Revised “Fort Greene Dreams”

The excerpt “Fort Greene Dreams” from the memoir City Kid by Nelson George is about a music and culture critic, journalist and filmmaker who has moved to a new neighborhood in Brooklyn called Fort Greene in downtown. Throughout the excerpt, “Fort Greene Dreams” the author compares how his life used to be before he moved to Fort Greene, from when he lived in Brownsville to his present life in Fort Greene. In the Spring of 1985, he moved to 19 Willoughby Avenue, a town called Fort Greene that was filled with aspiring new rising artists, novelists, songwriters, and many more people that the author made a critique of or was even a mentor for them to help them be successful, some succeed while others gave up because they weren’t confident enough for the negative feedback of their work or just too cocky to accept things as they were or their limitations.

He compares his life in Brownsville, living in a public housing apartment, sharing a room with his sister, in a cramped up space when his present apartment in Fort Greene could fit his whole old childhood apartment in just his second floor, with more room to spare.  His life was filled with poverty as a young child so when he looks around his place he feels as if he doesn’t belong yet very accomplished. His old neighborhood was very dangerous, with people being mugged. Even though he was never really physically mugged, he was robbed, which was mostly his fault because he left his door opened.  Not to say that Fort Greene was the safest place in the world either because just a long block away there were public housing projects, which made rent and houses around the area affordable to new young rising artists.