BROOKLYN’S SENIOR INVASION

Photo credit: Linda Dajana Kruger/lostateminor.comThere is a new invasion of seniors to the Borough of Kings. It’s called SRITS (Screw Retiring In The Suburbs). Yes, there have always been old people in Brooklyn, but now there are more new old folks. It seems many seniors are forgoing the sprawling boring comforts of suburbia and moving to BKLYN. I don't blame them. Sounds like a good retirement plan to me…no driveway to shovel in the winter, no leaves to rake in the fall and 1,492 restaurants that will deliver your dinner. Um, is anyone else weirded out that 1492 is also the same year Christopher Columbus used Apple Maps to sail across the Atlantic Ocean? Just sayin’.

Yeah, some of the recent geriatric influx into the borough is due to grandparents wanting to live close to their spawn’s spawns. I get that. Who wouldn’t want the person that caught you smoking American Spirits in the garden shed a few decades ago to catch your kids doing the same thing on your building’s roof. It’s the beautiful circle of life.

According to the NY weekly paper that made Candace Bushnell a condo-wide name, elders are not just following their kids to Brooklyn for free babysitting services. They are coming and laying down their gray roots on their own terms. They are plopping down hefty payments on prime real estate in neighborhoods like Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Forte Greene, Greenpoint, Williamsburg and even gentrifying Bushwick and Crown Heights for all the convenience, community, culinary and art scenes the neighborhoods and the borough in general have to offer.

Sure beats spending bingo night at a suburban community center. For the old folks who pay mad cash to live out their golden years here, if you’re interested, Brooklyn does have bingo, lots of it, and shuffleboard too. So come, join in, but please don’t be surprised if you see some bearded, spectacle-donning, cold ass honkeys wearing the old clothes you donated to a charity thrift store, but …shit, it was ninety-nine cents!....

I wear your granddad's clothes

I look incredible

I'm in this big ass coat

From that thrift shop down the road

Brooklynites often play with organic local microbrews and a side of irony and welcome you to make fun of those that wear your discarded clothes. Some of us wanna be just like you when we grow up…Brooklynites.