First Exit to Brooklyn

Brooklyn, New York is world-famous, but for all its fame it is not as widely known that there are actually multiple Brooklyns in a sense, or many different neighborhoods that can in their own unique ways all claim to define the borough. Consider Midwood for an example.

One of the oldest neighborhoods in all of New York City, it was founded by the Dutch in 1652 as a rural settlement called "Midwout" that remained undeveloped until the twentieth century. Modern-day Midwood is a mixed-income neighborhood of working class tradesmen and upper middle-class professionals that hail from many parts of the world; those from Russia, China, Poland, Greece, India, and Mexico predominate. Most notably, there is a large contingent of observant Jews ranging from the "casual but not secular" to those highly religious, giving Midwood a special character found only in a few other places within Brooklyn. Most of these descend from immigrants out of Eastern Europe, most notable the former Soviet Union.

Midwood is often erroneously referred to as being a part of Flatbush, an older and more established neighborhood adjacent to it, while nearby Fiske Terrace and Midwood Gardens are often referred to as being a part of Midwood. However, such mistakes just reflect the fluid nature of municipal boundaries, which are as often affected by real estate developers' marketing materials as any city planner's intentions. As with most boroughs of New York, neighborhood bounders are very lucid and loosely defined, usually determined by local residents and are therefore going to be different depending on whom you ask. Unlike many neighborhoods in the city, Midwood can claim a steadier population, with deep roots, though in New York terms that means decades instead of centuries.

"Nabes" like Midwood can be taken as a whole microcosm in themselves, and therefore epitomize Brooklyn even though they form only a small fraction of it. Thus the whole is reflected in each part, or to put it another way the whole reflects each part. It's something of a chicken-or-egg question, comparable to arguing over the best pizza, and a dilemma that each traveler must explore on his or her own.

This kind of cultural intangibility is where Brooklyn derives its charm. It is an eclectic borough comprised of many diverse neighborhoods whose lack of consistent ethnical identity and sheer variety of people and culture has come to define the borough and has made Brooklyn a name recognized the world over. It is a place where people of every race, color and creed live harmoniously in close proximity to each other, working together, taking the train together and all around comprising the social fabric of New York City. When people speak of America as a "melting pot" of cultural diversity, Brooklyn stands among the most poignant examples.