Brooklyn 11223: The Very True Story Of How A Bay Ridge Show Got A Gravesend Zip Code

Memo to Oxygen Network: The next time you want to name your show after the zip code in which it takes place, you might want to Google said zip code.

I have to admit, I don’t really watch much programming on the Oxygen Network. Surprised? It was fun at first, when they showed Barbarella five or six times a day, but after that, they stopped airing shows that could hold my interest. Lucky for me, I’ve got Facebook Friends™ who stay right on top of this sort of thing. Like yesterday, when a friend shared this NY Post story:

Photo: EJ Camp/Oxygen Media

It’s “Jersey Shore’’ à la Bay Ridge — where they just won’t fuhgeddaboutit.

A once tightknit group of girls from the Brooklyn ’hood are still at each other’s throats over an alleged heinous act of betrayal years ago — and their long-simmering beef has spurred a new documentary TV series called “Brooklyn 11223.”

The show, which begins airing on the Oxygen network March 26, features such residents as Christy Maria Livoti, for whom there is no greater sin than seducing someone’s boyfriend and lying about it.

The object of scorn for Livoti and about a dozen of her closest friends is Joey Lynn Tekulve, 24, a pal since kindergarten at PS 215 in Gravesend. Their friendship abruptly ended after Tekulve allegedly seduced Livoti’s then-boyfriend about three years ago.

The reaction from me, my friend, my friend’s mother, and commenters on nypost.com was pretty much universal: Zip code 11223 is not Bay Ridge. 11223 is Gravesend. I figured it must be some sort of mistake by the NY Post – “the show isn’t predominately about Bay Ridge,” I thought to myself, “it must be about Gravesend, where the article said these women grew up and went to school.” So I checked the Oxygen network’s official take:

Oxygen takes viewers into the small, close-knit community of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn in this newest docu-series Brooklyn 11223.

OK, first of all, docu-series? DOCU-SERIES? What the frak is that supposed to mean? If we are to suppose that’s meant to be the amalgamation of the words “documentary” and “series,” then I would describe Ken Burn’s The Civil War as a docu-series.  This looks like trash the guys at Sanitation wouldn’t pick up.

And also – 11223 is not Bay Ridge.

You know what? That’s OK. In this case, I think a little obfuscation and misdirection is warranted. In fact – of course! Bay Ridge has a guardian angel in the marketing offices of Oxygen Network looking out for us! A guardian angel that said “Holy ****balls! This is disgraceful! If this gets out, Bay Ridge is ruined. Ruined, I tell ya! If there was only some way to make people think it takes place in some other part of town. But how? Hmmmm….”

(Insert sound of a bell ringing here)

Congratulations, Mysterious Maker Of Civic-Face-Saving Miracles, and thank you. You just earned your wings.

P.S. The expression “trash the guys at Sanitation wouldn’t pick up” should be considered a reflection of the show’s value as television entertainment, not the characters’ sexual attractiveness. I have a Y chromosome and a pulse, you know.