Kevin Walsh and Forgotten New York take a look at some Park Slope scenes this week, focusing on old factories in the neighborhood, some of which have been converted (of course) to housing. Mr. Walsh writes:

There has been a gradual coalescing of my observations as I walk through Brooklyn in the mid to late 2000s. The era when Brooklyn worked — as in manufacturing and supplying the world with the fruits of American know-how and technical expertise — is coming to an end. It’s being replaced by service industries, housing, and tourism. I don’t even know if I should be all that riled about it, as long as the architecture where people formerly toiled now houses people who are primarily relaxing. I’ve taken to calling it the Eloi-zation of NYC, as toilers are replaced by partiers…My term Eloi-zation comes, of course, from H.G. Wells; the British writer’s first successful science fiction story in 1898, The Time Machine, depicts a time traveler (how he travels is not revealed; there’s only the description of his machine) who goes to the 803rd Century, by which time the class distinctions between the working and leisure classes of turn-of-the-century Britain have become so pronounced as to produce two separate devolved human species: the reclining Eloi, who sit in the sun all day, and the blanched underground Morlocks, who run the planet, providing the Eloi with enough food so they can prey on them…

In any case, there are some great Slope photos included.