The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds
Tropicana, Atlantic City

Update: Snubbed Miss New York tells us she’s not bitter

By Gersh Kuntzman
The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
Sham! Miss New York, the former Miss Brooklyn Leigh-Taylor Smith, was in the top five semi-finalists on Saturday, but was ultimately defeated by Miss Indiana, Katie Stam (below), who, arguably, is decent looking. On Tuesday, Smith told The Brooklyn Paper that she's not bitter. At all.
Enlarge this image

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

There’s only one person who disputes that the Miss America Organization made an egregious error when it snubbed Miss Brooklyn Leigh-Taylor Smith: Leigh-Taylor Smith.

Showing the grace and style that she has shown throughout the grueling death march that is our nation’s premiere beauty pageant, Smith told The Brooklyn Paper on Tuesday that she did not feel snubbed, betrayed, abused, let down or otherwise dismissed by the panel of judges that made Miss Indiana, Katie Stam, this year’s Miss America.

“No, the fix was not in,” Smith told me by phone when this columnist suggested that the fix was, um, in. “I was right up there with the others, in the final five, because it was a fair process.”

Readers of this column have long known that I have little respect for the Miss America Organization.

It’s now been 25 years since Vanessa Williams became the last Miss New York to win it all. Since then, it’s been an endless procession of airy blondes with middle-aged-lady hairstyles, a talent for baton-twirling and vaguely Southern accents who have hijacked the notion of American beauty.

This was our year! We had Leigh-Taylor Smith. She’s got talent! She’s got brains! She prays at the Brooklyn Tabernacle in Downtown. And no one pulls off a bikini like she does (I’m speaking figuratively, alas)!

Rico Furniture

But, alas, life isn’t fair.

“Yes, it is fair,” Smith told me. “I performed as well as I could. I left it all up there on the stage. For me, it was just very exciting to get into the final round.”

Even more exciting is the $18,000 in scholarship money that she gets to spend pursuing her Masters degree in design. She’s looking at Parsons or Fashion Institute of Technology, both in Gaphattan.

For now, she’s Miss New York until June.

Gersh Kuntzman is the Editor of The Brooklyn Paper. E-mail Gersh at gkuntzman@cnglocal.com

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

←Atlantic Yards: City budget whiz says Bruce’s Yards deal needs retooling
→Coney Island: Aquarium under water in Paterson budget

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

Water Street Restaurant
Brooklyn Paper Parent
Picada y Vino

Links