According to the New York Sun, the owners, New Zealand natives, plan to open before Thanksgiving. The bakery will be opening on the corner of 16th St. and Propsect Park SW, which I believe used to be one of those shady check cashing places. Now that’s neighborhood improvement! The owners, who live in the area, have faith in the Windsor Terrace market. We do too.

From Curbed:

Just tried to stop in at K-Dog’s for a gelato or (hopefully) a pomegranate sorbet, and as soon as I walked in the door, I was confronted by the sight of a mommy seated facing out at a table, in plain view of anyone looking in the store, (probably) blogging away on her iBook and BREASTFEEDING her baby. I thought as long as I avoided such hotbeds of lactation as Two Boots, et al, in the Slope I was safe.

Lots of comments on Curbed.

What freaked me out most was that a tornado hit blocks from my house and I snoozed right through it. Finally, for the first time in my life, I have a basement in which to hide from tornadoes, or as my uncle in Arkansas calls them, a fraidy hole. Finally, a tornado heads to my town and I don’t get to utilize my fraidy hole because I was sound asleep (on the third floor right under the roof, I might add)? Where’s the justice in that?

Why, the night before, didn’t the national weather service make it more clear that this kind of storm was likely? I’m getting the impression that they, like the MTA, were taken by surprise. Isn’t this their job? How is a 10 minute warning at 6:20 am sufficient for protecting the lives of people living in one of the most dense areas of the country? Quite frankly I’m a little disappointed, by the NWS, the MTA, and New York City government in general for not preparing us for this impending clusterf***k.

Furthermore, why was the MTA so lame in getting information out to the public when the subways were down that morning? I was watching the news at NOON, and they still didn’t present a clear picture of where subways were out, what stations were without transit, and where trains were actually running. That is just pathetic if you ask me. This is the technology and communication age, and it is really poor performance that the MTA still thinks we live in 1950, with their white boards and dry erase markers. This is really a poor excuse for communication. Their response was just plain shameful.

Boy, do I feel safe in Brooklyn.

Despite the wonderful family amenities, though, a culture clash with child-free hipsters and yuppie parents divides our great neighborhood and encourages an annoying yet endless stream of articles ridiculing local parents, exaggerating stories of parental mishaps, and complete fabrications such as the stroller mafia.

What I think it boils down to has less to do with whether or not children run wild in restaurants wreaking havoc on diners and more to do with jealousy, pure and simple. The parents are the ones in the neighborhood who own the beautiful brownstones, who support the restaurants and coffee shops, rally behind their community and fight urban sprawl, and encourage responsible behavior from local merchants.

The parents in this community have their own infamous listserve, called Park Slope Parents, which has a growing membership of around 6,000 parents who send 2500 messages a month on topics ranging from childcare to child friendly businesses in the hood. The hipsters don’t have that kind of camaraderie, and their lack of understanding of parenthood causes them to misjudge and misinterpret incidents and blow them out of proportion.

That being said, the Park Slope Parents community has its ups and downs.Political correctness has become so rampant on the listserve that parents can’t mention gender or race without getting attacked by other parents putting them in their place. For example, one mother sought advice on neighbors who were letting their kids run unsupervised who were imposing on her family more than she would like. She happened to mention that she didn’t know much about the mothers except that they wore burkas and kept to themselves, and this poor mom was attacked mercilessly for what others perceived as a racial slur. Another mother mentioned being bullied by nannies at the playground for breastfeeding her two year old, and she described the nanny who did most of the attacking as a chubby black woman with short black hair. She was accused of being a racist because she mentioned that the woman was black and people thought she was trying to get the nanny fired (as if anyone would want their child cared for by a nanny who openly bullied moms at the playground).

Add to that the gay dad who complained that the moms groups were excluding him (that’s why they are mom’s groups, not parents groups), and the rush of moms who apologized for calling their groups moms groups, and you can see why this neighborhood’s parents gets accused of being nutty.

That does not, however, excuse the lazy journalism as of late that continues to bash the neighborhood with myths and silliness that unfortunately become true by virtue of being said. I have never seen moms breastfeeding twins by letting it all hang out and running around a restaurant topless to accomplish a feeding. I don’t know anyone who bashes bugaboo owners, however giant and unwieldy their prams are, because we have bigger and better things to worry about than what stroller someone drives. In fact, I think the myth about having the “right” stroller in Park Slope has more to do with buying a stroller that will roll over our rough and uneven sidewalks and maneuver through the neighborhood’s tiny shops and restaurants, rather than any kind of stroller police mentality. You just can’t drive a Graco in our neighborhood because it is impractical, and the Maclarens are popular because they are practical in brownstone Brooklyn.

We love our neighborhood, yet we both are annoyed and understand from where these criticisms originate.We just wish the local reporters would write the real stores of Park Slope and stop recycling the same old myths and legends. That is what we hope to accomplish through our blog, to provide some rational balance to the neighborhood, to call it on its quirks, and celebrate it for its masterpieces.