I was born in Bridgeport, CT, and grew up in Schenectady, NY with a short stint in Roanoke, VA, that my parents claim ended when I started saying "tinnis shoes" instead of sneakers.  I graduated from high school in Hamden, CT, immediately after which I  hopped on the Metro North to NYU where I learned to hail a taxi, navigate the art studios of Dumbo and Chelsea, and a bunch of things that aren't quite appropriate to write about here.  Like so many New Yorkers, when I realized that my passion (teaching art to preschoolers) was not going to pay the rent, I circled ads in the print section of the NY Times and started calling them on my land line.  To my winning interview, I wore the most expensive outfit I'd ever owned and perhaps the most expensive item of clothing my Mom had ever bought (a Kenar suit from a swank boutique on Austin Street in Kew Gardens).  This was a really big deal.  I landed the  job as a legal secretary to eleven public interest lawyers who were on trial against the City of New York.  They ripped me to shreds when I did not fax the opposing counsel fast enough.  This job toughened me up in ways that my BFA had not, and of course inspired me to go to law school.  Three years later, I graduated from Fordham, passed the bar, practiced antitrust and commercial litigation for five years during which I got to tour a leather factory in Newark, NJ.  Tanneries do not smell good.  I also got to work for a week reviewing documents in a storage unit in a strip mall in Petoskey, Michigan, without a space heater, in the dead of winter.  Petoskey, Michigan is very cold.  Because I felt my career needed more variety (and I'm obviously a Gemini), I then fell in with the wrong crowd (again) and started selling residential real estate in Brooklyn Heights.  Everyone who knew me thought that real estate made sense.  I've always loved architecture.  But in retrospect, perhaps they found me vapid.  An investor I once worked with called New York City real estate a "blood sport."  Being hazed by an army of litigators prepares you for such things - vapid or not. 

 

Ten years, two kids, and two dogs later, Bklynside is a reflection of my love of the place (Brooklyn).  It is a return to my roots.  I am an artist.  I never really fit in as a lawyer or a real estate person.  The blog started in 2005 as a space where I wrote about pop culture as it related to my heart.  The "side" part referred to the fact that Manhattan was "cooler," than my side of the river.  That's not so true anymore.  I deleted the entire blog when I was dating a very cute guy back in the aughts.  I was afraid he would find me online, read it, and discover that I was more sensitive and nuanced than I was letting on.  That click of a button was a huge mistake.  I lost some material I really loved - forever - with that bit of self-conscious impulse.  So here it is, revived in 2018 with better graphics, most of which I do not understand.  It turns out some things change a lot in thirteen years, and others do not.  In this iteration of Bklynside, I think I am writing more about those things that never really change.  But we'll see.  Thanks for joining me!  And feel free to reach out to me anytime at mross3333@gmail.com

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