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EditorialsPioneering on AtlanticIt%u2019s almost become a cliche to say that Atlantic Avenue isbooming, but the beauty of cliches is that they usually capturethe truth, or the essence of it. They don%u2019t tell the whole truth, ofcourse, and it wouldn%u2019t be fair to say that the avenue is acommercial or residential paradise. But then, much of thedelight in the avenue is the \so hard to boost it and which is still working hard to make iteven better.It%u2019s precisely that \Antic such a delightfully justified self-celebration, and whichthus sets it off from so many other equally big and equallyenjoyable street fairs other places around town. It isn't just aday of shopping or eating or strolling or socializing, or of beingentertained, though the Antic routinely supplies all of that inabundance. It%u2019s a day of saying, in effect, \done,%u201d which includes both the avenue itself and thesurrounding neighborhoods.Every year the Atlantic Antic gets bigger and better; everyyear it assumes a slightly new flavor. This year, on the eve ofthe fourth Antic, we%u2019re pleased to see a certain element of realtradition enter into the proceedings, because tradition bespeaksa kind of %u2018 %u2018coming of age%u2019 %u2019 where we leave behind the ecstasy ofsuccess for the assumption of success. The first Antic surpassedeveryones%u2019 wildest expectations; now most everyone assumes itwill be the highlight of the local year.The assumptions about the Antic of course only reflect theassumptions about the avenue, and indeed we are pleased tonote that hard evidence supports that optimism. The currentconversions of the Ex-Lax factory and the nine buildings of\commercial space are undoubtedly the two most importantprojects on the avenue in years. But smaller projects andimprovements - ranging from once-empty storefront conversions to facade paint jobs - also indicate that the avenue is in ahealthier state than ever. And though new stores come and go,the avenue sports a better mix - both geographically andcommercially - than ever before. That indicates to us thatpeople are making real demands of the avenue, that people areexpecting more and getting it.It%u2019s a simple axiom that we make more demands when we areconfident that they can be met, which of course is why we askfew of children. That the avenue is showing clear signs ofsupplying demands and fulfilling expectations is a sure sign tous that it is truly coming of age, and that Atlantic Antic IVdeserves to be bigger and better than ever.W e are happy to say that we assume it will be.Community FommFrom the Heights to Hasting: Thoughts On Not Being HereBY MURIEL BENJAMINBecause of its vitality, Brooklyn dies hard in the hearts and minds of former residents. Even when one thinks that the \memories and longings for the unique life on the Heights and on the Hill are surprisingly close to the surface.It has been three years now since I moved from Brooklyn Heights into a rambling house in Hastings-on-Hudson. By now I have settled in to the quiet hills, the community meetings, and the picturesque and changing river views. My house, high above a winding, narrow street, h<%u00bbs a long flight of steps leading up to an open wooden porch that looks to an open wooden porch that looks out upon oak trees and pines and in the Recently, while sitting on my porch, I found myself gazing out at an incident that awakened in me an old feeling of loss that has persisted ever since moving from Brooklyn; it also awakened, once again, those fears about the suburbs that accompanied ine to Hastings and that have not been assuaged by living here.As I sat on my porch, I looked across the road at our four-year-old neighbor, sitting by himself on the grass playing with his cranes and sailboats. A volunteer fire truck came by at that moment, and myMuriel Benjamin, a former Brooklynresident, now lives In Hastings-on-Hudson.little neighbor looked up, walked to the edge of his lawn and stared at it while it struggled up the hill until it turned the corner and he could no longer see it. He went back to his spot on the grass and continued to play with his toys. As I sat across from him watching this encounter memories came back of my children and I walking along our route through BrooklynHeights to the playground, slowed at nearly every step by fire trucks, garbage trucks, horses and wagons, cyclists, and people that we knew. Five minutes of such contacts protect young mothers from the terrible feeling of isolation rampant in the suburbs. The city streets alone, I thought, offered an intellectual head start to my children that my curious neighbor across the road cannot experience, and provided an interest in the world about them slow to develop among the children they now know.Yet, as I thought about the difference between the life of a city child and the life of a child living in the suburbs, I wondered whether this supposed difference wassimply a chimera distorting my perceptions. Is it possible that an interest in the world is the privilege of a city child? Interest and curiosity about the life around you is a characteristic of any healthy child or adult. If the universe can be found in a grain of sand, surely there is a world in a grassy meadow, things to hear from the silence all around.Yet, though I believe that it is nourishing for children to walk to and from school through the woods wnile the snow falls, or while the leaves change, or in early spring, these natural pleasures continually appeared to me as smoke screens behind which I saw another truth: the indifference toward the world%u2019s beauty, which results in an absence of attunement, or of excitement about the individual in the world, the very humane and urbane qualities that have value in the Heights and Hill community but that seem to meet with indifference here.When I moved to Hastings I feared two things: a lack of stimulation and a stifling conformity. I refused to acknowledgeeither of these fears, however, since I believed that one provides one%u2019s own stimulation and that conformity is a choice that one can either adhere to or not. Nevertheless, out of these two general categories a host of specific fears shattered the calm and natural beauty that surrounded me, fears about stepping back into my past, about leaving my youth behind me and becoming old in an obsessively single-minded, family-dominated community, where grass and taxes are the primary subjects of conversation.To struggle against these fears I used rational arguments, yet I could not escape the feeling that in leaving Brooklyn I had left behind something important. The effort to identify what it was that I had lost continually intruded itself upon my thoughts until I discovered that what I left behind was a quality of life. The difference between living in Hastings and living in Brooklyn is a difference in value, a shift in focus or in sensibility that changes the quality and the attitude toward all of the similar things that we do and that sweeps across both worlds and all our lives.In leaving Brooklyn, one leaves a particular attitude of breadth, a point of view that is quick to appreciate rather than take for granted the charms in the world.A point of view that has a subtle but radical effect on the atmosphere one breathes and that is of greater significance than any physical difference between the two worlds.%u2018W h en I m oved fro m th e H eig h ts toH a stin g s on H u d so n I feardtwo t h in g s : a la ck o f stim u la tio nan d a s tiflin g co n fo rm ity .%u2019Inklings by Gene SuchmaSeptember 21,1978, THE PHOENIX, Page 10