The Downtown Brooklyn Thread

This probably is obvious, but I would definitely recommend walking the brooklyn bridge, and from there either walk around brooklyn heights and walk the promenade or walk to the new brooklyn bridge park and DUMBO, or preferably both. They're in opposite directions of course, but maybe you could, e.g. come off the bridge onto washington st. (which is where the stairs lead you), walk down into dumbo, walk around dumbo, then head over to old fulton st. (where the ferry landing, grimaldis, the river cafe, the ice cream place are), then head into the park, then up to the promenade (this is mildly tricky -- if you stay on the path from the park you'll be UNDER the promenade -- you need to go over one block and walk up Columbia), and then when you get to the end at remsen st, just zigzag around the brooklyn heights side streets for some incredible old new york homes, some with plaques (I think there's one on Montague for where Auden lived). The Brooklyn Historic Society is on Clinton St. but I've never been -- I imagine they must have some kind of brochures or something about the neighborhood and other neighborhoods.

You may already be doing DUMBO because it seems to be a big tour bus hub.

From Brooklyn Heights if you really want you could hit up a middle eastern place on Atlantic (Damascus Bakery for takeout spinach pies and pastries, or maybe Waterfalls for a meal), or you could take Court St. into Carroll Gardens for what old Italian stuff is left or Smith for the hipper nu-Carroll Gardens stuff (boutiques and market table restaurants and such). I'd consider all that more optional than the first part though.

BTW I realized today that the beginning of the old Sierra Gold Rush animated adventure game is in Brooklyn Heights, and that there's even an approximation of the promenade. Haven't checked to see if the layout matches up.

damascus for the junk food. it's awesome (everything is labeled as "delicious")

i think clinton hill is a sort of underrated area for walking around.

yeah, clinton hill is a great walk if you like old houses. tons of different styles, everything is beautiful, barely anything new.

this house is so rad

http://grab.by/9tBa

carroll gardens -> the gowanus culver viaduct area -> prospect park is probably my favorite brooklyn walk

but I really like viaducts

who doesn't

why a duck?

not taking an official bus tour, just expect to take some city buses to get around, in addition to walking.

Some good buses for you: B61 -- Downtown Brooklyn to Windsor Terrace via Red Hook and Gowanus and B62 -- Queens Plaza to Greenpoint thru Williamsburg to Downtown Brooklyn (this bus runs all the time so if you are staying in Greenpoint you can hop on and off). Also, go to Peter Pan Donuts: http://www.yelp.com/biz/peter-pan-bakery-brooklyn The B62 goes right by it.

I'm kind of obsessed with this (closed) bar: http://evgrieve.com/2010/11/at-navy-yard-cocktail-lounge-aka-rip.html that I often bike by.

Let us know how it goes am.

Another fun thing you can do: walk over the Pulaski Bridge from Greenpoint to Long Island City (beware of the bicyclists). Nice views from Newtown Creek of the Manhattan skyline. In LIC, you could walk to PS1 and 5 Pointz and/or walk to Vernon Boulevard (lots of shops, restaurants, etc,) and Gantry Pier (East River views; Pepsi-Cola sign). If you're in LIC, the Sculpture Center is kind of a cool place as well: http://www.sculpture-center.org/home.htm

gantry is super great

Also: in Greepoint, Franklin Street has a record store, book store, coffee shops, and lots of girly boutiques (if you're into that sort of thing). Manhattan Avenue has some Polish restaurants like Lomzynianka. Another nice part of Greenpoint you could walk to is the area by McGolrick Park. And in Williamsburg there is a newish park at Kent and 8th St along the East River. And none of this has anything to do with "Downtown Brooklyn." Have fun!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/nyregion/17yards.html?

yr new skyline

oh yeah were gonna get frank gehry its gonna be a new era in bk soaring etc vision lol, naw actually lets just stack up some shipping containers nbd

middle-class projects

Personally I get excited about both pre-fab and specifically shipping container housing. Too down on the entire stupid development to feel any positivity about THIS, though.

ha yeah i feel the same way

i wouldn't want to live in a shipping container!

i kind of want to live in a shipping container!

or rather a series of shipping containers

or like a shipping container attached to a building

http://zerocabin.com/images/saltlake.jpg

its sort of my dream to purchase a garage and transform it into a house via stacking shipping containers on top of it

Meh, I kind of don't like Frank Gehry anymore anyway -- not into that wavery new Manhattan apartment tower he did, and generally kind of tired of the approach of planting a giant overly creative-looking identity building in the middle of nothing to put an area "on the map"

i love the approach of planting a giant overly creative-looking identity building anywhere really, it amuses me w/a childlike sense of whimsy, and anyway its like 1mx better than yr standard generic corporate architecture - too bad it has to be a symptom of late boom thinking - i mean people should start building these things in early boom years then wed have more crazy buildings around

Maybe I've been living in kinda crappy New York apartments for too long but an entire shipping container or two, all finished inside and all to myself? That's like a dream come true.

plus then you can ship yrself anywhere u want

I don't necessarily hate the boxy shipping container aesthetic but this prob won't even look like that it'll just look cheap and crappy. those super modern shipping container buildings are made by artsy Europeans, this is made by a guy trying to make the cheapest building he can possibly make.

yep

cr?m have you ever been to New Haven, CT?

listen man

I mean talk abt just plopping down giant overly creative-looking buildings everywhere!

new haven, connecticut altogether isnt any place to be learning life lessons

make u want to just give up right

listen man i'm just talkin baout architecture

oh we talkin abt ARCHITECTURE now? ARCHITECTURE? ARCHITECTURE?

talking about architecture is like dancing to music, I heard

true story: dell and I went to go seem Tim Sweeney the other day and we were dancing and it was awesome and then he started playing "I Feel Love" and I was all OH SHIT I LOVE THIS SONG and dell was just like "what are you talking abt? we have been sitting in my apt talking abt brutalism for 1.5h" and then I went to his futon and sobbed *TRUTH BOMB*

anyway instead of cool modern architecture I think brooklyn should just build more brownstone buildings, people like brownstone buildings, maybe build a brownstone empire state building and a brownstone chrysler building

luv it^

brownstone hiphop club

I'm staying in Downtown Brooklyn in early June, for a week, this thread has been a goldmine, so thx. Is it a good base for general NYC tourism, would people say?

ya downtown brooklyn is one of nyc's best transit hubs, you'll be gold

great, thanks!

http://gothamist.com/2011/03/27/marty_markowitzs_three_drivers_are.php

it's like if robert moses' only responsibility was to be a bitter dick in public but he still got the perks

lol whatre even u talking abt marty markowitzs only responsibility is to go to every place in brooklyn where more than five people are gathered shake their hands and give a three minute speech abt how 'the city of brooklyn' is much way than stupid manhattan

right but you don't need 3 personal drivers for that maybe one or maybe zero