In Brooklyn, the block wasn’t very long or very wide, and not that many kids were out there, either. But when I got to Florida, there were a lot of kids on my block, young kids, older kids, and they could play outside until the sun went down and have fun.
I was going to different neighborhoods around Brooklyn battling cats back in – this started in ’82, so that’s like eighth grade. Maybe 13, 14.
White people moving into Brooklyn, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I think that’s fine and I think that’s beautiful, but to hear about certain black people whose rent is getting hiked up so high and they’re not able to get leases renewed. Now that I think is wrong.
Usually I get a feel for cities real quick, but Brooklyn is different. It’s something new every day. But that’s what makes it so special, that’s why there’s no place like it.
Even though I grew up as a Sephardic Jew in Brooklyn where we ate Syrian food and went to temple, it was still America.
I live in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, so I just like to wander around. Williamsburg’s such a cool little neighborhood community spot.
I don’t really go out, ‘go out’ that much anymore. I live in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, so I just like to wander around. Williamsburg’s such a cool little neighborhood community spot.
The fellows that I played with encouraged me to bunt and beat the ball out. I was anxious to make good and did as I was told. When I came to Brooklyn, I adopted an altogether different style of hitting. I stood flat-footed at the plate and slugged. That was my natural style.
Getting a Grammy nomination for ‘Brooklyn’ meant a lot, especially because, as an album, it was one that was very personal to me but also one that I self-produced and had gone outside the label.
Coming from Haiti and growing up in Brooklyn, there’s a lot of European influence when I get dressed up. I wear a lot of fitted suits, elegant cuts; I think it’s cool to mash up a lot of different looks.
I bought my Grasshoppers tennis shoes at a flea market in Brooklyn. They are so comfortable to lounge around in on tour.
My style is cinematic; it is a touch of French woman of the ’60s and American hippie with a Brooklyn edge. I love wearing wide-brim hats, newsboy caps, mini dresses and sheer blouses with details.
It would take me three or four lifetimes to do everything I want. I’m a Brooklyn boy who learned to hustle, and I have to do something every day or I get the guilties.
Bob Smith from Brooklyn is a guy who sometimes gets hung with problems and fears. Wolfman Jack is a happy-go-lucky guy who knows how to party. The challenge of my life has been letting more and more of Bob Smith go, becoming the Wolfman on an almost full-time basis, while still taking care of business.
I spent a lot of time in Brooklyn as a kid. I was born in New York, and my grandmother lived in Crown Heights, so there’s a part of it that I feel this connection to.
We moved to Brooklyn when I was about 9 or 10, and from Brooklyn we moved to Rochester in New York. I went to high school in Rochester in New York.
I’m known for fashion photographs, but fashion photographs were mostly a joke for me. In ‘Vogue,’ girls were playing at being duchesses, but they were actually from Flatbush, Brooklyn. They would play duchesses, and I would play Cecil Beaton.
I grew up in Manhattan. For Manhattanites, Brooklyn was the sticks, a second-rate civilization. My friends and I, we were so snobby. Living in the Bronx or Brooklyn was incredible… for me, that was like a foreign country.
I was never a ‘bad’ kid, but I did get into minor juvenile trouble. Look, I grew up in Brooklyn. This was the ’60s, and the neighborhood was rapidly changing and not without its problems. All the kids of the neighborhood ‘did their thing,’ breaking windows and the like. I was no different.
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