Old-Timers Complain About Newcomers' Lack of Brooklyn Cred...
How annoying were these two letters in the Times a few days ago? The whole schtick about needing to have lived in Brooklyn your whole life to feel attached to it or have an opinion about it is getting really old! Clearly we’re not the only ones who feel that way. Reader feedback here.
How annoying were these two letters in the Times a few days ago? The whole schtick about needing to have lived in Brooklyn your whole life to feel attached to it or have an opinion about it is getting really old! Clearly we’re not the only ones who feel that way. Reader feedback here.
“IMO there’s more talent in this list than there is currently in Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint COMBINED.”
That’s besides the point. You’re making this into a Brooklyn natives are more talented than transplants, as a whole, always and forever.
Your list is impressive (in size) – but truthfully I haven’t heard of half those people – and I’m sure I could compile a more impressive list of people in that time frame of prominent non-native NYers in all the same fields.
But yeah – if it’s Brooklyn natives all time vs north brooklynites of today – i guess you win (or time will tell)
someguy, excuse me but I’ve cornered the market on posting lists of famous people who hail from a certain geographic area. And I like to limit it to Canada.
🙂
“That’s EXACTLY what I did and why. Couldn’t take Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens poser bullshit anymore and packed up for Bay Ridge. My eyes now roll 90% less on any given day.”
Seriously? Posers in Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens? Um, can’t say I’ve experienced that at all. Regardless, with all due respect, I’ll take that over the Bay Ridge bar room brawler set.
Talent is subjective, you’re right, so it is a matter of opinion. However people with performance talents end up in LA so maybe it’s not that hard to believe. Erasmus High School alone has a list of graduates that only a performing arts High School could top. (from wikipedia)
Mary Anderson, silent film actress
Bob Arum, boxing promoter
Joseph Barbera, (1928); artist; cartoonist; co-creator of Tom & Jerry cartoons.
Jeff Barry (Joel Adelberg) (1955); songwriter/producer; Songwriters Hall of Fame member
Karen Bernod, singer
Jeff Chandler (Ira Grossel) (1935); actor
Betty Comden, (1933); playwright; Broadway musical songwriter with Adolph Green.
Jane Cowl (1902); actress, playwright (original name Grace Bailey).
J. Irving Crump (1907); Editor of Boys Life magazine, 1918–1952; author or editor of 50 books.
Billy Cunningham (1961); player and coach, Philadelphia ’76ers basketball team.
Jim Cymbala (1960); pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle; author of “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire”
Jon Cypher (1949); actor (Hill Street Blues)
Al Davis; Oakland Raiders owner, Pro Football Hall of Fame member.[40]
Clive Davis; Grammy Award winning record producer; Chairman & CEO BMG North America; founder of Arista Records
Neil Diamond, attended Erasmus from 1954–1956; singer/songwriter.
Will Downing (1981); singer
Norm Drucker, professional basketball official.
H. Wentworth Eldredge (1926); Professor and head of three departments at Dartmouth; advisor to Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA; “Counselor to the President.”
Bobby Fischer (dropped out in 1960); chess champion.
Jim Florio (1964); former Governor of New Jersey.
Deborah Grabien (c. 1971); novelist/essayist.
Earl G. Graves (1952); publisher of Black Enterprise magazine
Arno Gruen, psychoanalyst, psychologist and writer
Raymond M. Gunnison (1907); Publisher, Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper; Chairman, R. H. Donnelly Publishers.
Susan Hayward (born Edythe Marrenner), Hollywood actress.
Eleanor Holm (1932); Olympic swimmer
Moe Howard (Moses Harry Horwitz), (dropped out after two months, 1915) member of the Three Stooges comedy team
Waite Hoyt, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher for the New York Yankees and long-time broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds.
Stanley Edgar Hyman (c. 1933); literary critic; husband of Shirley Jackson.
Marty Ingels, comedian; husband of Shirley Jones.
Ned Irish (1924); Organizer of First Madison Square Garden Basketball Tournament (1934); Founder of the New York Knicks, President, Madison Square Garden; member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Dave Jones (1978); drummer, Hell’s Bells.
Roger Kahn (1945); sportswriter, author of several books including The Boys of Summer.
Dr. Eric Kandel (1944); winner of Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology, 2000.
Lainie Kazan (Lainie Levine), (1958); Broadway, film and TV actress and singer
Dorothy Kilgallen (1932); journalist and TV celebrity.
Bernie Kopell (1953); actor, “Doc” on TV series The Love Boat.
Dennis Lambert (1964); Singer-songwriter/record producer – Subject of recent award-winning documentary “Of All the Things”
Samuel LeFrak (1936); real estate developer.
Hal Lefkowitz (1962); inventor. Invented The Clapper (“Clap On! Clap Off!”), originally patented as the Magic Genie.
Abby Lippman, Women’s Health Activist and Professor of Epidemiology, McGill University.
Sid Luckman (1935); football champion with the Chicago Bears.
Bernard Malamud (1932); author and educator; Pulitzer Prize for The Fixer, 1967, The Magic Barrel, 1958.[40]
Daniel Mann, attended in 1920s, transferred before graduating; film and television director.
Kedar Massenburg (1981); former CEO/President of Motown Records
Dr. Barbara McClintock (1919); winner of Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, 1983.
James Meissner (1914); World War I Flying Ace
Stephanie Mills, (1975); actress/singer.
Don Most (1970); actor, TV series, Happy Days.
Albert “Sammy” Narvaez (1980 dropout); First Hispanic Marine Sergeant Major, Security Head for Trump Enterprises
Marky Ramone, drummer of seminal New York punk band The Ramones.
Lynn Pressman Raymond (c. 1912–2009), toy and game innovator who was president of the Pressman Toy Corporation
Don K. Reed (1960): disc jockey, hosted “The Doo-Wop Shop” radio show on New York oldies station WCBS-FM.
Jerry Reinsdorf (1953); partial owner of the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox.
Lewis Rolland, MD (1942); expert on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease).
Mike Rosen (1960) Denver radio talk show host
Robert Rosen (1970); author of the best-selling biography Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon.
Sam Rutigliano, former NFL head coach.
Arthur M. Sackler, MD (1931); art historian and collector; Collection of African and Ancient Art is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.
Brigadier General Guy Sands-Pingot, (1974); U.S. Army Officer
Sheldan Segal (c. 1943), contraceptive developer.
Alan Shulman (attended between 1928–1929); composer and cellist
Beverly Sills (Belle Miriam Silverman), coloratura opera singer, attended Erasmus in the mid-1940s and transferred before graduating.
Robert Silverberg (1952); novelist.
Special Ed (Edward Archer), rapper who mentions Erasmus Hall on his album Youngest in Charge.
Melodee M. Spevack (1970); actress, writer, anime voice performer
Mickey Spillane (Morrison Spillane) (1936); author of detective and mystery fiction.
Barbra Streisand (Barbara Joan Streisand) (1959); actress, singer, director, producer.
Chuck Suber (1937), publisher of Down Beat Magazine and educator at Columbia College Chicago.
Norma Talmadge (c. 1911); silent film star.
Cheryl Toussaint (1970); athlete; Olympic gold medalist, 1972.
Kenny Vance, musician, who calls out Erasmus Hall in the first line of “Looking for an Echo”
Eli Wallach, (1932); actor.
Mae West (1911); actress, comedienne, playwright.
D. Train, (James Williams) (1980); singer/songwriter
Marian Winters (c. 1942), Broadway actress
IMO there’s more talent in this list than there is currently in Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint COMBINED.
While I grew up in Staten Island during the 80s all of my friends were transplants from Park Slope. They left because the neighborhood was bordering on unsafe. They also wanted more space. They are tough, republican, blue collar and tell you where to go and how to get there. I love them.
I lived in Park Slope for 7 years during the late 90s and early 00s. My friends where all PC, vegans, total liberals, artists, writers and spoke so as not of offend anyone and I loved them.
Can we stop judging people on their zip codes already? This goes for everyone!!!
“Personally I find that the talent which came from Brooklyn is much more substantial than the talent that comes to it.”
Really? That’s a pretty strong statement. Can’t say I agree.
Lol – well played woodys
The ironic thing is that people coming to Brooklyn from other places are proud to brag about being from there, but they have changed what it actually means to be from Brooklyn.
Is what it means to be from Brooklyn any worse that what it meant if one came from Brooklyn? Certainly the tough aspect is for the most part gone.
Personally I find that the talent which came from Brooklyn is much more substantial than the talent that comes to it.
By Petebklyn on June 29, 2010 2:24 PM
thank you, Donatella. May you live to a ripe old age.
(in Brooklyn of course).
Thank you, Pete.