March 8, 2008: Vol. 31, No. 10
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del.icio.usUneasy lies the head that wears a tiara.
Newly crowned Miss Brooklyn Leigh-Taylor Smith has been engulfed by controversy ever since she, a Manhattan resident, won the pageant over six rivals on Feb. 23.
“I can’t believe all the ‘controversy’ of me taking the title back to Manhattan,” Smith, 22, told The Brooklyn Paper this week. “I really didn’t expect it.”
That may have been a strike against Smith — real Brooklynites can always see a punch coming, after all — but the Virginia native battled back this week, an effort to settle the score with borough partisans.
In doing so, Smith made a solid — if inconsistent — argument for being a true queen of Kings.
To those who complained that Smith only won the title because Brooklyn women have better things to do than stroll a runway in a bikini, Smith said being a beauty icon is only a hobby.
“Look, I moved here to work, not to enter pageants,” she said, referring to her success in the interior design world.
And she also lived up to her “Miss Brooklyn” title by snubbing the rich and powerful (she still hasn’t accepted invitations from Mayor Bloomberg and Borough President Markowitz).
And she’s certainly opinionated — a renowned Brooklyn trait. Indeed, she says Markowitz should run for mayor.
“He should run — and I’ll support him,” she said (unclear whether that makes her a good Brooklynite or a bad one).
And her strong opinions stopped short of taking a stand on the borough’s singular development project, Atlantic Yards.
“You can’t do this to me!” she laughed. “I’ve only been Miss Brooklyn for one week.”
Then again, she’s not alone in punting on Atlantic Yards — even New York Sen. Hillary Clinton hasn’t staked out a position on the project.
©2008 The Brooklyn Paper
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