My, How You've Changed

Eight years ago when I moved to Brooklyn, I lived next door to this property.  Across the street?  A vacant lot filled with trash.  Next to that?  A slummy low-rise with walls held together by duct tape.  I don't mean to suggest that one version of Manhattan-between-Scholes-and-Meserole is more "real" than the other; just that New York City, with its ability to transform itself*, is mind-blowing.

*The real estate agents who get all sorts of Shakespearean when re-branding neighborhoods help usher the process along, too.