Not For Tourists Guide to New York City 2017 by Not for Tourists

Author:Not for Tourists
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Not For Tourists
Published: 2016-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Map 30 • Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO/Downtown

Neighborhood Overview

Map 30

Three ‘nabes for the price of one! Or is that three ‘nabes for the price of ten? Yes, Brooklyn Heights really is that expensive, but there’s a reason: it’s one of the most sublimely beautiful neighborhoods in all of New York, with jaw-dropping city views along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, two friendly retail strips on Montague and Henry Streets, views of the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, and perhaps the city’s best stock of brownstones and clapboard homes, especially around the “fruit street” area of Orange, Cranberry, and Pineapple, but even heading all the way south along Henry and Hicks Streets until the neighborhood ends at busy Atlantic Avenue.

By the time one hits Court Street heading east from Brooklyn Heights, however, you can chuck the sublime right out the window. The borough’s central nervous system, Downtown Brooklyn, features several courthouses (you’ll learn your way around when Kings County jury duty calls), Brooklyn Borough Hall, Metrotech Center (encompassing the New York City College of Technology, a large Marriott hotel, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, and a convenient TKTS Booth), Brooklyn Law School, the Fulton Street Mall, jam-packed daily with lunchtime shoppers, and finally, a warren of subways that can take you to any other point in New York City. Speaking of which, don’t miss the New York Transit Museum, a fascinating look at how our underground web of trains came to be—and not just for aficionados.

DUMBO (“Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass,” the acronym appropriated from Walt Disney since the late 1970s), the third neighborhood in this trilogy, has followed the warehouse-turned-artist-studio-turned-expensive-condo route. Like Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO features killer views of downtown Manhattan, just closer to the waterfront. Retail in DUMBO, will be forever limited, and many shops close early (by New York standards). As DUMBO truly only has one subway stop (the York Street F), it can get a little desolate, especially late at night. And while this all sounds like a quiet, idyllic little neighborhood, there’s only one problem: the constant rumble of the B, D, N, and Q trains overhead on the Manhattan Bridge. Thank goodness for double-pane windows.

For true peace and quiet, you’d have to head east about five blocks from DUMBO to check out one of our favorite micro-neighborhoods, Vinegar Hill. Literally only three blocks wide and two blocks long, Vinegar Hill is bordered by a power plant to the north, the Navy Yard to the east, the Farragut Houses to the south, and DUMBO to the west. Inside its cobblestoned streets are a vestige of 19th-century Navy housing and an ex-retail strip along Hudson Street.

And then there’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, stretching 1.3 miles along the East River waterfront from Atlantic Avenue to the south all the way past Manhattan Bridge to the north. Comprising six repurposed shipping piers, the former Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, two Civil War-era historic buildings, and various city-owned open spaces along the waterfront, the 85-acre site combines active and passive recreation with the stunning backdrop of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, Lower Manhattan, and the New York Harbor beyond.

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