"I came here from Odessa in the Ukraine when I was 9. My dad's mother came here about 27 years ago. They settled in Brooklyn because of the very big, strong Russian community. Because of the big Russian infrastructure the transition was much easier.

I used to go to Karate in Odessa and I continued here. Later on my brother suggested I try boxing and I fell in love with it, from day one.

The boxing part of me might have been developed here but I remember watching a Mike Tyson fight, back when I was still in Odessa when I was 4 or 5 years old and I remember I would shadow box between every round. I asked my mother to blow the towel in my face like they were doing to Tyson. I also remember watching the Rocky movies and trying to run through the snow. Maybe I got the motivation back then. I started out boxing at the Starrett City boxing club, it was my home, I went every day for 7 or 8 years, so a part of me is always there and a part of my heart will always be in that place.

I live in Midwood/Flatbush now, and I like it because it's by the beach - the beach is beautiful in the summer - it's a very energetic place, and it has a certain indescribable flavor to it. I love to run on the beach in the summer time, the air is great, it's awesome. Then afterward I take a swim."

“I’m a Navy brat from San Diego. I came here about two years ago, pretty much the second I graduated from Maryland. I knew that my music would do a lot better in NY. At the time I was playing a lot of experimental music with some jazz and hip hop producers. In D.C., I'd set up a show and 15 people would come, but the same show in New York would be packed.

I remember someone saying how the people who live in Brooklyn have the best of both worlds cuz they get beautiful and sometimes quiet Brooklyn when they’re home and the great city when away from home. It seems the people who live in Manhattan think coming to Brooklyn will put them in some "Jews lost in the desert" scenario and so they don't do it that often and have no clue what they are missing. I just love my neighborhood. I live in East Williamsburg/Bushwick. The best things are all the Loft buildings around me. I never dormed in college, so having all these people my age drop by for a drink or to play some music feels pretty nice. The low rent, large space and option to play very loud music sweetens the deal a bit. Plus, the best weekend parties are rooftops in the Burg.

Yea, I now look at my music and see a mustache and 80's throwback stonewashed jeans, but then I look deeper and there is so much more style and personality there. I think when the norm is pushed away in any situation it allows room for a lot more originality and vision to come to the fore. I'm not saying that people who live outside of Brooklyn don't have vision and style, I'm just not saying that they do.

I once saw a hipster say hello to a non-hipster. But for real, I see crazy stuff everyday. People paint canvases and nail them to street signs in my neighborhood. I think that is really sweet. I mean, I never stop for the sign long enough to see the canvas in detail, but conceptually its brilliant. I've seen rich kids dumpster diving loft building trash for records. I've seen Chassidim talking to hot girls just so they could fill another loft space. The list goes on, cuz in Brooklyn, ‘we crazy like that.’”

“Growing up in Sunset Park was great. My mom and dad were born in Puerto Rico, but they met in Sunset Park, they got married in Sunset Park, and my mom became a teacher and then a principal in Sunset Park. We have very, very deep roots in the community and everywhere we went everybody knew my mom, everybody knew my dad, and it was really that homey feeling everywhere. It's a special place. I have my Latin roots there - we were able to get good, cheap food and my parents live in a beautiful brownstone. It was a nice neighborhood that was culturally rich.

My first job was at Channel 11 before landing a job in Texas. It was an NBC station, in Midland Odessa, Texas. I was there for a year and a half before I got homesick. It worked out, because at the time, New York 1 needed a Brooklyn borough reporter and I was born and raised in Brooklyn. Now I’ve been at New York 1 for 9 years.

New York 1 really likes to get borough reporters who are from the borough they're reporting from. When we're hired, we have to sign a contract saying we're going to live in that borough because they want you to be able to know what's being talked about at the local grocery store and the diners. They don't want someone living in Manhattan and just visiting Brooklyn for the day. Even just driving to the supermarket in your daily routine, you may pass by a construction site and say 'wait, this is funny' and you might happen on a story. Of course, I would have lived in Brooklyn anyway.”

“I grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey. My parents came here from Sicily and they moved to what was actually Queens, but they called Brookalino. It was Ridgewood, which is on the Brooklyn/Queens border. That was the neighborhood that a lot of the people from Sicily moved to. We then went out to the suburbs. I came back to Brooklyn in 1993. My wife and I found a place in Cobble Hill with a big garden and great neighbors. There was an old Italian lady, Angie who lived upstairs who became my aunt and mother right away. We’d fight and make up and fight again. She was like a Fellini character with a lot of make-up. My neighbor Sonny had a language I never heard of before. He’d say things like, “In the old days, alright then John, in the old days, mean to say. Alright then John, mean to say?” Him and me would sit and drink beers and talk about growing tomatoes together. We were there for 6 years until we moved over here in Park Slope.

I got involved with this place because I knew the guys here. They used to sit in the back room and play cards. This place is called the His and Hers Social And Athletic Club and the athletic part was all the stubs for all the horse and football betting going on. The social part was easy, it was the athletic part that took some imagining. They new me from the Sopranos and they knew I was Italian so they took me in. They would ask me for signed pictures for them and their wives. Wives with names like Cookie. Then when they moved out of here, I made a proposition to the not for profit organization that owns this building. I wanted to have art exhibitions, things like that here, and they said okay. I also come her to rehearse. These are some of my paintings behind the bar. So I’ve been here for two years.

What do I love about Brooklyn? The stoops. I’m a big stoop guy. I love talking to neighbors on stoops and in windows. There were always a lot of old people around leaning out of windows and they always had a lot of stories to tell. They took a liking to me. They would bring me food. Make a sauce for me. I would just walk down the block and stop and have a half-hour conversation with a lady in the window. 78 year-old ladies throwing me down cigarettes.

I like the coin operated rides that are on the streets all over the place. They play old songs. I used to put my kids on them and they teach you the words to songs like, “When you’re smiling.” And then your kid goes around singing “When you’re smiling!” It’s great.

And because it’s where my family first came, it was kind of like a turtle going back to the sea for me. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision to make it back here, but once I got here I realized I was destined to come back here. My grandfather had a barbershop on Flatbush for a while. I have roots here.

Living here has affected me as an actor because I feel you connect to people here. I never felt that when I was living in Manhattan. Plus it was here that I kind of became known by just the average person on the street. So that made me feel like more of an actor in a way. And people here really take you in. The people I met that were here for a long time I really felt kin to.”

When I was younger I wanted to be a sportswriter for the Brooklyn Dodgers. But they left before I could do that. No team has ever connected to a place like the Brooklyn Dodgers. None. They were adopted by the people of Brooklyn. They were so much a part of the community. The players lived here, their wives shopped here, their kids went to school here. You never see that anymore. That team gave Brooklyn an identity unequaled by any other franchise in the history of sports.

“From a strictly anthropological point of view, I discovered that Brooklynites are less reluctant to talk to strangers than any tribe I had previously encountered. They butt into one another’s business at will (old women scolding young mothers for not dressing their children warmly enough, passerby snapping at dog walkers for yanking too hard on the leash); they argue like deranged four-year-olds over disputed parking spaces; they zip out dazzling one-liners as a matter of course. One Sunday morning, I went into a crowded deli with the absurd name of La Bagel Delight. I was intending to ask for a cinnamon-raisin bagel, but the word caught in my mouth and came out as cinnamon-reagan. Without missing a beat, the young guy behind the counter answered: ‘Sorry, we don’t have any of those. How about a pumpernixon instead?’ Fast. So damned fast, I nearly wet my drawers.”
(excerpt from The Brooklyn Follies)

“I'm originally from Atlantic City and I was raised in the Bronx . I moved here to the Gowanus neighborhood seven years ago – just before the flushing tunnel opened. What made me fall for this place was that fact that it is a porthole. The canal is an opening to the Atlantic Ocean . That is what brought me here. That was the fascination. It gave me access to this wilderness that nobody cared about. For some reason the whole world turned it's back on this maritime city. Out here, it's a totally different point of view. Suddenly you are a spectator looking at the city and you haven't even gone anywhere. You are in a wilderness. Manhattan is the most made over island in the world. Yet the water remains timeless. And, on top of this, there is hardly anyone one out here.”

“When I first moved from my native Manhattan to Carroll Gardens , a decade ago, it felt like I was moving to the country. I was shocked to discover how loud a quiet night could be. For the first time ever there was clarity to my thoughts and ideas sans sirens and the hustle and bustle of 24-hour activity. I could ride my bike in relative safety from the Brooklyn Bridge to Coney Island and it came with its own backyard in Prospect Park .

I soon realized Brooklyn was a place where people could find good romance, respite, and resolution. However, like a Sergio Leone ‘spaghetti western,' Brooklyn is criminally aware of territory and personal honor. There is nostalgia running rampant through Brooklyn 's varied neighborhoods steeped in unapologetic history, from original gangsters to original cartoonists, where immigrants formed their necessary niche. Brooklyn was the stomping grounds of my favorite comix authors, Jack Kirby and Will Eisner.

Brooklyn is bigger than some third world countries and sometimes acts like one, too, yet furnishes an oasis of crossroads. Where else I can grab a variety of culinary delicacies in the spirit of SoHo on the recently converted Smith Street , yet stumble a few blocks away towards my home and still find the racist skeletons of NBC Sticks ["Nigger Be Cool"] made from the business end of a broom handle hidden up the sides of trees? Or, how about Red Hook, the sexy blue collar ghetto of Brooklyn, hosting the ghosts of Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront , too far away from easy public transportation, yet pulls me, hipsters, and anybody worth their salt, towards its streets and sea like a soul-mollifying magnet where the Statue of Liberty shines a beacon of light at the last watering holes on earth.”

“I was born in New Orleans and I arrived in Brooklyn in June of 1974. I was in school in Rochester earning my Masters of Divinity. I was then invited to come to Bedford Stuyvesant to assist Dr. Jones at Bethany Baptist in Brooklyn and a year later I came to St. Paul 's. I have now been here 32 years. I think there is something about the fact that Brooklyn is known as the ‘Residential Borough.' The borough where people live. I have an excitement about Brooklyn because you never know Brooklyn fully. It's always changing, it has its various ethnic areas, and my real joy now is that I have seen it change and I have been a part of making it change. Just to know that I came to Brooklyn not only to receive, but also to give, makes it home.

East New York is important to me because when I first came here – to Brownsville and East New York – I could almost see Siamese Twins. It was said by someone that this place looked like the beginning of the end of civilization. Burma after the bombing. All of these kinds of things were said about East New York and Brownsville . And because I am a Christian I take great pride in the idea of the resurrected Christ. So that when our communities are treated and written off as cemeteries – to be able to not run from it, stay with it and resurrect it, that makes it worth it.

I also love that my children were born here. My children were both born in Kings County Hospital . I came along kinda saying that people born in New York are kind of strange. And then all of a sudden I became a father in New York and them being born here is wonderful. One of the things I say about New York in general is that everybody should spend some time in New York . But nobody should live and die here. It is an experience. There is the best of things and the worst of things here.

I take pride in being a minister in the borough of churches. I always have. There have been some disenchantments. It is the borough of churches, but sometimes the borough does not reflect the churches. I have been privileged to come into Brooklyn . After a year with a great man at Bethany , I wanted to make an impact. I found 84 members and they were doing $125 on a good Sunday. Now the congregation has increased to about 3000 we can count on, and about 10,000 who have come through. We have been able to put our school together so I have been able to make a difference as a churchmen. The borough has to reflect our presence. The interesting thing about Brooklyn is it is a marvelous place, but there is a sinister 'impersonalism' in it where you can live right next door to people and never know them. We need to see what we have in common and focus on that. So I'm starting to get the attention of the younger pastor's who are coming in to take over these historical places in the community and they are excited about what is being proposed”

“I was born in Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn and my mother is from East New York and Williamsburg . I grew up in Hollis, Queens and then we moved to Rosedale . I lived there until I was 18 before going to New Paltz and then living in the city. In 1987 I was looking for a place with some more space. We looked around and found a place in Park Slope. We then wanted to buy a place and we looked around in the city and Nyack and we just decided to stay here and buy this house. I liked the mixture of people, the variety, the makeup of the neighborhood. When we first came here it wasn't what it is now. Now it's unbelievable.

Being here helps me as an actor and filmmaker because Brooklyn is a good in-between place. There is a lot going on but you can have your own space. I remember when I first moved out here my friends said, ‘you're moving to Brooklyn ? Why are you doing that?' I said ‘Well, I'm just gonna try it out.' I think as long as you are around people wherever you are, that's always helpful. If you are just in your car and you only interact with the same people, it's limiting. I like to walk around here and experience the mixture of people. It's all helpful when you are doing stuff. I used to just eavesdrop on people. But that's harder to do now. I'd have to schedule an appointment. But this has been a place we feel at home with. The neighbors, the community bookshop. It's unfortunate with Starbucks, but hey, every place has a Starbucks. But change is inevitable. Look at Manhattan . Look at Times Square. I used to like walking down 42 nd street . I would get robbed and I would look at all the dirt and smut, but I kinda loved it in a way. Even though it was disgusting I always kinda liked it. Now it's like a horror. It's the exact same thing but the other side of it. And you can't walk over there. So many tourists who don't know how to walk. I was driving down the street one day and the light was green and a woman was in the middle of the street. So I honked the horn and she was like ‘You must be one of those rude New Yorkers.' And I said, “Yes I am, Mam. And if you don't move I will run you over.'

Something else I loved were drives back from my Mom's place on Eastern Parkway . It was great – all the sounds you would hear, the sea of Orthodox people, the Arabic mosques, and the music from the Caribbean homes. There are some nights you hit it coming home late and you're like ‘Wow, now I'm in this country, now I'm in that country.'

As for films that really display the soul of Brooklyn , it's tough to pick one. I think it really influenced a lot of films. You would have to go through different periods of time. The 30's films that were made out on the West Coast were influenced by Brooklyn and a lot of areas of New York . And I think it was forgotten about for some time. In the 70's there weren't really many Brooklyn films. Dog Day Afternoon didn't really say it was in Brooklyn . Sidney Lumet did a lot of stuff around all of New York City . Spike Lee is an obvious choice. Do The Right Thing of course. He should make a sequel to Do The Right Thing where everyone is really old. I own the pizza place now; I have a black wife... That's what happens when you run out of ideas, you go into the recycling business.

But I've shot a lot in Brooklyn, and actually my fantasy is to do something about the Brooklyn Bridge . I read the book The Great Bridge by David McCullough. You probably could do it theatrically. I've talked to BAM about it and stuff. That would be amazing.”

“I was born in Saratoga , New York and I moved to Brooklyn when I was 19.

The inspiration for this place came from a dream that I was floating over a building. I was surrounded by mist and through the mist I could see all around Brooklyn . I saw the Brooklyn Museum on one side and the bridge on another. Below me was a fountain, which made no sense to me logically that a fountain would be on top of a building, so I decided it must be a whales spout and I was in a chair above it. When I woke up I knew I had to build this.

I got the name for the building from a trip on the Staten Island Ferry with my wife. We spent the day walking around and on the streets of Staten Island we discovered an angel and it was broken in seven pieces. My wife, who wasn't my wife at the time said to me, ‘It's an omen, a sign. I'm to marry you.' I put that angel back together again, but after I did, we found the original of which there are maybe thousands of them. The originals are stiff - mine is kind of graceful. That's why we call this Broken Angel. I bought the building in 1979 for $2,100 and it was wrecked and vandalized and lying in the street and I'm putting it back together again, better than it was. The building is only a third done. I have been working on this building for over 25 years and it's not even close to finished.

Once the cops came because someone reported a child climbing on top of the ‘dangerous' building. So they show up and see him up there and they tell me, ‘Did you know there's a child up there?' I said, ‘Sure, he's my son.' They realized he grew up here so they left us alone. My son was like a monkey in a cage up there.

I think if you live in a small, tiny apartment, your dreams and ideas are small. If you live in a large place - a place with room and space – you dream big.”

“I came to Brooklyn in the summer of 1995 on my way to an artist residency program in upstate New York . I have these two artist friends Laura Foos and David Moreno who live in Boerum Hill, who invited me to stay with them for two weeks. They picked me up at JFK and took me to their place, we dropped my luggage and went out for dinner on Smith Street . The first thing I noticed was the Scuba diving store on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Smith Street . I remember thinking that store across from the jail in this urban jungle looked so surreal. The store ended up being available 10 years later and became a Brooklyn Industries store. The second thing I remember is walking to the Brooklyn promenade and seeing the first glimpse of the shimmering downtown Manhattan skyline at night.

I met my partner, Lexy Funk, at the artist residency program, and decided to stay in New York . My first job was working at a drag queen bar restaurant in the East Village called Stingy Lulu's. That is where I met a lot of downtown personalities and artists. After a year Lexy and I started a company and made music videos. In 1997 we transitioned from making videos to designing bags and eventually set up a factory in Williamsburg to manufacture bags. We were living and working in this factory and we called the operation Brooklyn Industries. The name resonated with the people in Williamsburg and we decided to also call the product the same name. Our product and brand is unmistakably Brooklyn as we live and breathe this culture. We feel the reason for our being is to promote the Brooklyn lifestyle and to work towards improving the art and culture of this place.

I think our first store became popular because we believed in this burgeoning artistic Williamsburg culture and promoted it to no end. The store became a hub, a meeting point for the artist community. Now it is both the quality of the product and the inventiveness of design that our community appreciates.

I love living and working in Brooklyn because of the energy of its people. People are so passionate about life and so proud about Brooklyn, which is what makes Brooklyn so unique. We all know that it is not the prettiest place to live but there is no other place on earth that has the same level of passion and pride. We are just trying to make it a better place to live, work and create.”

“I grew up in Michigan and I eventually moved to New York to attend the New School for the writing program. I think I was always a musician even before I could play an instrument and I think I wanted to be a writer. Writing was more a sort of self-conscious desire through education, classes and reading. It was kind of a personal aspiration whereas music was my natural language from the beginning. It was an inherent inclination that I had. Writing was kind of a way to thwart music because I couldn't really perceive of a way to be a musician as a vocation or practical way of life. I could see myself as a writer or journalist. But when I got here I started meeting lots of other musicians and they just coaxed me into playing and recording songs and participating in their shows. I did it kind of unwillingly at first and I kept saying ‘No, I'm a writer. I'll do this because you invited me. But I'm working on my book and I want to get published and I want to teach.' But eventually it took over and now I consider myself a failed writer.

I moved to Brooklyn about seven years ago. I first lived over by the Seaport across this bridge. Honestly I think I'd only been to Brooklyn once while I was living there. It was just across this bridge and I kind of saw it as this odd mysterious place that I'd never been to. It's so dumb that I never visited it. I thought New York was Manhattan . And of course what a surprise when I actually moved over the river and I moved near East Williamsburg . The street I lived on was all Puerto Rican. There were those two big Purina Dog Chow buildings that the Brooklyn Union Gas Company owned. I wasn't far from those. We used to say those were our Twin Towers because I lived near them in Manhattan and now I lived by these two large buildings. Then I moved pretty much every year to a different neighborhood, which was intense. I just didn't have a lot of money and someone would move out and I couldn't afford the rent. I had just quit my job. You know how it is. Now I'm in Kensington. It's kind of like the suburbs of Brooklyn . It's quiet and it's not cool at all, which I like. But it's a short bike ride to all the cool neighborhoods. It's cheap. It's like the last affordable neighborhood where you can buy stuff. There are houses with driveways, which is unusual here. And it's really diverse. There's no dominant culture there. A lot of Jewish families, Chinese Americans, Polish, Russians. It doesn't seem like anyone is entitled to that neighborhood. It's just mixed.

When I moved here first I dropped out of school and I was in a really bad college band. We thought we would make it big. We moved to Bloomfield , New Jersey because we couldn't afford to live in New York . So of course we weren't going to make it big. I think my perception of New York was very romantic, and very unreal and very naïve. And of course coming back again after finishing school and coming to grad school, and especially the year I moved to Brooklyn was the year I came to terms with New York for what it was and was able to encounter it full on as a living breathing city with many different moods and characteristics. I think once I came to terms with that I fell in love with it. More deeply than you just fall in love with a girl in middle school. I think the first time I moved here it was an infatuation just based on total fantasy but when I moved to Brooklyn it was a deeper love, kinda like a marriage.”