Brooklyn Needs Love. Queens Doesn't.

I went to a free concert last night. David Byrne was playing in Prospect Park. Good show. It’s the first in a series of free concerts called Celebrate Brooklyn. My response to that series is “Please, could you occasionally stop celebrating Brooklyn?”

I mean all this celebration kind of smacks of insecurity. It’s like an entire borough with middle child syndrome. “Mommy and Daddy don’t pay enough attention, so I better get on a stage.”
Brooklyn is larger in both population and land area than Manhattan. Manhattan will always be the favorite child. There are tons of classically trained musicians who dream of some day playing Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center. Nobody dreams of playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There are tons of artists who dream of someday getting a piece in the MOMA. Nobody prays for a show at the Brooklyn Museum. There are legions of actors who want to make it on Broadway. Nobody dreams of performing at the Brooklyn Lyceum.

There is no Celebrate Queens festival. If its residents wanted to promote the borough as a great place to live the festival would be called. “Queens, Doesn’t Care What You Think.” Of course, Queens’ indifference means having such a festival is beneath them.

That’s a huge difference between the two boroughs. Brooklynites are always trying to convince their friends from Manhattan to move into their neighborhoods. Queens is happy to tell you how to get to the airports. Brooklynites want to have a vital cultural scene. Queens wants to go bowling. Brooklynites plan on volunteering at the community gardens. Queens will be working on the car this weekend. It hopes it will stop making that noise.

People used to ask why I lived in Queens for so long. First off it was cheap. Secondly, nobody ever called me up while I was writing and wanted to hang out in some café. Queens was my fortress of solitude. I like all the things going on in Brooklyn. Sometimes I miss the lack of interruptions.