Brooklyn is Now

Since living in Brooklyn, I have wanted desperately to write a story that is set here. Every day, I walk past churches and old butcher shops and bakeries. I see old women chatting on the sidewalks, pushing their grocery carts. I see a lone canoe cross the polluted Gowanus Canal. I walk the boardwalk on Coney Island in the middle of winter past the grey amusement park, a place that, for me, is haunting. It whispers, we used to be something majestic…and now… I bike through Williamsburg on the Sabbath and witness a culture that is foreign, secular. A face that stares straight ahead as if to remind us, you may walk beside me but you can’t know me.

There’s so much of it that inspires. I’ve often wondered why I am paralyzed, unable to tell a story that resides here. But I am concerned about the history of a place. Preserving that history. Understanding that history. I wonder why, when it comes to real places, I am afraid to learn more. The thought of pouring through pages, digging through archives frightens me. So, imagine my awakening when I discovered that Brooklyn is then and, through time, I will come to know it. But that Brooklyn is also now. And I know now.

Photo via dailypostal