The Carriage Business In Brooklyn Was Strong — Stronger Than That Of The Upper West Side — In Fact, It Was So Strong That . . .

Many many years from now, this is the sort of detail that historians will repeat over and over in their books about Brooklyn:

Hampton Jitney, which has been driving New Yorkers to the East End of Long Island from the Upper East Side since 1974, announced earlier this week that it will pick up passengers from Park Slope and downtown Brooklyn beginning on Memorial Day. The same fleet of forest green coaches that now services the Upper East Side will be used in Brooklyn, a company spokeswoman said.

This disturbs status-conscious Upper West Siders, who long, long ago became parodies of themselves:

As New Yorkers scramble to nail down the last remaining Hamptons summer shares over the next few weeks, many Upper West Side residents who will soon be escaping to the beach say they feel overlooked by Hampton Jitney, which stops only on the Upper East Side and will expand its service to Brooklyn this summer.

“It’s just really surprising that they’d do a route in Brooklyn first,” a psychoanalyst who works on the Upper West Side and sometimes visits friends at their weekend homes in the Hamptons, Judy Bernes, said.

Jacqueline Jankoff, a bubbly, curly-haired Upper West Side resident, stocks up on groceries at Zabar’s every Friday during the summer before catching the 86th Street crosstown bus to Lexington Avenue, where she boards the Jitney and relaxes in the roomy bus on the way to her Amagansett beach house. After 18 years of this weekend routine, Ms. Jankoff says she could make the crosstown trip with her eyes closed, but that doesn’t lighten her grocery load.

“I come here, and then I have to schlep my shopping bags across town on the bus,” Ms. Jankoff said over a sample of goat cheese at Zabar’s. “I love the Jitney, but I wish it came here.”