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A Brooklyn Evening
By Jay | June 21, 2008
It’s been a tough month, but I’m taking a weekend to myself, where I’m not doing anything work-related. It feels good.
M. and I went down to the new Ikea that opened up in Brooklyn last week. I was against this Ikea being built, because of the traffic it will generate in my quiet neighborhood. But I have to admit that they did a good job building that store. It’s one the waterfront and they built a beautiful park all along the water. I’m sure that Ikea would rather have put a parking lot up to the water’s edge, but as part of negotiations with the city they put in a promenade along the harbor, and they spared no expense. M. and I stood along the water and watched the Summer sun sink into the horizon behind the Statue of Liberty, then walked into the store.
It was mobbed, and what a mixture of people. I sometimes forget just how diverse Brooklyn is. We ate Swedish meatballs with Lingonberry sauce in the Ikea cafeteria (a frugal choice — the bill for the two of us was under $20) with a Muslim couple on one side (the woman was in a full length burka with veil), a gay Asian/White couple on the other, a Jamaican family across from us, Hasidic Jews one table over (it was after sunset)… every type of person you could think of, all eating together as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Brooklyn is like that, and that’s one of the things I love about living here.
Afterward we walked home through Red Hook, past the projects, past new galleries, coffee houses, kids playing kickball in the street. We could hear boats in the harbor, blowing their horns. Fireworks (illegal), were going off around the neighborhood, as people practiced for the Fourth of July.
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Topics: New York City |
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Sounds like a very nice weekend. Taking time away from the hectic elements of life is very important. You never want any one part of your life to be dominant for too long without good reason.