"Save Brooklyn"

We found this posted on myspace and have no idea what it is, other than the obvious rant, but found it compelling in its way. It was posted by an eighteen-year-old named Julisa, who lists her location as "Long Island." In any case, we dig it, so we're posting it here:

Before the hipsters leeked out of Manhattan and found themselves in Williamsburg. Before all those original hipsters decided move to Park Slope to rear 'AB/CD'-tshirt-wearing children. Before the Flatbush Pavilion was converted into an American Apparel, and before the Flatbush Pavilion was anything but some random no-name theatre. Before the socialite's children of Phillips Academy headed to Bed Stuy for frat parties. Before Triple 5 Soul sold out and before people from outside of the borough could justify donning any item of clothing with the numbers 718. Before you saw anything but hispanics walking along 5th avenue, and before 5th avenue's bodegas and bagel stores gave way to nice restaurants and boutiques. Before affordable housing was destroyed to make room for modern skyscrapers and a motherfucking basketball stadium. Before anybody who could ever want a motherfucking basketball stadium, let alone their own motherfucking basketball team, lived here. Having said that, before the Dodgers had anything to do with L.A.

If you grew up hanging out on the stoop with your friends, SAVE BROOKLYN. If you spent your youth skating at the monument, SAVE BROOKLYN. If all through high school, if not middle school and college, you went to keggers in the hills of the park...smoked l's in the park...drank forties in the park...tripped on acid and shrooms in the park...tagged the rocks in the park...SAVE BROOKLYN. If you can recognize Marty Markowitz and his light saber. If you fucking loved Brooklyn/Queens Day. If you lost track of how many bar and bat mitzvahs you went to in the 7th grade. If you attended or know people that attended Murrow or Midwood or Tech, or if you're Irish, Kearney or Bishop Ford, or if you're a yuppie, St. Ann's or Packer. If you ever went to Empire Skating Rink or Brownstone Billiards, and if your parents bugged the fuck out when you told them that you went to Empire or Brownstone because they did the same shit when they were a kid. If you lived in Windsor Terrace or Carroll Gardens and decked your shit the fuck out at Christmas and Halloween. If you did not live in Windsor Terrace or Carroll Gardens and made special trips with your friends at Halloween to egg all the decked out houses. If you were a nice kid and just went trick-o-treating on Halloween but came home with literally pillowcases full of candy. If you ever chilled with the kids in the Irish and Italian gangs on 10th avenue. If you and all your friends went to Frost Valley in the summer. If you ever had mad kids come to your school to fight after the bell rang, and if you ever stayed to watch the fights, and if you ever died laughing when kids' parents showed up to back up their kids. If you ever walked around and could tell where your friends had been based on the tags you saw on the lampposts and mailboxes, for fuckssake SAVE BROOKLYN.

We call Manhattan "the city". Although we spend our lives arguing that Brooklyn is as much a part of the city as any other borough, true Brooklynites do not want their home Manhattanized. Keep your sleek glass towers and your high strung citizens. Do not impose your gentrification and impossible housing rates upon the borough that has offered a home to any and everyone.

SAVE BROOKLYN.

Those familiar with Williamsburg might recognize the art work above, which was at the corner of Bedford and N. 4th on the side of an industrial building that's been slowly being torn down for months. "God Save Brooklyn" only exists in pictures now.