“I’m Sorry Barbra Streisand…” ©2022

In my silly story, named “Brooklyn…I’ve got Brooklyn-itis”, I wrote about your snobbish attitude about Brooklyn.

True there was a time, you wanted to shed your connection to the Borough.

You weren’t alone…perhaps EVEN I was guilty of that… (OH SHAME)!

I was thrilled to be accepted to an art high school in Manhattan, that only took a handful of students, from each of New York’s 5 boroughs.

It meant travelling by subway from Brownsville to Manhattan’s upper East Side that took an hour and a half.

Six A.M. my alarm clock would ring so I could make it to that school by 8:00.

After school, I would work from 6:00 to 10 P.M. at The Rainbow Shop, on Pitkin Avenue. This was to pay for my art supplies & get a store discount on the new clothes, I wanted to wear to the Manhattan school.

This Brooklyn girl wanted to be accepted. It was one of the best things that happened to me. It opened my myopic eyes to another world.

How could I ever dream that I would live years later 5 blocks from that High School some years later!

Today my Alma Mata, The High School of Industrial Art, is gone…I was in its last graduating class in 1960. It was torn down…erased…pulled by its roots the hell off its foundation.

In its place was built a nursing home for seniors. (For me? No)

I kibbitz with my children & grandchildren, “Looks like Dee-Dee will do a full circle back to the same place" she left Brooklyn for”!

Should I tell you that on that routine subway ride…my husband found me.

He too was a Brooklyn boy who travelled from a station before mine, to his City College Classes.

Isn’t life so strange & surprising???

Barbra dear I know Brooklyn will forever be in our souls.