1. Six Flags Great Adventure? Pssshaw. You had Nellie Bly.
2. Your parents took you to this place for pizza and Italian ices.
3. And brought home cheesecakes from Junior's for special occasions.
4. (But you know Circo's was actually way better.)
5. If you grew up in the Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, or Williamsburg vicinity, you had at least one neighbor with a rooster that would wake you up (literally) at the crack of dawn.
6. It was sort of tolerable on weekdays, but on weekends you were all like:
7. You've been well aware since toddlerhood that the best pierogies outside of Poland are just off the G train.
8. You know "You can have cheez on anything you pleez" at Roll-n-Roaster (and you did).
9. You'd wait on a line the length of the Berlin Wall for beef patties and pastries from this place:
10. If you still live in Brooklyn, at first you scorned the bevy of cool kids invading your turf...
11. ...but you soon learned to love the fact that you no longer needed to leave a two-block radius to have a fun night out.
12. Though you were also weirded out by the newfound feeling of being judged by hipsters every time you walked to the deli in your chancletas and PJs.
13. You skated/BMXed at Owl's Head Park and the Brooklyn Banks.
14. You went to metal and hardcore shows at L'Amour (and feel weird reading it spelled like that because you always called it L'Amours).
15. You probably used your chalked ID to get in.
16. Sucked to be you if you lived in Marine Park, Mill Basin, or Red Hook, because you knew none of your friends were coming over to hang in the hood that was roughly 1738921 miles from the nearest subway stop.
17. You remember when the L train was the LL — and if you don't, as a commuting teen you were totally confused by your parents calling it the LL train for years after the second letter was dropped.
18. When you hear the word "freestyle," your mind doesn't turn to rap but to the purest form of dance music created by angels from above:
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TKA, Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam, Lil' Suzy, Exposé, Shannon...
19. As a kid, you took Brooklyn showers all summer long.
20. The first time you heard gunshots, you were like:
21. And then every time after that, you were just like:
22. Before the Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg, there was the Giglio Feast.
23. It takes you less than two minutes to let the stranger you're talking to know you were born in Brooklyn.
24. And if you don't, your accent usually gives you away immediately. Or at least when you're drunk and/or really angry.
25. You pronounce it DEE-kalb, not deh-KALB.
26. You could take to Fulton Street with $100 for your back-to-school shopping and come home with a full year's wardrobe.
27. You were all like this when you got the day off for Brooklyn-Queens Day:
28. Your junior high and high school dances looked something like this:
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And to this day, you're still not really sure how to dance any other way.
29. Favorite school trip? The one you made here every year. Penguinnnnnnns!
30. If your teachers were extra-awesome, they'd take you to this gem afterward:
31. Applying to high school took roughly as long as the Seven Years' War and required more effort and tears than planning a wedding.
32. You secretly hoped you'd score high enough on the specialized high school exam to get into Brooklyn Tech but not Bronx Science or Stuyvesant so your commute would be sweeeeeet.
33. Before romantic dates here were part of the equation, you spent the surly summer nights of your youth discreetly drinking 40s on the promenade in Brooklyn Heights.
34. Your parents always talk about "the old days" playing stoop ball (but you're maybe still not really sure how it worked).
35. You remember when Malcolm X was filmed here...
36. ...and Requiem for a Dream...
37. ...and Half Nelson.
38. This song is totally played out, but you still get pumped and sing along when you hear it.
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And cornily shout out your neighborhood when it comes up.
39. You're proud to share your hometown with some of the greats: MCA, Biggie, Jay-Z, Barbra Streisand, Tony Danza, Joan Rivers, Basquiat...
40. This view always reminds you you're home.
