15 Signs You've Been Away From Brooklyn Too Long

Entertainment
by Henry Miller Nov 3, 2015

1. Nobody has tried to bum a “Lucy” off of you in months.

2. You were recently hit with a wave of nostalgia for your days spent in Gowanus…after walking past an open sewer.

3. You spent 20 minutes staring in horror and disbelief at what passes for a bagel in your local chain coffee shop.

4. Your knowledge of Yiddish has fallen as precipitously as your ability to differentiate between Puerto Rican and Dominican accents.

5. You recently hung out in your new city’s industrial district just so you could enjoy the pleasant and familiar “squeeeee” of the trains going by.

6. You haven’t had an in-depth, high-emotion and questionably academic discussion on why Brooklyn is a better “city” than Manhattan in forever.

7. You just realized that the statistics on gentrification you spent hours memorizing to seem like “less of an asshole” at a loft party are now completely out of date.

8. You’re actually in the habit of securing a DD or cab-fare *before* going out for a drink these days.

9. You spent 15 minutes admiring what you thought was a French impressionist street art tribute to Biggie, only to realize that it was just a water stain on the side of a Cheesecake Factory.

10. You suddenly find the thought of chasing a shot of Old Grandad with pickle juice and a can of Rolling Rock to be utterly repulsive, no matter how cheap it is.

11. You miss playing the “dog or human” poop game on the train.

12. You keep leaving cat food on your stoop even though your new neighborhood is devoid of freeloading alley cats (and the rats that they were protecting you from).

13. Your Saturdays feel eerily quiet now (and you miss hearing dozens of old men shouting at one another over a dominoes game on the sidewalks).

14. Every time Beyonce or Jay-Z pops up in conversation, you claim to be the highest authority on their work because they used to be your “king and queen.”

15. The fake smiles that strangers give out like empty Metrocards in your new city only remind you of how hard you worked to get familiar with your Brooklyn community, and how rewarding it was when you could finally shout across Atlantic Ave to your local Laundromat owner, or barber, or bartender or deli owner, and have them shout back passionate, tender obscenities.

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