Relocated Activist Celia Cacace Says Hello From Wisconsin

You can take the girl out of Brooklyn. But you can't take Brooklyn out of the girl.

Lifelong Carroll Gardens resident Celia Cacace misses her friends at the Happy Pants Cafe, going to Caputo's for bread, and patrolling the old familiar sidewalks, she told The New York Daily News. But she is slowly trying to adjust to her new life out in the country.

After being forced to leave her $500-per-month rental when the building was sold last month, the community activist and unofficial 'mayor' of Carroll Gardens moved in with her son and daughter-in-law, who live in Waterford, Wisconsin, a rural town. She's been there now for three weeks.

“You don’t hear the buses or the garbage trucks in the morning. I miss the sounds of my turf. I miss the sounds of New York,”  Cacace told the News. "It’s as if I was a truck driver and I had to put my foot on the break right away. I’m trying to adjust. It’s a different way of life.”

Some friends in the neighborhood still hold out hope they can find a hidden real-estate deal nearby and coax Cacace back. But the 76-year-old says she is grateful to her family.

“I’m ever so grateful for my son and daughter in law. They opened their home and their hearts to me,” said Cacace in the article. “It’s nice but it’s not my Brooklyn. I miss my Brooklyn. I miss my turf.”