David Black, who represents writers such as Mitch Albom and Jimmy Breslin, made the move to Borough Hall over the summer. It wasn't an easy decision.

“Would that be a problem?” Mr. Black said, pointing to the river from his 27th-floor office window, which boasts sweeping views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. “Is water a barrier to clients? Is it a barrier to the business? That was really the question.”

It didn't used to be this way, another bullet-biting Brooklyn-based lit agent said. “When I first started out in this business, you had to be a Manhattan agent,” Howard Morhaim told The Times. He now keeps an office in Brooklyn Heights. 

Then again, The Times concedes, perhaps this uproar is a bit overcooked: some of the writers these agents represent — many, actually — live outside of New York entirely. It is easy to forget that people do that.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234