Saturday, December 18, 2010

Borderline crazy!

From the NY Times:

For many New Yorkers, a borough is like a tribe, a singular identity, a way of being in the world. There is Brooklyn, land of the $5 slice (Di Fara Pizza) and the $12 million brownstone (Brooklyn Heights), the kind of place that has become as much a brand as a borough, where people wear Brooklyn sweatshirts as they drink Brooklyn Brewery beer. And then there is Queens, land of Archie Bunker (Corona or Glendale, depending on whom you ask) and former actual home of Run-D.M.C. (Hollis), the kind of middle-class mecca that more people seem to be from than aspire to, where half of the residents own homes and two-thirds drive cars.

Then there is the border. It is a curious, somewhat unsettling experience to stand between the two boroughs. You keep looking for some sign of Brooklyn, some sign of Queens, but there is nothing — the same parked cars, the same trees, the same power lines, the same houses. Boroughs exist in the mind as much as they exist on maps.

There is no painted line running down the middle of Menahan Street between Cypress and St. Nicholas Avenues, but there might as well be. Stand in the middle of Menahan facing St. Nicholas — your right foot is in Brooklyn, your left is in Queens. The three-story brick row houses on either side face one another as if the two counties were locked in a staring contest: Kings versus Queens. For those who live on this block, the border remains a kind of psychological and bureaucratic barrier.

On Election Day, residents on the west side of Menahan voted at an apartment complex on Bleecker Street in Brooklyn, and residents on the east side of Menahan voted at Public School 81 on Cypress Avenue in Queens. If Francisco Miranda needs assistance from the police, he has to take it up with the 83rd Precinct in Brooklyn. If Jaime Arroyo, Mr. Miranda’s neighbor and friend who lives a few houses down, has a problem, he has to call the 104th Precinct in Queens. Mr. Miranda’s ZIP code is 11237; Mr. Arroyo’s is 11385.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

yawn. what happened to this blog?

georgetheatheist said...

We stuck it up your asshole.

Anonymous said...

Why can't anyone acknowledge that Archie Bunker, the character, lived in Astoria? The exterior shot of the house may very well be in Glendale, and Carol O'Connor was from Forest Hills, and the "Archie Bunker" houses, also home to Peter Parker, are in Forest Hills, but on more than one occasion, Archie tells other people that he lives in Astoria. And who said anything about Corona?

Gary the Agnostic said...

Anon No. 1-

Tell the guys at Parkside it ain't working.

Anonymous said...

yawn. what happened to this blog?

I guess Evan's mama hasn't checking in on her son today. Time to change the Depends.

Gary the Agnostic said...

Anon No. 3 --

It wasn't until much later on in the series that they began to give Archie an Astoria identity.

Because of the Cooper Avenue exterior and the Southwest Queens-like address (704 Hauser Street), the Bunkers had the Glendale identity before that.

Anonymous said...

It wasn't until much later on in the series that they began to give Archie an Astoria identity.

OK - so doesn't the writer of that article know that?

Gary the Agnostic said...

Possibly not. How long has that show been off the air? It's not easy finding the reruns, and the earlier shows are the ones that are usually aired.

Anonymous said...

The post is about arbitrary boundaries - boring and pointless enough to debate - and all the commenters have chosen to dredge up a decades-old sitcom.

Wow.

This is the definition of a slow news day.