back from crime and decay, how it could be a model for the Motor City, which is bankrupt and hardly even a city.
Shortly after that post, I met up with a cousin whom I don’t see much. He’s an accountant from New York. Although he now lives in Manhattan, he spent years in Brooklyn, moving in when it was cheap, crime-ridden and far from hip.
I asked him about the transformation. He vividly recalled the day he became aware that Brooklyn had changed.
“Walking down the street around noon, I passed a restaurant,” he said. “A man from the restaurant was carrying a table outside. He set it up on the sidewalk, brought out two chairs, a tablecloth and a candle. I said, almost out loud, ‘Oh no, someone is going to steal that stuff – probably in the next few minutes!’ But they didn’t. That’s when I knew something remarkable had happened to Brooklyn.”
By Lanny Morgnanesi
notebookm.com 
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