Aaron's blog: "My life"

I grew up in Bath Beach, which is right on the southern coast of Brooklyn. It's bordered by Dyker Heights to the west, Bensonhurst to the north and Gravesend to the east.

I went to a local public elementary school in my area. For middle school I went to a public school a walkable distance away in Gravesend. And for high school, I attended Brooklyn Tech at Fort Greene.

I don't consider my having grown up in Brooklyn to be exceptional; it would be about the same experience if I was raised in Queens or Bronx. If I had to identify particular aspects of growing up here that might be unique to Brooklyn, it would be these:

All of NYC is diverse; you can walk down any street in Manhattan and come across people of many faces and origins. However, in a boro like Brooklyn, the diversity is less diffuse. There are strong enclaves here, and growing up, you soon recognize which areas "belong" to which peoples. 8th ave is mostly Chinese; Brighton Beach is covered in Cyrillic script; Fulton Mall is geared towards the black community; and etc. The presence of these concentrations of ethnicities has sometimes led to clashes; note, for example, the heated reaction to Yusef Hawkins' death in Bensonhurst in 1989. The cultural divisions in Brooklyn are observably strict. Yet at the same time, these boundaries are not set in stone; the enclaves continue to come and go.

My own neighborhood of Bath Beach was historically Italian like the rest of Southern Brooklyn, but you will find that it is now a much more complicated picture here. The part of Bath Ave. that I live near is beginning to foster a strong Muslim community, and the markets on 86th St under the Bay Parkway Station are becoming noticeably Chinese. Growing up in this changing environment makes you very aware of the ephemeral; there is no "small-town" feel here, as everything hardly stays the same for long.

It's a big city, and you get exposed to much more crime and many more accidents than you would growing up elsewhere. In Brooklyn, which is NYC's most populous boro, you see a lot of newsworthy events.  I know quite a few people (including myself) who have been: "jumped", hit by a car, involved in a car crash, and etc. What's more jarring is when you hear of people dying. I've thankfully never had a close friend or family member die by crime or accident, but I've heard of those who have. 9/11 is an obvious one; some students in my middle school lost loved ones that day, including my teacher who lost her firefighter brother.

My high school was plagued with incidents. Some were relatively light: for example, there was a spate of small arsons in the Brooklyn Tech bathrooms during my first year. Other incidents were more serious. There were always some student deaths during my stay in Tech. Some were due to traffic accidents; I recall at least one drowning during a summer; and there was even one unfortunate girl who died of medical complications while riding the school elevator. My time in Tech was topped off in my senior year with the resignation of the principal, who falsely held a NYC address to allow his daughter to attend NYC public schools for free. In all, these experiences instill a sense of how unpredictable life is in the city, and can make living in Brooklyn somewhat frightening.

Here are a few little things I've noticed while growing up in Brooklyn. They are small snips of the culture we have in this boro, though not all are necessarily unique to Brooklyn.

Handball is widely popular. Almost every public park here has a handball court, with the famous one being right by the Coney Island Boardwalk. The favorite game is Chinese handball, either with the hollow or filled ball. I only played lightly in my youth, up until I was pegged in the jewels during Asses Up.

• Hip hop/rap music, culture and apparel was popular in school. My class was ecstatic when Russell Simmons made a surprise visit to our HS graduation. For fashion, this meant baggy clothes, caps, hoodies, durags, sagging, and brands like Rocawear were popular.
• Butterfly knives were everywhere in high school. People mostly had them for tricks rather than self-defense.
• Gym sacks. I don't know how they became popular, but they replaced ordinary backpacks for a time in middle/high school.
• Certain holidays are very popular. July 4th is all about illegal fireworks. In my neighborhood, many families would come out to the shore promenade to see the fireworks. Puerto Rican day is also particularly eventful for me, since the nearby 86th st. has a huge fair that day. During Christmas, you get to see some lavish Christmas lights set outside Dyker and Bay Ridge homes. Some Catholic saint days also bring out festivities in Southern Brooklyn.
• Coney Island is the jewel of Brooklyn. It is the center of the world during the summer. It's changed much over the years. When I was little, Astroland was the name of the main amusement park; now it's Luna Park (a nod to the original Luna Park). The community is also expecting big renovations or closures of old establishments, thanks to the city and Thor Equities stepping up development there. Some things don't change though. Even though parts of it are turning into concrete, the boardwalk is still the place for eccentric bicyclists, open concerts/dances, bums, Brighton elderly, and illegal food carts. I used to fish at the pier with my dad and friend, and I see that it's still a popular hangout for fishermen today (my uncle still lurks there on the weekends). Kids are also still diving from the pier, despite the city's best efforts to stop that. The Mermaid parade is still not safe for a child's eyes. That one guy with the parrot and iguana will probably continue to show up for years, as will that middle-aged lady who does portrait-paintings on the boardwalk, or that crazy old man who feeds the seagulls on the beach every winter.
• Commuting is ingrained in my being. My mother had to commute from Sunset Park to Manhattan Downtown Hospital to give birth to me. I had a 40-min commute for high school, despite it being in the same boro as my home. This had led me to be very tolerant of long commutes, which is something to be endured when living in any boro in NYC not called Manhattan.