*img from Town Square
Yeah, it’s kinda weird, no?
The Manhattan Avenue Christmas light decorations I have been talking about for the last month aka The Scrooged Series – lol – has a new chapter. First we heard that The Greenpoint Lions weren’t going to be able to do it this year due to minimal cooperation from the stores along the Avenue, but then Town Square swooped in and saved the day.
Now, it’s not nice to look a gift horse in the mouth but why are they blue? To quote blogger Voodoo Jive:
First of all, the lights are blue, not white. So it looks like one huge very lame and cheaply-thrown together Hannukah celebration up and down Manhattan Avenue, which if anyone who lives there knows is hilarious, because the majority of the native Polish population of the hood (we’re talking pre-hipster move-in) are…how can I say this? Anti-semitic is too harsh (and not altogether accurate), however the vibe is definitely Catholic or Polish Christian Orthodox, and I have heard many of the Polish people make a point to say “this person is a Jew, etc…” in THAT way.
I have to admit, VJ hit the nail on the head with this one. The Poles and locals I’ve spoken to are perturbed about the blue lights. Why aren’t they green and red? Or even the originally promised white? I understood they were going to be a lighter version of our previous years which was fine, but the blue is ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
Personally I’m just happy to have lights. And I dont think people really have the right to complain seeing how many of them wouldnt donate money to have the lights up in the first place. Simply my opinion.
Hey why don’t any of the other girls update anymore?
No, I agree that we’re lucky to have any lights at all.
I think the other blogger brought up a good point that there’s more money in this neighborhood than ever before and yet no one ponied up for the regular decorations.
The point that they are blue is really what annoys me. But I guess that’s what we got and we should just be thankful we got anything at all.
Krissy posted last week and the other girls are still here – just busy with life.
If the merchants contibuted they could ask for what they want.But it was not them who are paying and it is not the town square either But that is a whole other story??
If people are offended only because they think that blue implies Jewish, then that is anti-semitic and that shouldn’t be given face. If not, then what is the real problem with blue? I’m happy with the lights.
I don’t feel it’s anti-Semitic at all. I mean if you wanted to really look at it that way, it’s almost anti-Christian to place the blue lights on Manhattan Avenue in a predominantly Catholic/Christian neighborhood. It’s common knowledge that blue lights represent Hanukkah during this time of year. White lights would have been the most all encompassing during this ridiculously PC time we live in.
The lights are nice, but at this point it might’ve been better if we’d just been without them this year.
Maybe I’m a scrooge.
I agree that the lights this year are sad looking, but as a Jewish person, I can’t help but feel a little insulted that my fellow community members would get so upset at blue lights, thinking that they’re *gasp* Jewish. Oh no, what if the Jewishness is contagious! As far as I know, Christmas lights are for Christmas no matter what color they are. I don’t know of many Jewish people that string lights up for Hanukkah, that’s not typically our thing.
Huh… I never knew blue lights had any anti-Christmas meaning at all. I grew up in a small town upstate where there most likely wasn’t a Jewish person within 30 miles, but remember a neighbor — one of a locally prominent family of German origination — always using exclusively blue lights. They were placed both on the house, and on the pine trees growing in front… as if those were Christmas trees. I thought they looked pretty cool.
Naive little kid that I was, I didn’t even realize that they were secretly celebrating Hanukkah, and laughing at all of us Christmas types!