New York: Whatever Happened to Brooklyn?

Dere's no guy livin' dat knows Brooklyn troo and troo.

— Thomas Wolfe

Everyone—especially if he had never been there—used to think he knew Brooklyn troo and troo. It was Green-pernt and Bensonhoist, Coney and Canarsie, the land of kosher pizza and the foot-long frankfurter, of pickles with everything and every third Schaefer's on the house. It was Leo The Lip Durocher bawling out the umpires at Ebbets Field, the impassioned rooters alternately toasting Dem Bums with Cokes and bombarding them with the empty bottles.

Comedians and novelists alike attested tirelessly to the aromatic...

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