When I first moved to New York—that is, to Manhattan—in my early twenties, I had only the vaguest conception of Brooklyn. There was Welcome Back, Kotter, I guess. Alvy Singer, growing up under the Cyclone in Annie Hall. Moonstruck and The Warriors. Tony Manero—Travolta again—strutting through Bay Ridge in Saturday Night Fever. Egg creams, Ralph Kramden. And the Dodgers, the Dodgers, always with the Dodgers.
Beyond that, not much. I knew friends who’d grown up there, but hardly anyone who’d stayed. Brooklyn was a place people left (Woody Allen, Mr. Kotter, the Dodgers). Manhattan was where people hoped to arrive. In the received wisdom of NYC, Brooklyn was the Old Country, and the East River a vast, roiling Atlantic.
It’s said that one in seven Americans can trace roots back through Brooklyn. I can’t, but I live here now. I came seven years ago, for the quiet, a bigger apartment, and the novelty of open sky. I also came with the resignation of someone forced into the motel down the highway when every hotel in town is sold out. It wasn’t an entirely happy move. Those early days in Carroll Gardens felt like exile... and Manhattan was right over there, taunting me, taunting all 2.5 million of us.
I spent a lot of time plotting how to get back. Manhattan... it takes a while to get over a girl like that. I compared every new experience to what it was like "in the city." If Manhattan was the Sun, Carroll Gardens seemed a far-flung, semi-inhabitable planet. Taxi drivers agreed. Utter the B-word, and they’d practically hiss. "Hey, I’m not happy about it, either," I’d snap.
You can guess where this is going. At some point during that first spring, something clicked—and I began falling for Brooklyn. Maybe it was the sudden blooming of a rosebush beside my stoop one morning. It might have been the amazing banh mi served at a Vietnamese café in Sunset Park. But I’d wager it was the old Polish greengrocer who, when I asked about fresh mint, plucked me three sprigs from his window box. "Anytime you need, just take," he said. "Is for everybody."
Finally, I was seeing Brooklyn for what it was, not just what it wasn’t. I still went to Manhattan—for work, Knicks games, dental appointments. But weekends I spent east of the river, uncovering the mysteries of Williamsburg, Fort Greene, and Brighton Beach.
It wasn’t all spearmint and roses. If I was slow to embrace Brooklyn, Brooklyn was also slow to embrace me. Every morning I repaired to the corner café for a macchiato. The owner was a gruff Calabrian named Tony. (Everyone in Brooklyn is named Tony, unless he’s Tov or Tung or Tolya or Tariq.) I only knew his name because regulars always walked in shouting "To-NAY!" Backs would be slapped, greetings exchanged.
Me, Tony scarcely acknowledged. Eventually he’d fix me with a look you might give a bug in your salad and say "Whattayavin." No matter that my order was always the same. Each day I hoped against hope for a "Hey, guy! The usual?" But always the same ignominy: Whattayavin.
Finally, manna from heaven. I walked in. Tony tilted his chin. Managed a little smile. Said, "Howyadoin." I blurted out, "Fine, fine, excellent in fact!"—then savored my macchiato as never before.
In Manhattan, you become a New Yorker within four hours of picking up your keys. No matter where you’re from, the city takes you in. Across the river, membership comes harder. Through movies and postcards and songs, Manhattan has always belonged to the world. Brooklyn always belonged to Brooklynites.
Well, surprise. In case you haven’t heard, Brooklyn has become a byword for cool, the epitomic local-boy-makes-good—and suddenly, Brooklyn belongs to everyone.
It’s easy to say when a thing ends, harder to know when it begins. Most locals date the fall of the old Brooklyn to 1957, when you-know-who decamped for Los Angeles. (We can refer to the years since as "A.D.": After Dodgers.) But other pillars were vanishing, too—manufacturing, shipping, the white middle class—and the borough struggled through the second half of the century.
When did the "new" Brooklyn emerge? Was it in the 1990’s, when artists transformed Williamsburg into the city’s creative hub? Was it in 2003, when Zagat named the Grocery—a tiny room in Carroll Gardens—the seventh-best restaurant in NYC? Or a year earlier, when Time Out New York ran a cover headlined "Manhattan: The New Brooklyn"?
Whenever and however it happened, the Borough of Kings is back. (Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.)
It never really went away, of course. Manhattanites always made pilgrimages to Grimaldi’s and Peter Luger, to Coney Island and the Botanic Garden (see "Guide to Brooklyn"). But they came seeking humble, Brooklyn-y things: pizza, steak, roller coasters, trees. They didn’t expect a salad of braised squid and pea shoots, or a stylish cocktail bar, or a killer music scene. Today, they’ll find all these in spades, as well as those curious trees. Now friends from London, San Francisco, and even TriBeCa are eager to discover this "Brooklyn" everyone’s talking about. They want in like Tony Manero wanted out. Brooklyn’s renaissance is far enough along that the novelty angle is finally, blessedly moot, so restaurant critics and fashion editors no longer add "And it’s in Brooklyn!" as a parent might say "And she’s only a toddler!"
I admit the borough’s new cachet comes as some vindication. (Taste it, 212!) And, sure, I love braised squid and fancy cocktails as much as the next yuppie arriviste. Happy they showed up. But I wonder if curious visitors aren’t coming with misplaced expectations. If someone told you Brooklyn is "the next Manhattan," they got it dead wrong. Brooklyn is nothing like Manhattan. Brooklyn looks and feels and is like no place else.
The first thing you need to know about Brooklyn is that it is huge: New York’s most populous borough, home to nearly a third of its citizens. An independent Brooklyn would be the nation’s fourth-largest city. Brooklyn is a vast metropolis blessed and cursed to lie 500 yards from Manhattan.
The second thing you need to know about Brooklyn is that it is small. Big in breadth and attitude, but intimate in the height of its buildings, the modesty of its storefronts, the compactness of its communities. Defined by the stoop, the bodega, the bocce or basketball court, Brooklyn has an enduring neighborhood-ness. Come to my block next month and they’ll be decking the stoops for Christmas; come in June, and the kids next door will be manning a lemonade stand.
Brooklyn has a singular ecology, sustaining a great variety of quirky or exotic things (and people) that have little or no place in Manhattan, nor in many other American cities. Things like bocce courts and lemonade stands and pick-your-own herb planters. Stickball games and ice cream trucks. Taquerias with screened porches, bistros with dogwood-shrouded patios, Russian beer gardens, Georgian supper clubs. The city’s only South African restaurant, its only aquarium, its only carnival-style freak show. Rock concerts staged in an empty swimming pool, rock concerts staged in a Polish community center where old ladies sell stoned kids pierogi. An industrial canal that now attracts intrepid kayakers. And, throughout the borough, an incredible range of architecture, from Park Slope’s Italianate brownstones to the 19th-century carriage houses of Clinton Hill.
With relatively ample space and some creative ways of using it, Brooklyn offers plenty of room for exception. Consider the five following examples, each of which could only exist here.
Case Study #1: The World in 73 Square Miles
I write about travel for a living, so really, there’s no other place for me to live. Close to 100 ethnic groups are represented in Brooklyn, among them 935,000 immigrants. Some years ago, my wife and I got a car—a car! in New York City!—and began exploring Brooklyn as we would Miami or Los Angeles: on wheels. Now we spend weekends traversing what might as well be other hemispheres. You want Saigon? Sunset Park will do. Dakar? Fort Greene. Damascus? Atlantic Avenue. Krakow? Bedford Avenue. Kingston? East Flatbush.
Then there are the French, who have been flocking to Boerum Hill and Fort Greene, lured by cheaper rents and an unrushed, Continental pace. Smith Street is now lined with francophone hangouts such as Robin des Bois, Provence en Boîte, and Bar Tabac. Every July the latter hosts an epic Bastille Day bacchanal, when the surrounding streets are filled with sand for an all-day pétanque tournament. Gratuitous cultural stereotypes? We’ve got them too.
Case Study #2: Di Fara Pizza and Brooklyn Cuisine
Brooklyn is especially renowned for its restaurants. Media darlings like Applewood, the Good Fork, and Al Di Là share a distinct 718 sensibility. All are disarmingly personal, defined by the whims of the chef, who usually owns the place. A DIY aesthetic prevails, from the handwritten menus to the house-cured salumi. Creativity reigns, but pretense is banished.
Di Fara, a 44-year-old pizzeria in workaday Midwood, may not appear to have much in common with the above, but in a way it was a template for all that followed. It’s chef-run (when owner Domenico DeMarco is sick, Di Fara shuts down), homespun (no LCD screens, just an ancient brass cash register), and reliant on, er, local produce (oregano and basil plants spilling over the windowsill). The kitchen is a model of inefficiency: DeMarco, 70, makes every pizza himself. Instead of prepping ingredients in advance, he’ll grate just enough mozzarella and Grana Padana for a single pie, shreds only a few leaves of basil at a time. Making one pizza takes, oh, about seven hours. Watching DeMarco work, you think, This guy would be eaten alive in Manhattan. Which is why no one there makes pizza half as good.
Case Study #3: Brooklyn Social
With its pressed-tin ceiling and faded Deco mirrors, this Carroll Gardens bar is an uncanny simulacrum of an Italian-American men’s club. That’s because for 70-odd years it was one: the Società Riposto, whose tuxedo-clad members gaze out ghostlike from framed photos on the wall. They’ve been supplanted by the neighborhood’s new guard—guys in publishing, dolls in ad sales. Clientele aside, the joint seems unchanged. Dino’s singing "Buona Sera" on the juke. Ceiling fans stir the air while the bartender—that’s Ivan, in his apron and tie—stirs an old-fashioned. Ironic appropriation? Affectionate homage? Whatever it is, Brooklyn Social works. Of course it wouldn’t mean jack if the drinks weren’t so good. Note the planter of fresh rosemary, which will go nicely with your vodka-and-limoncello, and the bottle of Michter’s rye, the proper base for a Manhattan. Except here they call it a Brooklyn.
Case Study #4: The Future Perfect & Williamsburg’s Design Scene
Just one L-train stop from the East Village, Williamsburg has long been siphoning hipsters out of Lower Manhattan, sucking them up through subway tubes into a relative vacuum of unexploited space. That was the original premise, anyway. By now Williamsburg is so coveted that struggling artists are fleeing for Red Hook, Bushwick, or (gasp) Queens. In their stead has come a new monied class, funky enough to dig the edgy vibe while throwing down $750K for a condo.
Still, the myth endures, and some of the reality. Williamsburg remains a creative bastion, and if fewer artists actually keep their studios here, there is an array of galleries and shops dedicated to exhibiting and selling their work. One store, the Future Perfect, has emerged as the de facto HQ for the borough’s thriving furniture and design scene. Nearly all of its stock comes from Brooklyn-based firms. The unifying thread, if one exists, is a sense of humor: take Jason Miller’s ceramic-antler chandeliers and his seemingly "dusty" coffee table, clever riffs on suburban motifs; Elodie Blanchard’s graceful vases composed of rubber bands; or Tobias Wong’s "I F*ck for G*cci" wallpaper.
Case Study #5: The Red Hook Waterfront
There’s a spot on the edge of New York Harbor that encapsulates everything that once defined the city and no longer does. From the mid 19th to the mid 20th century, Red Hook—a one-square-mile promontory jutting off Brooklyn’s western shore—was among the nation’s busiest ports. After the 1950’s, much of its maritime trade and population disappeared. Yet the peculiar light, ambience, and iconography remain. It’s still one of the most atmospheric corners of New York.
Clamber onto the mossy rocks where the city meets the surf and take it all in: the briny air, the squawking of gulls, the tugboats under an epic sky. To the left is the Verrazano Narrows bridge; to the right, the Statue of Liberty. Standing along Red Hook’s piers, you’re suddenly reminded that New York was built here for a reason. How easily one can forget this in the inland parts of the city.
Step back from the water and look around: Here are three antique trolleys rusting on a patch of grass. (Trolleys once ran everywhere in Brooklyn, whose residents were known as trolley dodgers—hence the baseball team.) Here are the Beard Street Warehouses, built in 1869 of sandstone and schist. The storerooms were once piled high with hemp and tobacco, cocoa and coffee—you can still find beans wedged between the floorboards. Today the tenants include a glassblowing studio, a parachute-design firm, and the costume shop for Blue Man Group.
Here are two ship’s masts protruding from the murky channel, marking the grave of Lightship 84, a 135-foot waterborne lighthouse launched in 1907. It was moored here a decade ago and eventually sank under the twin forces of rainwater and neglect. And here is the abandoned Revere Sugar Plant, a jumble of chutes and conveyor belts recalling a Rube Goldberg contraption. Soon it, too, will be gone, replaced by the world’s largest IKEA.
Such is the way of things now, as Red Hook is (re)discovered by pioneering home- and business-owners, plucky tourists, and, especially, developers. Across from the Beard Street Warehouses is the new Fairway supermarket, a 52,000-square-foot epicurean temple, drawing shoppers from as far away as...Manhattan. Ten blocks north is the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, opened last April as the new port of call for Princess, Carnival, and Cunard ships, including the Queen Mary 2. Amid the gritty longshoremen’s haunts that once defined Red Hook are now several acclaimed restaurants, a chic wine bar, live-music clubs, art galleries, and a guitar shop–cum–coffeehouse.
And so with Brooklyn’s newfound trendiness has come the inevitable: a shocking rise in housing costs, a development boom, and battles over how (and how much) the borough should evolve. There’s hardly an acre of Brooklyn that isn’t at stake in one turf war or another. Even here in Red Hook, preservationists are objecting to IKEA’s proposal to pave over a historic ship-repair dock and put up—cue Joni Mitchell—a parking lot.
The fiercest battle, however, centers on Atlantic Yards, a $4.2 billion development that would bring 16 residential and commercial towers and a Frank Gehry–designed basketball arena to the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, already one of the most congested intersections in the city. The 22-acre complex would replace a derelict rail yard—as well as seven residential blocks of not-at-all-derelict Prospect Heights. Most tenants and homeowners in the project’s footprint have already vacated their apartments, but a handful still remain, refusing buyout offers and possibly forcing an eminent domain action.
The pros and cons are both outsized. According to an environmental-impact study, Atlantic Yards would cast a literal shadow over surrounding low-rise neighborhoods, place a significant strain on mass transit, and knot up some 60 intersections in gridlock. It would also supply 2,250 subsidized apartments for low- and middle-income residents (an increasingly threatened population in New York), create thousands of jobs, add up to $1.5 billion in tax revenue, and relocate the New Jersey Nets to a legendarily jilted sports town that’s gone five decades without a big-league team.
Brooklyn desperately needs affordable housing. And an NBA franchise would be a potent symbol and point of pride for still bereft trolley dodgers. Yet Atlantic Yards seems grotesquely proportioned, the proverbial bazooka-on-a-quail-hunt. If approved, it will be the biggest and costliest development in Brooklyn’s history: a Manhattan-scale megaplex in a borough defined by its small neighborhood charms.
Will it happen anyway? Right now it seems inevitable. If so, I’ll certainly be rooting for the Brooklyn Nets—especially when they play the (Manhattan) Knicks. Might even attend a game, if I can actually get to the arena. But in the back of my mind, I’ll be counting the days until summer, when I can sit on my stoop, sipping 25-cent lemonade, watching the kids play stickball.
