Brooklyn Dayz - Every story has a beginning

They say whatever doesn't break or kill you makes you stronger. Brooklyn is definitely the type of place that can either make you or break you. As the saying goes in regards to New York, if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. For me this statement definitely holds true of Brooklyn. Since I have many topics I wish to share on steemit regarding my life and experiences I felt the need to dedicate some time to my past in order to better understand my perspectives, point of views and decisions I have made. My desire is express things in such as way as to give you a visual play by play of life thru the lens of my eyes and soul.

Brooklyn NYC is a place that is internationally known. I can honestly say that whether traveling in South America, Europe, Africa or Asia, I have always come across at least one person wearing a T-Shirt or Baseball cap that says Brooklyn on it. I understand for most people Brooklyn has no real meaning or significance, its just piece of clothing or accessory to them same as how people rock Che Guevara shirts and have no clue as to who he was and what he stood for. Due to this fact it's impossible for me to forget where I'm from and the lessons that I learned growing up in this historic diverse part of the world.

Brooklyn is famous for many things from famous actors, musicians, judges, athletes, artist, politicians, parks, hot dogs, pizza, brownstones, Italian gangsters, etc. Brooklyn is also known for it's poor neighborhoods and criminal activity. But when you take the good and the bad ultimately it's a place with a lot of heart, soul and character. It's not perfect or necessarily beautiful, but it's real and its a place where at some point you will put anyone to the test.

The Brooklyn I grew up in as a teenager is a far cry from the gentrified Brooklyn that financially well off predominantly white yuppies from around the country and world are flooding too. But the majority of these people don't know the real Brooklyn and once they kick out all the poor and minorities from the neighborhoods and put a Starbucks on the corner then its no longer the same place anymore. This reality is not only happening to Brooklyn, its going on all over the world.

On a side note I personally blame a large part of this gentrification movement on the HBO series "Sex in the City". On behalf of Brooklynites I say "Fuck You Sex in the City". The Brooklyn that most yuppies are acquainted with are the areas closes to the city such as Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Red Hook, Bedford Stuyversant and Crown Heights. There will probably a few more neighborhoods that will have gotten gentrified by time I finish with this post, eventually the cancer will spread until the Real Brooklyn will be a thing of the past.

I one for one did not grow up in this section of Brooklyn. From the map I posted, I grew up near the southern most part of Brooklyn close to the Atlantic Ocean in a neighborhood known as Sheepshead Bay (on the map its exactly where you see fox riding the bicycle). Sheepshead Bay is approximately a 40 minute train ride into Manhattan. If you have ever scene the movie Bronx Tale staring Robert Dinero then you've seen my neighborhood since it was filmed there (Neck Rd to be exact).

(Some of my favorite quotes from the movie Bronx Tale)

I was Blessed not to have grown up in the hood or one of the many projects located all over the city. If you don't know,t he Projects or PJ's for short are low income housing developments in other words it's the Ghetto.

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The pictures above give you a pretty good idea of what the projects look like. If the pics don't suffice I encourage to go on youtube check out some 90's east coast hip hop or just type NYC projects. The images of pitbulls and drug dealers hanging out in front of the buildings were very accurate. The Projects are a city all unto themselves and if your not from the PJ's you better off staying far away.

In contrast my neighborhood was very safe in comparison. I grew up in a 4 bedroom house on a quiet street close to all the shoppes and public transportation. Though the area was fine, what went on inside my house was a whole other story. My parents, mainly my father was heavily addicted to cocaine and unfortunately due to my rebellious nature I was the recipient of many severe beatings starting at the age of 6. I didn't have to grow up in the projects or some other low income area to know about pain, abuse, drugs and prostitution were. I had a front row seat as I both witness and recipient. Of course life is not perfect and filled with many ups and downs that effect and mold our character and personalities.

(The house featured in the center of the pic behind the big tree is an updated modernized version of my house after my parents sold it to Orthodox Jews back in 2001)

(Local Pizzeria - video pretty much sums up the major stores in my neighborhood)

My only savior during this period was Sports. I grew up hanging out till dark in the parks playing everything, soccer, baseball, american football and for a little guy (I'm only 169 cm in stature) I excelled and was always chosen for all star teams, travel teams, etc. I was an extremely hyper little boy with tons of energy which is why is why athletics was a great outlet to burn energy and release a lot of build of anger and pain. This was probably the most positive effect that my beatings had on me, they made me strong and gave me a high tolerance for pain. As an adult I would come to find out that it wasn't so much that I tolerated pain, but was more that I had learn to suppress the pain, but this suppression would haunt my soul for many years until I learned to release it. That is most definitely the most positive affect that travel gifted to me. Time to away and time to heal.

Since my parents spent the majority of weekends fucked up and locked up in there room, I became street wise and wandered the streets. For the most part sports kept my out of trouble but trouble was my middle name and somehow it always found me. By 1st grade at age 6 I had already been suspended from school then placed in ESL (English as a Second Language). What's funny is that English was my first language but the school didn't know what to do with me so I got placed in ESL. I actually did well in ESL, I guess the slower teaching style favored me. After 2nd grade I was allowed to reenter a normal 3rd grade but I hated the teacher, made trouble and wallah I was back in ESL for another year. This was pretty much my pattern throughout my schooling years until I graduated high school. I had zero interest in studying or doing homework, for me this was very inconvenient and a waste of time. It's not that I never tried or didn't want to get good grades, but my brain was incapable of doing things that didn't entertain me. I was much more interested in playing sports, video games, watching sitcom, cartoons and pornography.

Because of my natural disposition, academic laziness and procrastination I learned to get by doing the least amount of work possible. I just did the bare minimum to pass, every year was a struggle for me. I'm the type of person who always looks for a short cut. For example if I had a book report to do, I would miss school the day it was due and spend the entire day and night doing it, even as a 10 year old. And in reality I didn't do the report the way it was suppose to be done by researching and reading books. Ha, I had a better way, I had encyclopedias in my house. So what I did was just take whatever subject matter I had to write about, find it in the encyclopedia and then plagiarize. But as not to get caught I would rewrite it in a way as to fool the teacher to believe it was written by a child. Though this method defeats the purpose of the report in the eyes of the teacher but it was part of the training grown that helped me to use and develop my creativity.

At the end of the day I think everything in life works out perfectly. Rather then waste my time with regrets wishing I would have done things differently, I embrace life with a smile. Through the years I learned to let go of all this nonsense that the system, culture, society and religion was trying to force upon you. And I think at the end of the day I knew it was a bullshit even as a little kid and my resistance and rebellion was my way of manifesting this reality. I hope you enjoyed this post about my past as much as I enjoyed sharing it. This is just the beginning of many other stories I wish to share with the world. Everyone has a story to tell, everyone has a past, present and future. At the end of the day there just stories. I've learned to see them as just experiences without using them to define myself and my life.

I look forward to sharing my next edition of Brooklyn Dayz with you.
Until then, Peace and Love to all.

source: https://sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/12417241-fabolous-clothing-style-hello-brooklyn-t-shirt
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source:https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/streetview?sensor=false&size=640x400&location=2109%20AVENUE%20T,%20Brooklyn,%20NY%2011229&fov=120&pitch=15
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