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"When the news rippled through the bars, cafes and organic markets, some people just raised their eyebrows. Others laughed," writes Vivian Yee in The New York Times. She's talking, if hyperbolically — really, this was the talk of the organic markets? — about Saturday night's big news (at least to those who consider such things big news): A new Miss America was crowned! She lives in ... wait for it ... Brooklyn! How can this be?
Well, first, a few things to get straight. Miss America, also known as Miss New York, Mallory Hagan, 23, blonde, Miss-America-ready, is not a Brooklyn native. Since 2008, she has lived in Windsor Terrace, a working class neighborhood that, as rents went up in Manhattan and even nearby Park Slope, has absorbed the kind of people like, well, Hagan. Currently a student at FIT, Hagan is from Opelika, Alabama, went to Auburn University, and loves her adopted town. Yee quotes Hagan's blog post, which read in part, “In the time I’ve spent in New York, Brooklyn has grown very close to my heart. I love New York (and not in a tourist T-shirt kind of way) dearly and I truly believe this is the city where dreams come true." In 2010, Hagan was crowned Miss Brooklyn.