When you take the ride to cross the bridge, you immediately realize that you are in a quite similar, yet different place in New York City. Houses, people, and signs are different and everyone will tell you so. I will not try to explain what a true Brooklyn Boy is, but rather try to explain what I felt when I wander around is this great place near by Manhattan.
The first thing you notice is the sky. When walking in Brooklyn you can look up and reach the blue. Buildings are smaller than in the island next door and it feel a more a livable city. Brooklyn (named after the Dutch town Breukelen) is one of the five boroughs of New York City (The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island).
An independent city until its consolidation into New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous and diverse borough, with nearly 2.5 million residents. Taking the time to understand the Brooklyn borough helps you to understand American history and its populous tensions that existed in the middle of the last century, when black descendent where fighting for a place under the sun and moved out the Jewish community from the hill of Brooklyn.
You are not from NYC, you are coming from Brooklyn and you are proud of your (multi)color. When you ask a BBB (Baseball Brooklyn Boy) he will not support the Yankees, no his team is in the minor league and he is still happy about it. Brooklyn's most famous team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, (nicknamed "The Bums") played at Ebbets Field and was named for "trolley dodgers," a reference to the many streetcar lines that once criss-crossed the borough.
The blue color (as oppose of the white color from Manhattan) spirit reflect the hard and difficult life that immigrants from each and every country in the world have before joining the big league in Big Apple. The industrial place is now reinvested in loft and other renting place for a better utilization of buildings and other shopping centers.
At the end of the bloc, in a strange place, squeezed between the future IKEA and the concrete garden, the Red Hook food festival resonate for years now. The diversity of the population is characterized by this ongoing fair festival. You can leak your finger after a Guatemalan popusas, or a Nicaraguan tacos or samosas from another Latin place. Nothing will distract the 22 soccer players on the pitch, not even the Minor baseball game next door.
Though a part of New York City, Brooklyn maintains a character of its own. Brooklyn is characterized by cultural diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods, and a unique architectural heritage. The Brown Stone houses are now part of the patrimony of the Brooklyn borough.
Take a long walk on The Promenade at the end of the day. The spectacular view you can enjoy is certainly the one that most of the people from the planet imagine when they picture New York City. Big Apple is the view from Brooklyn. It is almost like the destiny of one is linked to the other. The best view from NYC is from the promenade. Maybe the best way to enjoy NYC is from Brooklyn borough. For more enjoyable sow case, stop by the bridges and the boroughs in Brooklyn.
This place might be the last authentic place in New York City.