As a kid, I thought that Brooklyn was the name of a type of chewing gum. The bridge between hard, strawberry flavoured chewing gum, designed in the bizarre shape of cigarettes on our side and soft, tender, cinnamon flavoured chewing gum on the other. I didn't really understand, what "other" means. It simply wasn't ours. I believed that our chewing gum was harder because we have better teeth. That hard and tasteless chewing gum has some higher, educational purpose. It was to strengthen us, perhaps, and the shape of cigarettes was only to accustom us, the kids, to the world of grown-ups.

Since I've seen the bridge and both shores, I know that in some childish naïve way, I was right. The Brooklyn Bridge is the link between downtown and suburb, tower and field, between Money and Change, brains and teeth. The postcard beauty of Manhattan is possible from Brooklyn, not from Chinatown. So, the view from the suburb is the view of desire and the view from downtown is the view of fear.

DEJAN HABICHT

www2.arnes.si/~dhabic