The Rise and Fall of Manhattan

Brooklyn Is The New Manhattan

It's tragic. It's sad. It's true.

Manhattan is over.

Don't get me wrong, Manhattan is great- it offers culture, diversity, shopping and much more...but unfortunately that "much more" includes yuckies- better known to the rest world as "yuppies." Yuppies are a species of New Yorkers that until recently had been rare, ridiculed and isolated, exiled by Manhattan's trendy. The species of (Y)oug (U)rban (P)rofessionals are young people with no aspiration in life other than to makemoney. With high-paying jobs, dollar signs inscribed in their eyeballs and affluent lifestyles, they have managed to gain power throughout the island. They started with Wall Street. Moved on to surrounding areas. And eventually, they got to it all. It was too late. It was over. The battle against the yuppies was lost. We had surrendered. And we had lost.

Disheartened trendies hoped to find a new way of life. They found it in the form of Brooklyn. The task was hard. Brooklyn would need a lot of work. It would take years. With hope for a yuppie-free city, they carried on the impossible dream. Years later, proving that it was in fact possible, Brooklyn emerged as trendy, fabulous and better than ever. Beware, parts in Brooklyn are still horrible places, which are the parts that most people know. This is Brooklyn's advantage. It is a mystery- a gem not yet discovered, saving the city from Minnesotan suburban tourists and the... (gulp)... yuppies. The "best parts" of Brooklyn serve as the home to artists and up-and-coming designers in up-and-coming neighborhoods. It's the young people- not the young billionaires but rather the ones without the millions of dollars. It's the families- not the Upper East Siders with the perfect but secretly dysfunctional family- but rather a sincere family. Not the people shopping at Chanel- but those shopping in Salvation Army and other thrift stores. The ones living life.

Here are a few shots from my day at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden...