When I told the woman I worked for at the time where I was moving--she gasped. She actually gasped. She said, Are you sure you want to do that?
She had lived in Brooklyn before. (Before she got some sense and a higher paying job and moved to the Upper East Side, I mean.) She had lived in Park Slope, before it was Park Slope, and had gone for a run one night and had her headphones stolen right off her head, mid-stride. They had been nice headphones, and it wasn't even after sundown.
So, she warned me. She asked me if I needed a raise, if it would help me afford a better place.
Are you sure you want to do this? she gasped.
I moved to Brooklyn. To Crown Heights, though initially more towards the side of the neighborhood that already looks a lot like Park Slope Park Slope. And the day I moved in, a couple in their sixties came up my stoop stairs off the street to help me hoist a couch into my apartment, laughing at the fact that two uncoordinated girls were trying to do it alone.
The warmth of the street community in Crown Heights is unlike anything I encountered living in Midtown or the Upper West Side, or in the homes of families I've nannied for in the Upper East Side and Lower Manhattan. By street community I mean the people you pass everyday: the same traffic director by the elementary school across the street, the same neighbor named Edna in a foldable lawn chair on her stoop next door to mine, the same sha-sha boutique owners rolling up their metal door covers and yawning a Good morning. I also mean the strangers you never see again: the ones that pick up the things you drop or hold open a subway door or help you hoist a couch up a flight of stairs.
As the couple that helped me with the couch waved and walk away they said, Welcome to the neighborhood! We'll see you soon.
I never have seen them again, but their phrase rings in my ears, even now, as I walk from place to place, passing familiar and unfamiliar faces.
Welcome to the neighborhood, instead of, Welcome to the city.
We'll see you soon, instead of, Enjoy your stay, or, even worse, Good luck with everything.
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