By Justine Nicholas

My neighborhood doesn’t have a Starbuck’s. Neither did Park Slope when I was living there. The difference is this: The Queens block on which I now live is one of the few truly blue-collar enclaves remaining in New York City. One of my neighbors still lives in the house in which she was born 64 years ago. Most of my other neighbors have lived here for more than 20 years. I’ve been here almost four years, but I’m still the new kid on the block.

On this block, it seems that people take their coffee in one of two ways: black or light-and-sweet. (I was one of the former until I stopped drinking coffee three months ago.) To their way of thinking, you don’t top your joe with whipped cream and swirly stuff.

And, to them, the idea of paying three or four bucks for a cup is simply ludicrous. On the other hand, Slopers during the ’90s prided themselves on keeping Starbuck’s out of the neighborhood. They rationalized this by citing the latté leviathan’s allegedly exploitative methods of doing business. Even after the company pledged to obtain their coffee beans only from plantations with fair labor and trade practices and unionized their work force, the denizens of Seventh Avenue continued to voice their opposition to Starbuck’s opening up shop in their backyard. 

Meanwhile, “independent” coffee houses sprouted along the Slope’s main drag like weeds after a rainstorm. They were usually started by some kid with a trust fund and a dream. They, too, charged three or four dollars for cups of coffee with pretentious names and whipped cream and swirly stuff.

Funny, though: I used to see an awful lot of paper cups with the Starbuck’s logos flowing out of the Slope’s curbside litter baskets. Could it be that all those indie cafes were running short on their own cups and that the boys in Seattle munificently lent their excess?

All right, I’ll grant you that those havens for Birkenstock-wearing BMW drivers offered something the big, bad coffee chain doesn’t: Readings and performances by people no one besides members of the audience (which numbered in double digits on good nights) had ever heard of. I guess one could say they were supporting young local artists, which of course is something the big, bad chain would never, ever do.

And I’ll grant you something else: a Starbuck’s has the soul of a carpet warehouse on Route 4. Like McDonald’s, each of their shops looks the same and serves stuff that tastes absolutely the same no matter where in the world you find them.

That’s really what the rich kids who weren’t hip enough to live in Williamsburg (which is saying something) and the yippies-turned-yuppies hated about Starbuck’s: Just about everybody can go to one.  

That’s also the reason why they think hole-in-the wall bookstores owned and staffed by surly people who don’t shave are preferable to Barnes and Noble. Or why little stores with preciously cute merchandise are better than Wal-Marts or K-Marts that sell stuff you can actually use for prices most people can afford. They’re ugly, yes, but no worse than a lot of what has been thrown up in the past 40 years. 

Such pretensions to exclusivity are scorned and/or laughed at on this block. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve been able to connect with the people here. I am not often mistaken for a blue-collar worker, though I grew up in a family and neighborhood of such people.

During the 11 years I lived in the Slope, I never made a friend. The only friend I had (and still have) there is one I made while I was in college. He doesn’t go to Starbuck’s. Then again, he doesn’t drink coffee either. He brings his own tea to work, where the hot water is still free. My neighbors like him.