brooklyn
 

Here's a short trip report on a short trip to Brooklyn.

DW and I drove up to Brooklyn last weekend with two friends to visit their daughter who lives in Bushwick. We stayed at a vrbo apartment on Cifford Street in Greenpoint. We watched the daughter's band perform at a bar in Williamsburg Friday night. They were very loud.

Saturday we took the subway in to Times Square where we sat at the little red tables and watched people and signs and stuff. We bought cheap scarves, a butterfly with iridescent blue wings in a glass frame, and had very good gyro sandwiches from street vendors. We saw Next to Normal. Great show about being bananas. We went back to Brooklyn and had dinner at a Polish Buffet on Manhattan Street. It was clean and well lighted. Polish news videos were displayed on the big screen tv. Car wrecks and politicians in black suits.

Sunday we packed up to leave, visited the New Museum in the Bowery, and had lunch at Katz's Deli. The New Museum is new (!) and had a cool show on the internet and art. Katz's Deli is an amazing big busy place with great reuben and pastrami sandwiches, and probably lots of other good stuff. They give you tickets. We were very careful with our tickets. New York City is an interesting place. It seems to be filled with people living life on the edge.

We got a flat tire on the NJ Turnpike just outside the Lincoln Tunnel. Called AAA, who called the NJ Turnpike, who sent a truck to us, changed the tire, and got us back on the road in about 20 minutes. Sometimes it's good to get off the edge.

Greenpoint is changing. It has long been a Polish enclave but now the hipsters are now starting to move in.

The same for Bushwick. It was once infested by crack addicts but it is on the "L" subway line and when Williamsburg became expensive, the kids just kept on moving further along on that subway line.

If you go to Brooklyn again and I believe you live in Maryland, do not go through Manhattan. Get to the Belt Parkway, take the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island and then take the SI Expressway to the Goethels Bridge and then to NJ Turnpike. It costs a few bucks more but will save at least an hour of driving.

Adu, you're right only the trend is a little farther along the curve already: hipsters are entrenched in Greenpoint and artists have been in Bushwick (part of which the realtors try to call "East Williamsburg" LOL) for a number of years... ;)

Totally agree about your driving directions: for points south of the city, it's ridiculous to go through Manhattan! However, I'd recommend the Outerbridge Crossing instead of the Goethels. To do the trip in reverse (coming to the city), take NJ Turnpike to Exit 10/Outerbridge Crossing (toll bridge), then follow signs through Staten Island for the Verrazzano Bridge, which does not have a toll in this direction. (Toll in the reverse direction is double the typical toll to make up for it.)

santamonica, I clicked on your TR expecting the "usual" walk over the Brooklyn Bridge etc. I'm so happy you got to see a part of Brooklyn that even most NYers don't! Your view that "it seems to be filled with people living life on the edge" is also a breath of fresh air: so much of that aspect of NY has disappeared, it's great that it's still alive and well in some quarters. (By contrast, your time in the pedestrian area of Times Square is not what locals do; working in the area, it's just something to avoid!)

Thanks for the driving directions. I'll share them with my friends who drive up more than we do. Coming out of the city sunday after visiting the New Museum wasn't easy. We couldn't get through traffic to the Holland Tunnel and the Lincoln Tunnel was slow. Not to mention the flat tire.

When they're backed up, the tunnels are the worst! I was on my bike in Chinatown on Sunday and the Canal Street traffic was as bad as always. :(

FWIW, from the New Museum, you could have gone right down Bowery a few blocks to the Manhattan Bridge, then onto the BQE to the Verrazzano Bridge etc. Though on a bad day, the BQE isn't much better than Canal Street LOL.