Monday, April 13, 2009

Brooklyn: We now have electricity and running water!

Which one of the following is a "real" Brooklynite, according to The L Magazine?
A. The 40-something Brooklyn-born Lincoln High School graduate that grew up in Coney Island but now owns a nice house in Marine Park purchased with the money he made by driving car service all over Brooklyn for the past twenty years. 
B. The 20-something Iowa-born Oberlin graduate who moved to New York to pursue a literary career but couldn't afford an apartment in Manhattan so they got an overpriced apartment in Williamsburg because it's trendy and oh, that's where all their college friends moved too.
C. Jay-Z.
HINT: It's not A... or C.

As with almost anything "literary" and "hip" in New York, L Magazine once more forgets that there exists a Brooklyn below Prospect Park, filling up the quiz with in-crowd references like:
  • How much time per month must members of the Park Slope Food Coop work? 
  • Which bar is affectionately known as “The Dog Bar”?
  • On which street in Williamsburg can you get arepas, bibimbap, burritos, prawn crisps, buffalo mozzarella, vegetarian chicken wings and a haircut? 
The piece can't seem to decide whether it wants to be taken seriously or is merely a lark. (A word of advice: If it's on the front cover, and you're not a humor magazine, you should probably take the piece seriously.)

Should they actually bother to have a question that a non-hipster Brooklyn resident would have a reasonable chance of answering correctly, they litter the choices with obviously wrong answers. 
36. To whom is Greenwood Cem-etery’s statue of Minerva waving?
A. The hopes and dreams of all who lay there.
B. The Statue of Liberty
C. Livia Soprano
Because having actual Brooklyn trivia would reveal the nasty truth about the rest of Brooklyn: It exists.

As an aid to future attempts to pin down that elusive Brooklynness, I have taken it upon myself to rewrite a few of the questions:

2. What was the last year the Dodgers played in Brooklyn?
A. 1963
B. 1957
C. Grandpa, the Dodgers have been out of Brooklyn longer than they ever were in Brooklyn, let it go already.

7. How many trains can get you to Coney Island?
A. 4
B. 7
C. Depends. Are they doing track work... again?

23. Where was the first Brooklyn Industries store opened?
A. Bedford Ave. and N. 8th St. 
B. Broadway and Bedford Ave.
C. Fuck you.

24. Which bar is affectionately known as “The Dog Bar”?
A. Iona
B. The Brooklyn Ale House
C. No, seriously, go fuck yourself.

44. What Williamsburg favorite used to be in the space now occupied by the Bedford Cheese Shop?
A. Clovis Press Bookstore
B. Ugly Luggage
C. 
Your mother