Boerum Hill: the urban(e) Utopia of Brooklyn

Many of you out there are all to aware of Park Slope - mecca for smug parenting, lactation, bloggers, wanna-be writers, nannies, SUV strollers, shrinks and organic everything. But are you aware of the urban utopia known as Boerum Hill? Or "Boring Hill", as some of us prefer to call it.

Like Park Slope, Boerum Hill possesses the same "I lived here when it was all crack and hookers" attitude, but they are fighting back. If you need a little entertainment one day, log onto the Boerum Hill Yahoo group. Over 800 strong, these urban toughies fight to turn their enclave into nothing short of a suburban subdivision, complete with rules about where to park, how to bag your trash properly, and cute little windshield cards that residents MUST place on their dashboards on alternate side day. A handwritten note won't do. You need an official card or you're seriously fucked.

I mention it because, like the Park slope Parenting group (which we all know far too much about), the BH group is equally mesmerizing. This week, a very nice fellow named Jason kindly asked:

"I have a sincere question about "curbing" ones dog.
I am a dog owner and try to be considerate of where my dog urinates because, as it was pointed out in another email, I live in the neighborhood too. I have never quite understood 'curbing' because the curb is lined with cars. I can not walk in the street so my dog will go on the curb because of the cars and if I walk along the sidewalk at the curb my dog would go on the cars which I don't image anyone would be happy with. I don't understand where 'at the curb' is. Could someone clear this up for me?

Then, all hell broke loose. There was much banter about the origin of the word "curb"

(The word "Curb" in the old original ordinance for "Curb your Dog" means (and only means) restrain your dog.Further, the ordinace defined that to mean a "6' long leash." It came to mean to the public the sidewalk curb but that was not the intention of the ordinance.The word curb was intended only to mean "restrain ". )

Then, of course, someone took it further, citing Article 167; 161.03 "Control of Dogs and Other Animals to Prevent Nuisance". Wow. Lots of free time there.
The light note was someone making the world's most fabulous typo:

I definitely agree that "allowing one's dong to urinate on other people's garbage cans" is not mannerly. Let's draw the line at that!

Push came to shove. Finally, someone put the whole thing into perspective by writing

Dear Friends,
This entire discussion of the word “curb” is most distressing. It is fraught with wildly disparate opinion that clearly reflects the venomous effects of factionalism and the devious application of historical perception as well as the distortion readily accepted tradition. Such harried discourse can only lead to bloodthirsty controversy which is strictly prohibited regardless of the actual circumstances.
A concerned member of the BH community

Now, 2 dry gimlets and a xanax later, I am ready to face the world anew, blessed with the undeniable knowledge of where the curb actually is, how to approach and define it , the origin of it from 3 different dictionaries (all of them wrong, apparently) and the certainty that, should i ever get a dog, i will walk it in Dumbo - or on Mars. Any place but Boerum Hill.