Neighbor Philip Mahin Speaks About The Paris Attacks And His Parisian Roots

For many of us, the frightening events in Paris are hard to process. With the rapid flood of social media, the information can cause overload, exhaustion, and stress.

Over the last few days, we had an opportunity to learn about Philip Mahin — a neighbor who has strong connections to both Paris and our neighborhood.

After being born at the American Hospital in Paris to his French mother and American father, Philip moved around quite a bit, ranging from Hawaii to Italy and points between, thanks to the fact that his father and stepfather were career Army officers, both now buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Philip has continued to visit France all his life, including to see his French grandmother who lived to be 104 years old. 20 years ago, Philip moved to New York City when he was recruited to take a job with a division of Time Life producing patient education videos on 30 of the most frequently diagnosed medical conditions.

After looking at apartments in Manhattan and not liking any of them, he saw an ad for an apartment in Park Slope, took the F train to 15th Street, and has gratefully lived in Park Slope ever since.

A year after moving to Park Slope, Philip was introduced on a blind date to a fellow Park Slope resident and Brooklyn native, Jonathan Gross, and they are soon to celebrate 19 years together, the last four of which married following the arrival of civil marriage equality in New York.

Philip is an avid walker — as anyone who has walked with him can attest — and still hasn’t tired of walking our neighborhood and points beyond.

We hope that Philip’s thoughts can personalize the Paris attacks as we try to process these events.

PSS: Thanks for speaking with us, Philip. Would you tell us a bit about your close relationship to Paris?

Philip Mahin: Thank you for your interest in covering this event. My relationship to Paris is literally lifelong, dating to the first breath I took when I was born at the American Hospital in Paris to my French mother and my American father. I have been back there many times since, though never as many as I would like! One period that comes back to me especially now is when I lived and worked in Paris while on a summer exchange program in college. I would stop at the same cafe on my way to work every morning, and it was only a few mornings before the waiter knew my order of one croissant, one pain au chocolat, and a cafe au lait. That cafe was just like any in Paris, including the ones that were attacked.

I know this may be difficult to discuss. Could you tell us how you first learned about the attacks last Friday?

Yes. I was leaving work on Friday and got a breaking news flash on my phone from the New York Times that attacks were underway in Paris. I drove home listening to the coverage on the radio and tearing up at what I was hearing.

Do you still have relatives in Paris or elsewhere in France? We hope that everyone is safe.

Yes I do, most notably my godson who is 21-years-old and living in Paris and was a few blocks away from one of the attacks, as was his older brother who also lives in Paris. Thankfully they are physically ok, but of course I can’t begin to imagine what they’ve been going through along with everyone else there.

New York City has been your home for sometime. There have been U.S. tragedies here that you’ve lived through. Have you had a chance to process the attack in Paris in relationship to events that have happened here?

The short answer is that I have not yet fully processed what has happened in Paris. As someone who took the Q train from Park Slope across the Manhattan Bridge on the morning of 9/11 and then walked back after the towers fell, I know that 14 years later I still live with the memory of that loss and with the knowledge that New York City will likely remain a target for attacks for the foreseeable future. And as Paris has been one of the great cities of Western society since long before New York City , sadly it seems that it will remain a target as well. And yet as with New York City, I also believe that most residents of Paris will end up deciding to continue living their lives there rather than leaving from fear.

Does the Park Slope neighborhood remind you of neighborhoods in Paris?

While the brownstones of Park Slope certainly differ in style from the apartment houses of Paris, one thing that I have always appreciated about both is the relatively low height of the buildings that still lets in light and air and sky. And both are known for being pleasurably walkable. And while most of our sidewalk restaurant seating may not compare in style with Paris’, we do have some restaurants with nice backyard gardens that you won’t find in Paris!