I'm not blogging here anymore, but you should read my current blog, Breaking Copy! - Daryl

I saw this ad on a bus shelter last night:

The full text of the ad is:

Our DIVERSITY is our greatest STRENGTH.

When any New Yorker is atacked for who they are, what they believe or whom they LOVE it is a crime against all of us.

Keep our City strong.

LOVE LOVE. HATE HATE.

This is a totally on-pitch PSA that makes me proud of the city. To the best of my memory, this is the first time I’ve seen the slogan “Love love. Hate hate.” That’s a seriously good tagline. Also impressive is how timely this PSA is—the text seems to allude to recent hate crimes against a Muslim cab driver and several gay men in the Bronx, fresh wounds against the city. The campaign was launched October 14, not even 2 weeks after the Bronx attacks. The ads are produced by NYC & Company, the city’s public affairs division; more information in this press release.

I received a lot of feedback on my post this morning, “On leaving Brooklyn.” It turns out I hit upon something a lot of people wanted to talk about—how Park Slope has spiraled downhill. Some of the responses are below.

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Two Saturday mornings ago, I was shopping at the C-Town on 9th Street in Park Slope. In the snack aisle I walked past a guy intently studying two bags of potato chips. He looked a lot like me, only with a shaggy beard and an untucked flannel work shirt, a popular look here. Next to him, an elderly lady asked for help reaching a box of garbage bags on a high shelf. “Just a second,” said the bearded guy, lost in his potato chip labels. “When you have a chance,” the woman said patiently.

I did the obvious thing. Since the other guy wouldn’t, I got the box for the woman. But I also had a very visceral reaction. I wanted to turn to the bearded potato chip scholar, get up in his face, and hiss, “Dude! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Fortunately, I didn’t act on that impulse. But the next time I might. And that’s why it’s time to leave Brooklyn.

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People often ask me for advice about moving to New York City. This post is long and over-sharey, but I’m writing it as a service piece to explain what it takes to find an apartment in New York in 2010. As some of you know already, I’m making a big move next month from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Here’s the story of how it happened.

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Before airplanes, people traveling long distances to New York City arrived by ship across the New York harbor, watching the island of Manhattan slowly come into view, unfolding with drama and promise.

Today we have the approach to LaGuardia Airport. On the evening of Labor Day, I flew into LaGuardia on a Dash 8 from Roanoke, descending over the harbor, over Manhattan, over the Bronx, then turning and landing from the northeast on runway 4-22. This approach may provide the most spectacular view of any urban airport landing in the world.

You’re not supposed to use digital cameras on the plane, but I did anyway.

Brooklyn: Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Coney Island

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Just an ordinary parking structure…

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(Updated 8:19 p.m. ET) A producer from the BBC interviewed me Friday for a segment on the Islamic Center near Ground Zero. You can watch the video above or see it on the BBC News web site.
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There’s a scene in “Twelve Angry Men” where Juror #10, having exhausted all his other arguments, starts to use ethnic stereotypes to argue why the accused is guilty. The other jurors, one by one, stand up silently and turn their backs to him.

That’s what I was hoping to do with yesterday’s post, “Hallowed Ground,” showing photos of things as close to the World Trade Center site as the proposed Park51 Islamic community center. One by one, all the arguments against the center are falling away, so the only argument left is anti-Muslim bigotry. People who want to make that argument are free to keep talking, like Juror #10, until it becomes apparent what their true motivations are.

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A few photos of stuff the same distance from the World Trade Center as the “Ground Zero Mosque”:

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I’m posting this video not because I think it deserves to be seen, but because it’s a reminder that naked bigotry is still alive in America. Brace yourself:

OK, did you watch it? Let’s talk about it.

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