According to a recent article, with Nassau Coliseum in bad shape and no money for a new arena in Nassau County, there is some talk about the New York Islanders hockey team moving to the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. I doubt such a move would be permanent, because the arena would evidently only seat less than 15,000 for hockey, but it could provide the Islanders with a place to play until either a larger venue becomes available or the team moves away.
There is another obstacle to such a move, however. According to the Daily News, “Islanders' owner Charles Wang said he wants to keep the team on Long Island.” Now I know what he meant, but the maps says Brooklyn is part of Long Island, even residents of neither Brooklyn nor Nassau and Suffolk Counties wish to admit this. No one built a moat on the Queens border, although many years ago one wag who used to comment on a transit message board once suggested that Nassau and Suffolk might want to build one, leaving the separate landmass of Brooklyn and Queens to be called “Royal Island” and disassociated from them entirely.
While unlikely, having the Islanders located at Barclay’s Center would make sense from the point of view of transportation. Suburban Long Islanders could travel right to the game on the Long Island Railroad; those working in Manhattan could take the subway to weekday games in the arena and the LIRR home.
Since sports are invested with symbolism by their “fans” (short for fanatics), what would an Islanders move to Brooklyn mean? One view is that suburban Long Island would “lose” the Islanders while urban Brooklyn would gain them. Another is that such a move could reconnect the two areas culturally.
The north shore of Nassau and Suffolk, an old demographer once told me, was populated by descendents of the affluent of Brooklyn, including many whose ancestors owned the industries back in Kings County. That move started before WWII. The south shore of Nassau and Suffolk, the Hamptons aside, was populated primarily by the descendents of working class Brooklyn, who went right out Linden Boulevard after getting their automobiles after WWII – and then faced a tough trek on the Belt Parkway to visit Grandma on Thanksgiving. The original Long Islanders, like the original Staten Islanders, were swamped by Brooklynites. Those moving out from Manhattan and the Bronx, meanwhile, more frequently moved to Westchester, New Jersey, or Connecticut.
There followed a long period when those who had left Brooklyn behind wanted nothing to do with it, and were hostile to it. They had moved on up, while the borough they left behind had become poorer and even more ethnically diverse. In the past 30 years, on the other hand, a reversal has taken place, with large parts of Brooklyn becoming more educated, affluent, and trendy and Long Island’s image becoming less F. Scott Fitzgerald and more Buttafuoco.
I don’t have any data, but anecdotal evidence says that just about every Brooklyn college graduate I know who has moved to the suburbs has chosen to move to New Jersey. Long Island? Wouldn’t consider it. My wife’s family made the trek from Brooklyn to Long Island a generation ago, but most of those who grew up there were desperate to move out, and despise the place as much as Long Islanders used to despise Brooklyn. Most of the next generation now lives in New Jersey, Rockland, upstate, North Carolina, Ohio, etc.
The Nassau County battle over the new arena for the Islanders and the broader Nassau Hub plan hasn’t just been over money, although money is the issue that is most real. Symbolically, it has also been a battle between older, city-hating suburban residents repelled by the idea of Brooklyn, and more forward-looking people who see there is no real gathering place on the island, and not enough places for young people to rent apartments. In turning down the arena, again, Nassau County has said, again, that it doesn’t want a city within its borders. Perhaps another viewpoint is that Long Island, as a landmass, doesn’t need a city because it already has one. Those who reside further out just need to return to their roots long enough to grab dinner and see a game.