My thoughts on the Campaign for a Little Britain in Greenwich Village in Metro today. (Thanks to my buddy William for the excellent header idea.)
Show Us Your Brits
By Paul Berger
Britain is a nation of whingers. We moan about the trains, the European Union, our sportsmen and the “youth of today.” We frown upon individualism and entrepreneurialism, preferring instead to be happy with our lot and not make a fuss. So prepare for a good old British whinge about the campaign to establish a “Little Britain” in Greenwich Village.
The British businesses spearheading the campaign, the restaurant Tea and Sympathy and airline Virgin Atlantic, argue that since “almost every nationality in New York has a ‘Little’ version,” there should be a Little Britain, too. They have launched a petition to establish Little Britain in a chunk of Greenwich Village from 6th Avenue to Washington Street, and 14th Street to 11th Street, with Tea and Sympathy at its core. Never mind that New York has no “Little Holland,” “Little France” or “Little Ireland.” Even if it did, Greenwich Village is not “Little Britain.”
Tea and Sympathy, flanked by a fish-and-chip shop and an English clothes store, represents a tiny British outpost in the middle of the city. But doesn’t a “Little Britain” require a little more? Sure, there are similarities between Greenwich Village and Britain. Its streets are cleaner and prettier than most New York neighborhoods. It has an air of aristocratic respectability reminiscent of Knightsbridge or Chelsea. The roads are narrow and run at odd angles. Twelfth Street is even cobbled.
But the essence of New York’s “little towns” is not the ambiance of the street. It’s the ethnicity of the people who live and work there. And this part of Bohemian Greenwich Village is hardly British. Even on the block of Greenwich Avenue at the center of the proposed Little Britain are a Belgian café and a burrito restaurant. Opposite are a soy-based health food shop and a store selling Tibetan handicrafts. I challenge you to find such a mix in the heart of Little Italy, Chinatown, Koreatown or Brighton Beach’s “Little Russia by the Sea.”
The British may have flocked to New York — according to a 2005 U.S. Census Bureau survey there are almost 30,000 of us — but we are spread across the city. Almost as many of us live in Brooklyn (9,000) as in Manhattan (11,000), and the average British expat certainly couldn’t afford to live in Greenwich Village.
While the proud Brit in me likes to think the Little Britain campaign is a well-meaning expat’s idea, the cynic in me suspects it’s a cheap advertising ploy. Either way, it is one petition this whinging Brit will not sign.
Little Britain
Dear Paul,
I’m sitting in our office in Chinatown* on Grand and Lafayette, next door is the excellent Thai Angel, across the street is a new French restaurant, opposite is the Landmark Pancake House and a stones throw away is that bastion of Little Italy, Ferrara’s Bakery. And, as one of the people responsible for creating the campaign in question, with a British father and a Dutch mother, it feels like I’m in a reasonably good position to address some of the other points you raised!
When we first started planning this campaign about a year ago, we sounded out the local business community and various levels of local and city government officials, not one person voiced anything other than support. Since the campaign went public ten days ago we have generated a significant international PR campaign, which benefits the whole city, just under three thousand people have taken the trouble to sign the petition, there are seventy posts on the blog, of which about half a dozen are negative and three of which are so vitriolic it’s hard to take them seriously. In fact many of the issues you raised are answered by the map at www.campaignforlittlebritain.com or are being discussed in the campaign blog and we’d encourage you and your readers to contribute.
There is one point I would like to address here, your suspicion that this is a cheap advertising ploy. If we were proposing “Cheerio’s Little Britain” you’d have a point, but we are not.
Yes, two British businesses, Tea & Sympathy and Virgin Atlantic, are leading this campaign because it is relevant and authentic that they should. Virgin Atlantic’s inaugural flight was to New York, they even hatched their business plan in the White Horse pub, and now they fly about half a million people a year between the two cities. Tea & Sympathy has been a stalwart of the local business community for seventeen years, in which time it became known as the “unofficial British Embassy” which in many ways was the creative inspiration for the campaign.
Cheap advertising ploy’s are here today gone tomorrow, this campaign is about transparently creating an Anglophile destination in a country full of Anglophiles, in a city that will get 38 million domestic tourists this year, which is clearly going to benefit the whole business community in the neighborhood.
Of course we hoped this idea would generate some debate, and we did half expect some Brits to come out against it, as David Remnick said “…the British are the only culture to feel schadenfreude about themselves..”. For all of us who created and support the campaign, we are proud to be entrepreneurs who live in the entrepreneurial capital of the world, New York, and, proud to be British. We hope it inspires more Brits to follow suit, to start with they can sign the petition supporting Little Britain in the Big Apple!
Best
CFLB
*the Chinese are the second largest immigrant group in the city, 39% live in Queens, 33% Brooklyn, 24% Manhattan [source: nyc.gov]
Ignore Berger, he’s just got a bee in his bonnet. I think it’s a really good idea, no debate necessary. Good luck CFLB, I’ve signed your petition and I’ve put your poster up outside my office.
…and A Salt & Battery just beat Bobby Flay in a “fry off” on Food Network, so another reason to vote!
check it here http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_bt/episode/0,2857,FOOD_26696_49736,00.html
…lastly if anyone else would also like some posters they are available for pick up at campaign HQ, Tea & Sympathy.
Ahoy me hearties and welcome to Little Britain!
No, wait a minute, that’s not right.
Greetings and salutations foreigners, prepare to be conquered (for a while anyway)?
Nope.
Aaw-rite guvnor, call me a sherbert while I give the trouble a bone?
Hmm, how to give an accurate view of Britain through the medium of a Virgin Atlantic promotional campaign and the ambitions of a tea room owner? Frankly, unless you have a few homeless begging for a fag or thrusting the Big Issue at you, several ‘Hoodies’ with knives staring menacingly out from a bus shelter and a sprinkling of drunken football louts staggering about and being generally pissed and threatening for good measure, I’m not sure that this campaign will really cut the English mustard.
To be honest, from this side of the Atlantic it all sounds a little contrived. Having had a brief scan of the campaign blog and seen some of the comments (Some of my faves)http://www.campaignforlittlebritain.com/blog/2007/03/08/oooh-what%e2%80%99s-this-aa-gill-creates-a-storm-in-a-teacup/#comments I fail to see what isn’t Disney about this idea. Did the founders of Little Italy and Chinatown decide to club together in a self-imposed ghetto to fly the flag for their respective countries or was it more a question of new immigrants grouping together to feel safety in numbers and to ensure the continuation of their traditions? And do the the Brits in New York feel the same pressure? Doubt it.
It’s ‘cute’, will give Anglophiles the chance to buy Marmite and rather poncey looking fish and chips but I’m not sure it will give any non-Brit a taste of our culture. Who goes to New York for that anyway? And frankly, the extreme kitschy-ness of the whole things reminds me of why calling French people ‘Frogs’ & Germans ‘Krauts’ might be seen to be distasteful. In this day and age, can you authentically sum up a culture in a district or is it an anachronism that stems from a time when nationalities had to fight much harder to preserve their identity? I know I’m English, who are you?
…again I refer people to the map on the campaign web site that illustrates the 15 British businesses in the vincinty, but, more to the point the campaign creates an opportunity for other British brands to use LB as a retail location or simply support it as
Ben Sherman have done.
…as for the kitsch, well, it was intended to be all tongue-in-cheek, people just see what they want to see.
re: authenticity, we’ll be issuing ASBO’s from now on to anyone wearing a hoodie.
cheers
CFLB
Ghastly concept and an embarrassment to Britain. These “cultural” neighborhoods in New York are in existence because of the immigrants who pooled together in these neighborhoods that date back to the origins of New York. Perhaps people should be more concerned about preserving the already dying culture in Greenwich Village rather than completely fabricating an artificial one.
re: re:authenticity, will you provide a compass/gps for those of us that find ourselves in enemy shopping districts?
Have you had a word with Phillip Green? Will Topshop come to the Big Apple, will WH Smiths sully the sidewalks with $10 British magazines?
One can only hope.
funny…topshop are already here in a concession at hipper than hip store ‘opening ceremony’ and soon to be in barneys.
re: compass…no need chinatown etc all support it [see blog] and we all plan to mutally support each neighborhood…its all very Entente Cordiale over here.
Whoops, am so passe, natch! Only a Brit could be so behind the times, hence need for sweet shop with ye olde boiled sweets and frilly fish and chips in order to orient oneself. Wait a minute, one thought oneself was in the colonies but apparently one is in Little Tedious-By-Ubiquitous River. My mistake.
Areas of cities become know as x or y over time, through cultural evolution. Overnight appellation is artifical, crappy and tacky.
I agree that ghettos evolve out of a nationality’s necessity and not for profit but it’s still fun to go to have tea with or without sympathy or supper at the chippie.
Folks, we may be overthinking this idea a wee bit. Take it for the fun, quirky novelty that it is and join in on the laugh.
I thought all of Manhattan south of 85th street is “little britain.” I mean you see more british flags waving in Manhattan than US flags. Typical of the left wing snobbery that prevails that borough.