Is Brooklyn The New Paris?

The question is not whether Brooklyn is the new Paris but whether Paul LaRosa of HuffPo is the new face of collaboration-ism-ishness (or something like that). 

I've got news for you, Paulie: if you keep this shit up, Brownstone Brooklyn is going to be outed as the new Westchester, not the new Paris.

Yesterday, this issue of vital international security was put on the table (Is Brooklyn the New Paris?) right next to the news that Obama has sent covert CIA troops into Libya. Uh, a little digression but isn't covert supposed to mean secret?As in, not featured in a ginormous real-time headline?

Anyway, here's what Brooklynite Paul posited on HuffPo: 

Ah to have lived in Paris during the 1920's! Hemingway's Paris -- outdoor cafes, bookstores, bistros, writers, drinking!

Reminds me of a place I know well -- Brooklyn.

The only thing missing is the ubiquitous smoke rising from the lips of the young and literary. Laugh if you like, but I've been thinking more and more that Brooklyn, circa 2011, is very similar to what Paris was like nearly a century ago. Of course, I'm talking about the brownstone belt neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Fort Greene, but you can throw DUMBO, Williamsburg and Red Hook in there as well...

Blah, blah, blah...

As for writers, well, we all know they're here and thriving. National Book Critics Circle Award winner Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad lives in Fort Greene. Nicole Krauss, a finalist for the National Book Award for Great House lives with her writer-husband Jonathan Safron Foer, the best-selling writer of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in a big house in Park Slope. Also in Park Slope,Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) has his own Superhero Supply Co. store that doubles as a writing-instruction program for kids. The great Pete Hamill's heart is in Brooklyn (he was raised in Park Slope) and of course living among is the venerable Paul Auster who the French like nearly as much as Jerry Lewis...

Blah, blah, blah.

We've also got great independent bookstores as I mentioned in another post. I could go on and on. We've got the street life, the Bohemian lifestyle, readings, the nightlife, boutique coffee, great cheese stores, and farmer's markets galore, AND there are artists' studios all over DUMBO, Red Hook and Gowanus.

A couple of years ago, someone dubbed Brooklyn "the new Manhattan." I'm saying we're way beyond that now. Shove over, Paris -- Brooklyn is here!

Okay, I'm throwing up a little in my mouth. Again. 

At least there was a bit of redemption in the comments.

Kevin: Queens is Queens, and has no ambitions or illusions about it being anything else, and if I were still in Brooklyn, I'd have no desire to see it as anything but Brooklyn. (Figures, he left; BK's loss).

Anfractuous: And the similarities go on: In 1920's Paris struggling writers used to send their nannies to fulfill their service obligations at the Paris Food Co-op.

And Gothamist couldn't resist joining the fray:

So is his main argument that gentrification makes for great culture/art/literature? Because we're pretty sure nobody's going to mistake Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Ames for Hemingway, Henry Miller or Samuel Beckett. 

What the fuck is this dude talking about and why doesn't he keep it to his own farmer's market or arteesinal cheese shop?

And, for that matter, didn't Hemingway off himself in Idaho? Paris didn't work out so well for him.