Mythical Dominion

"Terribly funny, yes, but Brooklyn is also sad brutal provincial lonesome human silent sprawling raucous lost passionate subtle bitter immature innocent perverse tender mysterious, a place where Crane and Whitman found poems, a mythical dominion against whose shores the Coney Island sea laps a wintry lament."
Truman Capote, Portraits and Observations

Persecuted Minority

Dumbo

"As a group, Brooklynites form a persecuted minority; the uninventive persistence of not very urbane clowns has made any mention of their homeland a signal for compulsory guffaws; their dialect, appearance and manners have become, by way of such side-splitting propaganda, synonymous with the crudest, most vulgar aspects of contemporary life."
Truman Capote, Portraits and Observations

Multiple Person

"That is the great advantage of New York, why it is the city. One can be a multiple person there: ten different people with ten different sets of friends, none overlapping."
Truman Capote, Portraits and Observations

Idol-Head with Traffic-Light Eyes

Bowery

"It is a myth, the city, the rooms and windows, the steam-spitting streets; for anyone, everyone, a different myth, an idol-head with traffic-light eyes winking a tender green, a cynical red. This island, floating in river water like a diamond iceberg."

Truman Capote, Portraits and Observations