Beauty Pageant Carpetbagger Boosts "Miss Brooklyn"

Sorry, Leigh-Taylor Smith, aka "Miss Brooklyn" 2008, but there is no NYC neighborhood or borough called “Whateversville” in the middle of the East River, you either live in Brooklyn, or you don't—and you don't. Ms. Smith tells the Daily News:

“I’m only one stop away [from Brooklyn]…”

NYC Geography 101: "One stop away from Brooklyn" is not Brooklyn. It is one stop away from Brooklyn. In Ms. Smith’s case, this would be Manhattan. But then she’d know that if she didn’t just move to NYC from Virginia.

"I'm still thrilled to represent Brooklyn and I hope to represent it well."

Hopefully, Ms. Smith will “represent Brooklyn” in the NYC sense of "to represent" one's home: roughly translated, to honor or embody its spirit with loyalty and affection. That would mean better than she “represented” Hampton-Newport News in 2006 and Arlington in 2007. Not because she lost both years' bids for Miss Virginia, but because no sooner had her term as Miss Arlington 2007 run out, then she packed up her carpetbags and moved to NYC—just in time for the first Miss Brooklyn pageant since 1991. May the area of her Manhattan studio apartment be surpassed only by the depth of her allegiance.

In all fairness to Ms. Smith, Virginia is Pageant Country and the competition can be brutal. Relocation to a city that—outside of the drag queen community—has little interest in beauty pageants may be her only shot at eventually clawing her way up to Miss America.

"Hopefully, the people of Brooklyn can get behind me. Maybe we'll be making the trip to Miss America in Vegas. It would be fantastic."

Dear Ms. Smith:
You are new here. That you’ve already put yourself in front of the people of Brooklyn to fulfill your ambitions to leave, is exactly why you do not want the people of Brooklyn anywhere behind you right now…

Margot Agostini from Prospect Heights, who won't be Miss Brooklyn this year, probably spoke many New Yorkers' minds when she told the Daily News:

“She’s still a tourist. Brooklyn is full of beautiful women."

But perhaps Jestina Cumberbatch of Bedford-Stuyvesant, who also won’t be Miss Brooklyn this year, spoke most Brooklynites' hearts:

"[The judges] weren't looking hard enough, otherwise they would've found me."

Miss Brooklyn Linx:
Note what's listed under her picture after Talent:
Pageant "Swag"