Growing up in Brooklyn Bensonhurst section in the 70s was nice. The best thing to do then was to go into Manhattan where everything was going on. I know Brooklyn has been reborn AKa chic! What is so special to do there now? will be visiting N.Y. for a few days the end of the month.
Thanks

Besides the things that it always had - like the Brooklyn Museum and the Botanical Garden and Coney Island and the aquarium - there are a plethora of trendy new neighborhoods (since Manhattan is no longer affordable except perhaps Washington Heights) with shopping, restaurants, galleries, clubs - representing a hos of different ethnicities - as well as the traditional upscale Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights.

Sorry - cat on keyboard.

Start with DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) and expand from there.

OK granted when you growing up in Bensonhurst they did not have stupid names like DUMBO and Ditmas Park, you can blame real estate people. The view is still extraordinary from the promenade, the houses in the Heights are beautiful, and there are a number of terrific restaurant. There is a world class arena on Flatbush and Junior's is selling the property, so even though the food stinks besides the cheese cake, be sure to get a slice.

And BAM

Very ernest, lots of locally made artisanal food, a bit too much for many, losing its allure faster than the media can record. Way too many strollers in the bourgeois neighborhoods.

I know Brooklyn has been reborn AKa chic! What is so special to do there now?

Eat and shop. That is the appeal of Brooklyn right now.

Manhattan is silly expensive and is strictly the domain of yuppies. Any semblance of creativity has long been priced out. If you want cutting edge, with a chance of a dud, go to Brooklyn. If you want refined, probably good, definitely unoriginal, stick with Manhattan.

Manhattan is silly expensive and is strictly the domain of yuppies

Pure nonsense, and whatever a yuppie may be. There are still a number of neighborhoods where "real people" live. While it has gotten more expensive, there are immigrants, kids with their first apartments, people who have lived there for years, and people still trying to make it in the big City. I guess they are invisible to the sometime visitor.

There are still a number of neighborhoods where "real people" live.

Not really.

I guess they are invisible to the sometime visitor.

My wife is from New York. When I visit, it is with people that live there. But nice try.

Manhattan is too expensive for any sort of creative community to take hold. Brooklyn is where it is at.

Just spit-ballin' - you are either a New Yorker that hasn't lived in Manhattan in 20 years or you live there and have a household income over $150k per year? If neither of the above, then you have a long-standing, rent-controlled apartment. I'm genuinely curious how far from the mark I am.

Thanks for all your help. I always enjoyed Coney Island, going to Nathans for a dog and fryes. Dumbo sounds like some place fun to go.

I was born in Brooklyn and have lived in NYC all my life including now in Manhattan. I live in the East Village where there are many Latinos, the remnants of a Eastern European community, many wanna artists, writers, actors, and musicians and established people in the arts. And while there are transients, there is a grand sense of neighborhood. In fact there is an organized movement in the area not to shop at the recently opened 7-11's but shop at Mom and Pop shops. There is also a movement to limit the number of bars so it does not become Bourbon Street. Fifteen years the neighborhood was filled with Israelis seeking a respite from home, now it is filled with young Japanese women looking for freedom they do not have at home.

And while we do have a rent stablized apartment, we have only had it 13 years and the rent is not that cheap. Unfortunately for you, we know of many who do not make over $150K, are not trust fund babies, do not have a rent controlled apartment, or any other qualification you wish to impose but live in Manhattan.

Anyone who is creative will tell you it is not where you live, but what you do or think. It is cynical to think otherwise. Many of friends and relatives are in the arts, and the struggle for recognition is universal and eternal, not Manhattan. If ever want to see how wrong you are about money and creativity, come to the annual East Village Howl.

Many areas of Brooklyn have become very, very expensive and Brooklyn was where it's at 10 years ago, now Astoria is where it's at.

Sorry, we live here, not just visit and walk and use the city every day.

Here is some expense factors about living in Manhattan that most do not realize:

You do not need a car. How much is either the loan or the cost of the car, gas, insurance, repairs, and registration, is what $5,000 a year?

When you rent you do not pay ever raising property and school taxes.

You do not pay the very high heating costs. In the metro area is oil is what, over $3.50 a gallon, how many gallons do you use in a year?

I would venture a guess between a car, property/school taxes, and heating costs, a homeowner spends more than we do on rent and we are not even discussing mortgage and upkeep on a home.

When you live in Manhattan, you know where and how to shop rather economically.

Public transportation is cheap and is 24/7 and has become fairly efficient.

There is a great deal of a quality entertainment that is either free or rather inexpensive. 67% of people who go to Broadway shows are visitors and they get a skewed view of costs. One of our favorite places is Classic Stage Company where we see revivals with brand name actors from for far less than $100 a ticket. There are scores of jazz and rock clubs where it is just the cost of a drink, free poetry and prose reading, hundreds of art galleries.

The same is true for restaurants. We specialize in good places that are cheap but they are not the usual tourist areas.

Neighborhoods that are affordable and are neighborhoods-East Village, Lower East Side, Chinatown, some of Murray Hill, Clinton, Inwood, Harlem, Washington Heights.

It is not just a matter of rent, it is other expenses, and quality of life that is invisible to the some time visitor.

TG:

Sorry but I do not think that neighborhood determines whether or not one is a "real person."

Or a creative person.

Plenty of what you might call "yuppies" live in Brooklyn. But not sure what that term means these days...is it solely based on income?

Or maybe the "yuppie" "multi-millionaires" and their ilk are now heading to Queens!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/ny...=nyregion&_r=0

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Of course you do. It's rolled into your rent. Good gosh.

Yuppies is an '80s term. Can't really describe the millenials in Manhattan as yuppies because the underlying concept of that group does not apply anymore.

To the OP:

Because.

<When you rent you do not pay ever raising property and school taxes.>>

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Of course you do. It's rolled into your rent. Good gosh.

A tenant pays a fraction of the amount and usually does not have a direct correlation to the full tax. Additionally, there are no school taxes in NYC and the residential property taxes are proportionally much lower than than suburban property taxes.

Last montth in Bruges we were sitting next to an American couple in a bar. The where-are-you-from question came up. They answered "Brooklyn". I guess they wanted to be thought hip, whatever. Now, if I still lived in NY, I would have answered simply New York. I then asked, "Ah, nut where are you from BEFORE Brooklyn?". Answer was. NJ and upstate NY. Oh well. BTW, I am from Westchester and would never consider living in B'lyn.

I will be in Brugge in two weeks. I will look for that couple. I read there is a Brooklyn craze in Belgium.

http://retaildesignblog.net/2012/07/...rugge-belgium/

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A fraction of what amount? The owner's full amount for the building in which the apartment is? Of course. And if you're in a rent stabilized or rent controlled apartment there are plenty of rent-seeker advantages that the tenant gets.

Of course, that same tenant in NYC pays a NYC income tax that the suburbanite does not.