My Love Letter to Ditmas Park

Let me tell you about Ditmas Park.

Ditmas Park is the neighborhood where Daniel and I are blessed to be currently living. Sometimes when I think about all of the different places in Brooklyn where we could have ended up, a rush of thankfulness just washes over me.

Here's why:

I could go on, but you get it. It's beautiful. It's hip. It's got delicious french toast. You're sold.

We were too when we first arrived here. As I mentioned in a previous entry, Daniel and I have been subleasing an apartment in this area. We've got three roommates (and by roommates, I mean cats) that live with us, and they are a blast. It's a really great situation. 

When we walk out of the apartment building, we are steps away from the main road: Cortelyou Road, which looks like this:

It's full of bodegas, coffee shops, amazing restaurants, organic groceries (not to mention a super successful food coop). As I write this, I am currently sitting at my favorite coffee shop, Qathra, sipping on a chai tea latte and feeling pretty self-assured in my perceived hipness. 

The neighborhood is really relaxed, full of really interesting people and families. I would post pictures of the thousands of impressively adorable babies I see every day, but Daniel doesn't allow me to take pictures of other peoples' kids because he claims it's "creepy and off-putting". You can see how his tyrannical reign over this relationship has some consequences. 

Ditmas Park is also central to a ton of incredible places. It's a short train ride to:

PROSPECT PARK

Grand Army Plaza

Relaxing my life away

THE BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDENS

THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM

Believe it or not, this is a coffin.

CONEY ISLAND

not to mention, a little place called MANHATTAN

Ditmas Park also might be the friendliest neighborhood ever. In my mind I frequently compare Cortelyou Road to Sesame Street. I could absolutely imagine a spontaneous musical breaking out. The other day when I went for a run, FOUR different people said things like, "Keep it up!", "Good for you!", "Look at you go!", and I definitely heard one guy say, "Don't stop believing!"

WE LOVE DITMAS PARK...almost as much as these people.

I don't know these people, but I'd like to. 

Not that I am trying to brag (by the way, did I mention that Tina Fey and Paul Rudd were shooting a movie down the street from me the other day?). I am just daily floored that I get to live here. 

This summer, I have started on the path to becoming a New Yorker. I don't know how I officially become one. According to How I Met Your Mother, you're a real New Yorker when you've:

1. Seen Woody Allen (Not yet. Where does he hang out? I have so many things to tell him!)

2. Stolen a cab from someone who needs it more than you do (I have a problem with this one because I ride the subway, and I think most of us do.)

3. Cried on the subway and not given a damn (Check.)

4. Killed a cockroach with your bare hands (How about bare feet?)

So by this list's standards, I am sort of halfway there, which is pretty good for just a few months of actually living here. Something I have heard from a lot of locals is that you can tell you are a New Yorker when you go back and forth between loving the city and hating it. 

Boy, do I get that. There are days when I am walking around Manhattan and I am taking in all of the sights and I just feel like that girl from That Girl.

Then there are days when I get stepped on, or it rains, or I eat something weird, or I get yelled at and I just think to myself, That Girl must have been on crack. 

But whenever I feel like that, which is really very seldom, Ditmas Park is so comforting. When we were planning to move here from Texas, my fear was always that I would have nowhere to escape to when the city became a little too much. Now I can safely say that my neighborhood is my escape. 

We signed a two-year lease the other day. Let's do this, Ditmas Park.