All the rage

It seemed like the whole fucking borough was cooing over the dedication of an entire section of the Sunday paper to that phenomenon most of us know simply as Brooklyn. My favorite article by far was the one that resonated the most – Steven Kurutz's all-too-familiar account of how he fell in love with Brooklyn.

Quickly, however, and almost despite yourself, you find you are experiencing what can only be described as a budding love affair. You now live in an apartment in which the closets alone are about half the square footage of your old place in the city. That's another thing. You begin to refer to Manhattan as "the city," and not without a hint of disdain.

Every day you discover something about Brooklyn that you like more and something about Manhattan that you like less. Take Prospect Park. There's a grassy patch of land you can be proud of. It's a real park, too, not some well-landscaped singles club or a rest stop for tourists. There are families and poorly groomed dogs and sad-eyed men strolling around - it's all very democratic.

On your block, a group of old women wearing housecoats sit and gossip in front of a paint-chipped building; you get a kick out of it every time you walk by. "This neighborhood is so real!" you say to yourself (you know you're getting carried away, but you can't help it). And another thing: When Manhattan is mired in cold springs and even colder winters, you've noticed how it's warmer in Brooklyn. Maybe just a few degrees, but still.

At a party, someone asks where in the city you would live if money were no object, and instead of a loft in SoHo, you find yourself saying you want a brownstone on President Street. When you leave town, and someone asks where you live, you don't say New York. You say Brooklyn. You might even throw in a "dem" or "dose," just for laughs and to underscore the point. Never mind that you moved in just a couple of years ago. It's Us vs. Them, and you belong squarely with the old women in the housecoats.

Yup. That's how it happens.