Apparantly I live in a crack den

We are finally starting to get settled into our new place here in Brooklyn. Sometimes we bumble around, not knowing where to go with so much space. I have friends that moved out of the city to the 'burbs. For the first year they pretty much lived in the kitchen / family room which was the size of their living space in their old place in Brooklyn. It's kind of the same thing. Your body can't figure out where to go and what to do in so much space after living in our little Tribeca box.

Having this much space in relation to my work truly is amazing, however. My office has two huge windows facing the street. I have endless sunshine and breeze at my disposal while I'm attached to my computer.

This street-side view makes for some fascinating eavesdropping. Today I head a group of people walking down the street toward our building. One woman, with one of thicker true Brooklyn accents I've heard was leading a group of out-of-towners (fanny packs and cameras slung around the neck gave them away), giving them a tour of the neighborhood. 

Overheard....

Tourist Woman (stops directly in front of my building and points to the entrance leading the lower level of my apartment): So tell me about these kinds of apartments.

Brooklyn Tour Guide (standing directly below my office window, pointing at my apartment): Well, these kinds of apartments are completely illegal. You remember me telling you about my husband and how he was a crack head? Well, he lived in one of these places for two years with a bunch of other crack heads and the landlord couldn't kick them out because it was an illegal apartment.

Tourist Woman (staring blankly ahead): Oh.

Oh indeed.

I was laughing so loud in the office I was shocked they couldn't hear me from where they were standing. I thought about my baby girl downstairs, curled up in her crib, along side some sordid crack fiends. The lady was clearly a bit hazy about real estate laws in New York City.

I'm starting to feel a bit like an old Brooklyn lady, hanging near the window, waiting for more neighborhood gossip.

How the hell did we get here?!

I moved to New York City, specifically to Park Slope Brooklyn, 10 years ago, and I did everything and anything I could to leave Brooklyn for Manhattan. Two years later I succeeded and swore I would never move back over the bridge to Brooklyn. It wasn’t that I disliked Brooklyn, but loved downtown Manhattan that much more. I loved being able to jump on the train and getting to anywhere I cared about in less than 20 minutes. I loved that I could walk to hundreds of bars, restaurants and shops. Back then, almost everyone I knew lived in Manhattan, and that’s the way I liked it.

I was a Manhattan girl through and through.

Back then it was the East Village. I had two apartments over the three years I lived in the East Village. Both were on the top floors of five-story walk ups. If you forgot something, forget it. You weren’t going to haul ass to the top floor just to pick up your wallet. Instead, a friend would cover you for the night until you could cover them. I was single, free and enamored with the city.

Then I met, moved in with and married my husband. That meant leaving my hipster lifestyle in the village for the cool, swank neighborhood of Tribeca. I had a hard time in Tribeca at first. It was quiet and ritzy; sometimes even snooty. But in the end, I grew to love its cobblestone streets, access to the Hudson River and amazing food and wine. We were living the New York dream in 800 square feet.

Then the unthinkable happened. My husband and I decided to have a baby.

You would think if I was in love enough with Manhattan that cramming the three of us, and my small business, into our 800 square foot one-bedroom would be no problem. You would think that sharing our bedroom with the baby and my overflowing desk would still be workable if loved being in Tribeca so much.

After one and a half years of living on top of each other, I had enough. It was a brutal decision for both my husband and me. We LOVED downtown Manhattan. We knew every square inch of our beautiful neighborhood and the surrounding areas. We were regulars are various restaurants and are daughter was beloved at them all. We had a daily routine of walking the streets, people watching and just enjoying downtown.

In a strange turn of events, the moment I was completely over being jammed into our place, good friends mentioned that the garden level apartment in their building in Park Slope would be coming available. It wasn’t on the market yet, maybe we could skip the broker’s fees and grab it. Hardy har har.

We looked at the place thinking we’d never like it, never like the neighborhood and we’d never leave Manhattan.  A month later, here we are. The lure of double the square footage, a beautiful backyard and proximity to Prospect Park was too much even for this true-blue Manhattan family. 10 years later I’m back where I started, in Park Slope.

Thus begins our two years in Brooklyn.