Zoomed In: Little Poland

"Next stop, Greenpoint Avenue", the subway intercom says. The train stops and a handful of people get out. At first, the G train Brooklyn station looks like any other other station; eerily lit and eternally unkempt. But as I near the Greenpoint and Manhattan Avenue exit, I see a rare subway ad written entirely in Polish. It's the first of many signs that I have officially entered "Little Poland". If the subway ad didn't make it obvious enough, there is no doubt where I am when I walk out of the station. Immediately in front of it stands a magazine bodega. The polish language magazine section is overwhelmingly bigger than its neighboring English language section. A short line of customers shuffle up to the bodega window, most of them speaking with a heavy Eastern European accent. The bodega owner politely engages with them, his own Spanish accent audible.

Such scenarios are common nowadays throughout Greenpoint Avenue. The neighborhood is torn between meeting the needs of its ever changing population. What once was a more homogeneously Polish business area is now becoming more and more diversified. Asian themed restaurants have sprung up on nearly every other street corner. Spanish workers own and run Polish themed grocery stores. Corporate America has weaseled its way in. The bright red and yellow arches of McDonald's dominate the intersection of Greenpoint and Metropolitan. Starbucks inhabits an old movie theater just a few short steps away from a newly opened Dunkin Donuts.

The sign reads in Spanish: We speak Spanish; The other sign read in Polish: We Speak Polish

McDonald's on the corner of Metropolitan and Greenpoint Avenue

A good number of family owned and operated Polish meat deli's, bakeries, grocery stores and restaurants still stand though. Their numbers are most heavily concentrated within a 7 or 8 block stretch of Greenpoint Ave. There's a certain amount of sadness in their existence. On the one hand, they are a beacon of comfort and familiarity to the community. Many living in Greenpoint are direct immigrants or first generation relatives of Polish immigrants. As a first generation descendant of Polish immigrants myself, I make the 45 minute trek to the neighborhood from time to time for the sense of comfort it brings in the form of Polish sausage (kielbasa) and potato filled dumplings (pierogie).

On the other hand, the neighborhood's semi-homogeneous existence contradicts the very foundations of diversity this country stands on. Back when the first Polish immigrants settled in Greenpoint at the turn of the 20th century, they clustered together as a means of holding onto their homeland and heritage. Nowadays, with the advent of the internet and instant communication, the 4,000 mile distance between Poland and New York doesn't seem so big anymore.