Beantown Writer Calls Brooklyn Heights “La De Da”

By on December 15, 2011 9:26 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Tourism

Not for nothin’ but Brooklyn Heights has been called many things over the years but Boston Herald travel writer Bob Young may take the (Junior’s Cheese) cake with this passage included in a recent piece on our fair borough:

Boston Herald: The brownstones of the upscale Cobble Hill area offered a stark architectural contrast to DUMBO and got us ready for the even more la de da Brooklyn Heights. Beacon Hill brownstones — and plenty of Beacon Hill’s residents — would feel right at home on the Heights, which sport some of the best shopping and views in all of New York.

The fabled Promenade, a wonderful esplanade on the Heights with spectacular views of the East River, the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges and Lower Manhattan, is worth a trip to Brooklyn all by itself. Though it was a heartbreaking reminder to see Lower Manhattan without the Twin Towers, it was equally buoying to the spirit to witness the gleaming new structures under construction rising from their ruins.

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  • Jen

    “sports some of the best shopping” ????

  • Willowwillow

    Jen- I literally went looking for the ” like ” button for your comment.

  • stuart

    I thought it was “la-dee-dah”

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/13189502@N02/ Eddyenergizer

    Jen, you have to remember he’s looking at it from a Boston point of view…

  • Teddy

    Compared to Boston, shopping on 86th St in Bay Ridge is better.

  • stuart

    People have said to me that BH reminds them of Boston.

  • maria

    These comments are so true and hilarious! I love my neighbors…

  • David G.

    Bostonites are peculiar. I was once in Boston and asked a cop for directions to a museum. He told me that if I don’t “Lolly Gaggle” I could get there in ten minutes. I’m still not sure what Lolly Gaggling is.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/13189502@N02/ Eddyenergizer

    One of my favorite lines from the Sopranos “Boston it’s like Scranton with clams”

  • skunky

    buck foston

  • Andrew Porter

    Back Bay is indeed remarkably similar to BH, from the building appearance to the slate sidewalks, with their channels for run-off water. Unlike BH, Boston never put through that law that the roof run-off has to go into the sewer system instead of being channeled into the streets, so theirs are still functional. And the eras of brownstone and townhouse construction are remarkably similar to ours.

    We’re amazingly fortunate to have what we have, both visually and in quality of life. We may complain about shopping, restaurants, crime and the schools, but compared to so many other places both in NYC and in other cities, BH is a really wonderful place.

  • Lindsay

    David G – Lolly Gag: an old New England term meaning to dawdle, take your time, wander. I’m from Boston and I always tell people that BH reminds me of Beacon Hill and Back Bay. And sadly, shopping on Montague St hasn’t quite reached the level of Newbury St…..

  • Rick Anderson

    To be more precise, Brooklyn’s Brownstones are more comparable to what you find in the Back Bay as opposed to Beacon Hill whose homes are predominantly brick. Shopping on Charles Street on Beacon Hill or Newbury Street in the Back Bay is closer to Madison Avenue than 86th Street in Bay Ridge. As far as shopping in the Heights, please send a map or Google directions. I have been trying to find those shops for over 30 years and still can’t seem to locate them. They say that we will more likely shop in downtown Brooklyn on the Fulton Mall in the near future before Montague Street becomes anything other than “bad restuarants with high rents.”

  • Willow St. Neighbor

    Best shopping? Seriously?

  • Wrennie

    Isn’t Fulton Mall pretty gross? Come to think of it, I remember Smith Street being a lot better for shopping about 10 years ago, too.

  • AEB

    More like “la de blah”….

    Oh sorry! Our nabe is THROBBING!

  • princess

    I think the The Brooklyn Women’s Exchange shop on 55 Pierrepont Street is like no other shop in NYC!

  • GHB

    Best shopping, my azzzz
    I’m most offended that he said ON the Heights, not IN the Heights…

  • Gerry

    @ Lindsay, I thought that Lollygagging was an Irish term that means goofing off?

    “Stop your lollygagging around and do something with yourself” is what I heard at home when I was a kid.

  • Publius

    Ever notice on blogs/The InterWebs that people are just itching for any excuse to be “offended”. Oh, the outrage! I think there’s a psychology/sociology dissertation there.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    GHB: I’ve never gotten used to the New York way of saying one is “on line” instead of “in line” when one is standing in a queue. I once took my place at what I thought was the end of a checkout line, and a woman standing to the side said sharply, “I’m on line!” I was tempted to say, “Great. May I click your mouse and check my e-mail?”

  • Sheila

    I thought folks from Boston were Bostonians?

  • Lindsay

    LOL – didn’t even know there was a spelling for lollygag! I used to hear that too, but I also heard it from my mother in the same context as the police officer used it. “You come home right now! And no lollygagging!!”

    Love Boston, love Brooklyn Heights. Win-win for me. :-)

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    I thought Bostonians were cheap shoes.

  • Teddy

    I thought lollygagging was something the cop was planning to do to his favorite hooker after his shift ended.

  • Master Of Middagh

    I prefer the term “dilly-dally” myself.

  • Andrew Porter

    Great jumping jehosophat, have the denizens of this blog nothing better to do with their time than waste it with silly shenanigans over the meaning of obsolete phraseology???

  • PromGirl

    Many of us here ON Brooklyn Heights have Yankee roots. We do not lolly gag around, and know you will go to he’ll in a hand basket if you do.
    On Brooklyn Heights is the proper terminology, and lolly gagging is a wicked good expression.