CROWN HEIGHTS  |  PARKCHESTER  |  HOLLIS  |  SOUTH STREET SEAPORT

Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Lauren, 24; writer, pancake fan

What’s the biggest misconception about your neighborhood?
When people see the name Crown Heights, they run. I never knew why until I visited friends in Williamsburg and Park Slope—which are basically mini-Manhattans.

Are you a minority here?
Yeah. The neighborhood is predominantly black. Kids—like 12-year-old boys—will say, “What up, snowflake?” and stuff like that. It doesn’t bother me. This is not my community—it’s theirs. I’m just an observer.

You seem to like it.
I do. My apartment is huge and has tons of closet space. The people are friendlier, too. In Manhattan, I’ll be on the subway and wonder if strangers are staring at my shoes and thinking they look cheap. Here, I don’t worry about how I look.

What don’t you like?
Well, I live across the street from the Atlantic Armory, the largest men’s homeless shelter in Brooklyn—a little fact my broker forgot to mention. It’s enormous and spans the whole block. At first I thought it was a community gym. [Laughs] Twentysomething white girl from Pennsylvania, what do I know? Recently, someone spray-painted a huge BLOODS sign on a garage near me. And last night, while I was walking into my building, two cops trailed behind me and said they needed access to our roof to do “street surveillance.” I see drug-dealing sometimes, but it’s not my problem. I’m not Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds. Things like that happen all the time, all over the city, and all over the world. It’s not my place to say, “Oh, these poor kids!” I don’t know what their lives are like.

Are your friends unwilling to visit you?
[Laughs] Yeah. They think I’m crazy. Someone once said to me, “You live in the ’hood!” Um, Crown Heights is not the ’hood. You’re not gangsta when you live less than three miles from a Target.

THE HANGOUT
“Bristen’s Café (751 Franklin Ave between St. Johns and Sterling Pl, 646-393-9422) just opened a few weeks ago. They serve organic neosoul food and Illy coffee. Everything is made-to-order, and my faves are the fried chicken and waffles and peaches-and-cream pancakes. So good.”

FOR RENT!
(Some examples from April 2008)
Two-bedroom apartment in a brownstone with renovated kitchen, wine shelving and original molding: $1,500/month. On Craigslist.

Rent-stabilized studio in prewar elevator building with Pullman-style kitchen, renovated bathroom and “ginormous” walk-in closet: $900/month. On Craigslist.