Excerpt from the upcoming book by Marion TD Lewis, A summer in Brooklyn a summer in Paris

Preface

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Paris since my first visit, Fall of 1994, when I went to visit my aunt and her then English husband who was a professor at the Sorbonne.
I don’t know what the problem is but I never seem to be able to hit my stride in Paris; something is always off. Either it’s raining the whole time I’m there (as in trip number one), or I’m traveling with a bunch of people who totally ruin what should have been a remarkable experience (trip number two), or I have no money to do the things I want to and am nursing the world’s most visceral heartbreak (trip number three).
But it’s more complicated than just those things. You see, I’ve always felt I wasn’t quite smart enough for Paris. First of all, I am not witty like the average French citizen. I greatly admire, maybe even slightly envy, the French’s intellect, repartee, and joie de vivre. I love the way they sit at outdoor cafés (having espressos, cigarette between fingers) for hours, as they invoke all manners of polemics against the government, rail against the state of international affairs including the situation in the Middle East and America’s role in it, and decry the purchasing power of the Euro in Europe with their equally chic, smart, witty contemporaries.
Second of all, I could never really grasp the concept of the Ile de la cite and Ile de Louis, Rive Doite, Rive Gauche thing. Once and for all, what’s the connection between all four? In English?
Then of course, I could never seem to affect the accent just so. When I try to speak French, people just laugh – even Americans, but especially Hatian Creole women.
But my biggest faux pas, by far, is my total inability and/or unwillingness to learn how to smoke a cigarette like a proper French woman. Having smoked 1.5 cigarettes in my life (one at age seventeen and .5 in Paris when I nearly choked to death (my last trip)) I’m clearly not chic enough to be even remotely associated with the French. The very definition of French chic is the ability to handle a cigarette with sang froid. And if you can’t handle a cigarette with sang froid, what are you doing in Paris? In Paris, smoking is a part of the very essence of life!
In any other city, a cigarette-holding-person gets almost no respect. In New York, for instance, smokers are so reviled, they are actually smoked out of establishments by government legislation that banish them by the truck loads to the sidewalks where they are free to perform their ritual—for now. But not in Paris. In Paris, smoking is civilized, sophisticated, required, endorsed, expected, respected and CHIC. It is de rigueur. If you don’t smoke, you don’t fit in. Period.
That being said, one summer, the one before I left my job as a New York City teacher to pursue my dream of being a New York City divorce lawyer (that’s a whole other book), it occurred to me that maybe I should go to Paris one more time. After all, other teachers I knew were off somewhere traveling the world. One was in Budapest with her soon to be husband, one was in Japan doing a stint as an English Language instructor; another had gone to visit folks in her old country—Sicily, and one had gone to Zimbabwe. I was booked for a cruise to the Caribbean myself (Belize, Cozumel, Cancun, Honduras, and a few other places) but that wasn’t until late August. What was I to do with all my free time? Go to Paris. Why not? Well, the money situation. I could not afford two vacations in one summer. After all, I’m not Donald Trump. And did I really need to torment myself by going to Paris again, a fourth time? Given the debacles the other three times had been? Especially when I was living in a beautiful city like Brooklyn and I had never really seen it? And could easily see all of it for the price of an unlimited metrocard? No cigarettes required?
Besides, what did Paris have on Brooklyn except for centuries of history and a few iconic museums, and great food, and chic people, and chocolate, and an extinct monarchy and a really old River? Brooklyn had all that and more. For Chrissakes, Paris doesn’t even have a real beach. Brooklyn is practically an island, a beachcomber’s paradise if you ask me. We have the Hudson and East River. We have the piers in Canarsie, Dumbo, Red Hook, Williamsburg and Sheepshead Bay. We have the lakes in Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery. We have the ponds and streams all over the place. We have Buttermilk Channel. We have the Paerdergat Basin. We have a bunch of marinas. We have Jamaica Bay, Gowanus Bay, and Gravesend Bay. We have Plum Beach, Manhattan Beach, Bergen Beach, Gerritson Beach, and Coney Island. And that is not even all we have. There is much more, just too much to list right now. Where’s all the water in Paris? Other than the Seine?
So, again, why not take a holiday in Brooklyn and spare myself the trauma of a transatlantic, high-turbulence flight and a beaten down dollar on top of it all? And while I was at it, why not write a book about the experience since I so enjoy writing? Why not indeed?
Well, when I mentioned to an acquaintance that I was thinking of “taking a vacation in Brooklyn” and “writing a book about the similarities between Brooklyn and Paris,” he almost had a stroke. “You’re taking a vacation in a place you’ve lived almost all your life?” he asked incredulously. “Yep,” I said. “And you’re seriously going to argue that Paris and Brooklyn are similar.” He stated this with a certain degree of astonishment, almost as if I’d proposed shoplifting.
“Yep,” I said.
“Don’t you think that argument is a bit of a stretch, even for you? I mean look around you. Where’s that certain Je ne sais quoi that Paris is so famous for? Can’t you see you’re being typically ridiculous?”
He’s a lawyer. Everything is an argument and indepth analysis. He can ill appreciate lighthearted humor but I was disappointed at his inability to think more creatively.
“Well, I’m not arguing that all of Brooklyn looks like all of Paris, or that everything in Brooklyn is like everything in Paris. One is not a photo copy of the other by any means. But I do feel that there are parts of Brooklyn, certain elements, if you may, that mirror Paris whether you want to see it or not.” He looked at me befuddled.
“But who could take you seriously?” he asked.
“Well, everybody and anybody who’s seen both cities,” I replied boldly.
“Well that counts me out. I’ve never been to Paris. I’ve only done Amsterdam, for obvious reasons. But I wonder what the French will think about this?” he asked.
The French? How was I supposed to know what the French would think? I was sure there might be some French people (or Brooklyn people for that matter) who wouldn’t exactly be thrilled that their wonderful city was being compared to, god, Brooklyn, by the likes of me. But so what? That wouldn’t change my opinions and observations.
I turned to my companion, “well, do you see any similarities between the Williamsburg Savings Bank and the Eiffel Tower?” I asked, looking pointedly at him. He thought about it for a moment and laughed.
“Well, if you mean they’re both phallic? Yes, I do. They are very phallic pieces of architecture. Very, very phallic in a Greek god sort of way.” He was in stiches now, doubling over with laughter like an immature adolescent. I could have punched him.
“Well, yes,” I concurred, “They are, kinda sorta. But do you realize that the Williamsburg Savings Bank, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the twin towers in New York before the terrorists, defines the Brooklyn skyline by the sheer force of its design? I read this somewhere and it’s totally true.”
While he was thinking about that, I pointed out that Brooklyn also has its lion share of churches. And its own version of Les Forum des Halles (at least it did before the Fulton Mall was ripped to shreds) and it has its own Arc de Triomphe, and its own Obelisk, and a vibrant contemporary art scene, and very chic women, and an amazing history and tons and tons of outdoor cafes—many of which serve French cuisine, complete with baguettes and wine.
Well, my friend had long stopped laughing when I took a breath. He was looking at me with a newfound respect. “You know what? You’re kinda right,” he said. “And if you think about it, all these neighborhoods in Brooklyn are just like the arrondissements in Paris.” He had given me another idea I hadn’t thought of that, yet. “Exactement,” I said softly.
The neighborhoods in Paris follow a certain logic. The first arrondissement is in the center of the city and all the others are arranged around it. In Brooklyn, there might be a similar logic, although I don’t know of it. I just came up with my own unscientific match up which true Francophiles will more than likely find laughable, and die hard Brooklynites might even find insulting. That I am making these comparisons between these two cities will be enough to make a few people cringe, I know. It takes more than chutzpah to assert some of these claims, and I’m going to admit, off the bat, that some of my assertions are pretty outrageous. Paris, after all, is practically the world’s oldest museum. It is. It is a veritable anthropoligical dig. And Brooklyn is, well, Brooklyn. A city that can be in your face, rough, tough and tell it like it is; but a young city; a pup when compared to the older, more mature Paris. So I do worry that people might think me a heretic for taking a city such as Paris, renowned for its poetry, art, architecture, food, language, culture, music, and romance and its thousands of years of history, dating back to 52 B.C. when what we now know as Paris was the “sleepy Gallo-Roman burg of Lutetia Parisorum,” and comparing it to a city which dates back only a few hundred years.Well, guess what? I’m not only going to compare them. I am going to contrast them too. The great thing about this undertaking is, I’m not trying to write a historical treatise, or even a guidebook so I can get creative and say things that are a bit out there, and get away with it. That’s why you’ve got to read this book with a grain of salt and sense of humor. I’m not a historian. I know diddly squat about French history, for instance. I’m really just a person who likes to travel and discover things and put my own spin on what I see. I do believe that there are certain things that are endemic to Paris, and simply cannot be found anywhere else in the world—like their romantic metro cars. It is true that Paris has that certain je ne sais quoi which no other city can ever duplicate no matter how they try. Even the way Parisians hold their cigarettes, as I’ve said, is a religion. But then again what else would one expect from people who made drinking the poison absinthe sophistication manifest? Yet, a city like Brooklyn challenges the traditional notion that Paris is the only “mythical” city that there is. The best thing about Brooklyn, though, is her pride. Brooklyn is a proud city. She is unapologetically not trying to be Paris. That, perhaps, is why Paris and Brooklyn are in each other’s pockets. That is why Paris will respect Brooklyn. Because Paris realizes that Brooklyn is what Brooklyn is and Brooklyn is happy with her lot. Broolyn has that certain, C’est comme ca about it, an “in your face” quality that has a charm all her own. It is not her fault that she looks, feels, smells and sounds like Paris as much as she does. Like Paris, each neighborhood in Brooklyn is self-contained, if not “segregated.” I used to find the whole idea of “segregated” neighborhoods unpalatable to tell you the truth. The whole idea of Russians living in one neighborhood and Italians in another; Chinese in their own part of town, and West Indians in another made me wary. However, after my vacation I have changed my mind. I find this aspect of Brooklyn culture hugely fascinating (so long as people remain open-minded, schools are integrated, and people can freely assemble, visit, or live there if they choose) because it gives these neighborhoods a distinct flavor that makes for one rich, delicious metropolis when put together with the rest of the whole. Each neighborhood therefore, is like a slice of pizza from one big, round pizza pie. Each slice is important. But each slice is separate and distinct and must be chewed and savored on its own. That is what Brooklyn is like. A big pizza pie with different toppings; a pizza whose slices must be eaten one at a time. But Brooklyn is more than just one pie; after all, she is a microcosm of the entire world. As the old adage goes, “a subway ride can take you anywhere in the World in Brooklyn.” As I said before, Paris is not entirely different from Brooklyn in this regard. There are many “ethnic pockets” in Paris just as there are in Brooklyn, where emigres of a feather seem to prefer to flock together, and set up their own bakeries, restaurants, shops, churches, schools and businesses. It is this homogeniety within a non-homogeneous society, that gives both cities their cachet.
Like Paris, Brooklyn is fun and sophisticated at the same time. She’s a veritable museum for those who take the time to appreciate her treasures. Like Paris, Brooklyn is a city for lovers. Like Paris, Brooklyn is infinitely interesting, mysterious and complex. She deserves to be more than just a day trip from Manhattan for tourists. I hope you’ll agree with me after you read this book and that you get inspired to take a vacation in the city of Brooklyn very soon. As you read this book, (Brooklynites) and I did not mention your neighborhood, please forgive me in advance. With over ninety neighborhoods I found it impossible to see them all, and to compress them all into my “unscientific match up with Paris.” But don’t worry. For my next edition, I promise I will get to every single neighborhood and I will find something Parisian about each and every one.