NYC & Brooklyn

Overview

Living in Brooklyn (Ditmas Park area) since 2015. The city as a constantly evolving system—neighborhoods shifting, new businesses opening and closing, infrastructure projects reshaping transit and public space.

NYC is dense with information and possibility. You can spend a lifetime here and never fully know it. Every neighborhood has its own character, history, and ongoing transformation. The challenge is balancing exploration (discovering new areas) with depth (understanding familiar areas more deeply).

This interest isn't about being a tour guide or having the definitive take on NYC. It's about sustained attention to place—noticing patterns, tracking changes, understanding systems, and building a mental model of how the city works.

Neighborhood Exploration

Walking as a way of understanding place. Each Brooklyn neighborhood has its own character: industrial-to-gentrified Williamsburg, residential Park Slope, multicultural Sunset Park, still-weird Bushwick, historic Brooklyn Heights.

Current explorations: Discovering the less-touristy parts—Bensonhurst's Chinatown, the industrial waterfront areas, the ethnic enclaves (Little Odessa, Little Yemen, Little Caribbean). Also tracking how neighborhoods change: rent increases, new developments, displacement patterns, longtime businesses closing.

Brooklyn Neighborhoods (Explored)

Roughly in order of familiarity:

• Ditmas Park / Kensington: Where I live. Victorian homes, tree-lined streets, quiet residential character. Mix of longtime residents and newer arrivals. Cortelyou Road for local businesses.
• Williamsburg: Industrial past, hipster present, luxury condo future. Great food, annoying crowds, excellent transit.
• Greenpoint: Polish enclave meets spillover Williamsburg. Best pierogi, industrial waterfront, McGolrick Park.
• Bushwick: Artist community, warehouse spaces, excellent street art, gentrifying rapidly.
• Bedford-Stuyvesant: Historic brownstones, Restoration Plaza, gentrification tensions visible.
• Crown Heights: Caribbean culture, Jewish community, Prospect Park proximity, interesting mix.
• Prospect Heights: Museum row, Barclays Center, tree-lined streets, expensive.
• Park Slope: Wealthy families, food co-op, Prospect Park, very stroller-dense.
• Gowanus: Industrial waterfront, Superfund site, artists, new development encroaching.
• Red Hook: Isolated (no subway), maritime history, IKEA, excellent views, resilient community post-Sandy.
• Carroll Gardens / Cobble Hill: Italian-American roots, brownstones, Smith Street restaurants.
• Brooklyn Heights: Historic, wealthy, Promenade views, feels separate from rest of Brooklyn.
• Downtown Brooklyn: Commercial center, BAM, transit hub, lacks character but functionally important.
• Fort Greene: Historic, cultural institutions, BAM, Fort Greene Park, strong community identity.
• Clinton Hill: Pratt Institute, brownstones, quiet residential, underrated.
• Sunset Park: Massive Chinatown, Latin American communities, Industry City, incredible food, underexplored by most.
• Bay Ridge: Greek, Arab, and Chinese communities, residential, feels suburban.
• Bensonhurst: Second Chinatown, Italian-American roots, 86th Street, far but worth it for food.
• Coney Island: Beach, boardwalk, amusement history, resilience, summer destination.
• Brighton Beach: Little Odessa, Russian-speaking community, beach, distinctive character.

Green Spaces & Cemeteries

• Prospect Park: Brooklyn's flagship park. 526 acres designed by Olmsted and Vaux (same team as Central Park). Long Meadow, the Lake, Brooklyn Botanic Garden adjacent. Better than Central Park (less crowded, more natural).
• Green-Wood Cemetery: 478-acre National Historic Landmark. Victorian garden cemetery established 1838. Rolling hills, Gothic Revival architecture, notable burials (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed). More than a cemetery—it's a sculpture park, arboretum, and historical archive. Great for contemplative walks and urban nature observation.

Observation Methods

• Walking without a specific destination (derive/psychogeography)
• Following interesting streets to see where they lead
• Photographing storefronts, signage, architectural details
• Visiting different neighborhoods during different times (weekday vs weekend, day vs night)
• Eating at non-trendy restaurants (often where you find authentic food)
• Talking to longtime residents and business owners
• Reading local history and comparing to present

Food & Coffee

Brooklyn's food scene is simultaneously world-class and aggressively overhyped. The best finds are usually the unassuming places—family-run restaurants, corner bodegas with surprisingly good sandwiches, bakeries that have been there for decades.

Current Favorites

• Hometown Bar-B-Que (Red Hook): Texas-style BBQ in Brooklyn. Lines are long but worth it. The brisket is perfect.
• Lucali (Carroll Gardens): Legendary pizza. Cash only, BYOB, no reservations. Go early or wait hours.
• Peter Pan Donut (Greenpoint): Classic NYC donut shop. Been there since 1953. Simple, cheap, perfect.
• L&B Spumoni Gardens (Bensonhurst): Square slice pizza. Worth the subway ride.
• Bunna Cafe (Bushwick): Ethiopian vegan. Sounds niche but incredibly good.
• Fette Sau (Williamsburg): Meat by the pound. Beer hall atmosphere. Solid BBQ without the Hometown wait.
• Llama Inn (Williamsburg): Peruvian, upscale but not pretentious, great cocktails.
• Win Son (Williamsburg): Taiwanese-American, excellent breakfast, good coffee.

Coffee Culture

Brooklyn coffee culture is... a lot. Third-wave shops everywhere, pour-over obsession, $6 lattes, beans roasted in-house. Some of it is pretentious, but much of it is genuinely good.

Current spots:

• Devoción (Williamsburg): Colombian beans, impressive roasting setup visible inside.
• Sey Coffee (Bushwick): Serious about coffee, minimal aesthetic, excellent espresso.
• Caffè Vita (Various): Seattle-based, consistent quality, good work environment.
• Local bodega coffee: Still the best value. $1.50, served with no judgment, essential NYC experience.

Tracking Gentrification Through Food

Watch what happens to neighborhoods through restaurant changes:

• Bodega → artisanal coffee shop → bank branch (late-stage gentrification)
• Family restaurant → gastropub → chain restaurant
• Longtime business closes → sits vacant → luxury condo retail
• "Authentic" ethnic restaurant adds English menu, raises prices, loses soul

Not all change is bad, but the pattern is usually: interesting & affordable → trendy & expensive → corporate & soulless.

Culture & Events

Museums, galleries, performances, street festivals. MoMA PS1, Brooklyn Museum, Metrograph for film. Also free/cheap events: Celebrate Brooklyn concerts, outdoor movies, neighborhood festivals, Open Studios events where artists open their workspaces.

Regular Visits

• Brooklyn Museum: Underrated compared to Manhattan museums. Egyptian collection, contemporary art, First Saturdays (free evening admission).
• Brooklyn Botanic Garden: Member since 2023. 52 acres of gardens, cherry blossom season (late April) is spectacular but crowded. Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, Shakespeare Garden, Native Flora Garden. Worth visiting off-season when it's quiet.
• MoMA PS1 (Queens): Contemporary art, experimental installations, Warm Up summer parties.
• Metrograph (Manhattan): Repertory cinema, film preservation, excellent programming.
• BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music): Theater, dance, music, film. Harvey Theater is beautiful.
• Nitehawk Cinema (Williamsburg): Dinner and a movie done right. Good programming, decent food.

Free/Cheap Events

• Celebrate Brooklyn (summer): Free concerts at Prospect Park Bandshell.
• SummerScreen (summer): Outdoor movies with themed food vendors.
• Smorgasburg (summer weekends): Food market, Williamsburg & Prospect Park. Crowded but worth it for variety.
• Open Studios: Artists open their workspaces. Bushwick Open Studios is huge.
• Gallery openings: Free wine, art, networking. Williamsburg and Bushwick have many.

The Challenge of Cultural Consumption

NYC has overwhelming cultural options. The challenge isn't access—it's curation. How do you balance:

• Famous institutions vs. discovering smaller venues
• Planned events vs. spontaneous wandering
• Trendy spots (often overhyped) vs. longtime institutions (sometimes stale)
• Being a cultural participant vs. being a tourist in your own city

Strategy: Mix planned (museum exhibits, specific shows) with opportunistic (stumbling into street festivals, gallery openings). Avoid FOMO—you can't do everything, and most "must-see" events are replaceable.

Transit & Infrastructure

The subway as a system—understanding the lines, the delays, the politics of MTA funding, the history of NYC transit. Following infrastructure projects: the perpetually-under-construction L train, the Second Avenue Subway expansion, the BQX proposal (probably dead), bike lane expansions.

Understanding the Subway

The NYC subway is:

• One of the world's largest and oldest rapid transit systems
• Runs 24/7 (unlike most systems)
• Perpetually underfunded and in need of repair
• A political football between city and state
• Simultaneously essential and frustrating

Transit & Urban Development

Where the subway goes, development follows. Transit access is the primary driver of NYC real estate values and neighborhood gentrification. Areas without subway access (Red Hook, parts of South Brooklyn) remain more isolated and often more affordable.

Following infrastructure changes helps you predict neighborhood changes:

• New subway station → property values rise immediately
• Protected bike lanes → more cycling → different businesses (cafes, bike shops)
• Bus route changes → affects accessibility for low-income residents
• Ferry service → luxury development along waterfront

Current Infrastructure Projects

• L Train modernization: Completed 2020, took less time than feared. Williamsburg survived.
• Second Avenue Subway: Phases 3-4 still unfunded. Will be decades.
• Brooklyn-Queens Connector (BQX): Proposed streetcar. Probably dead due to cost and politics.
• Bike lane expansion: Slowly improving. Protected lanes are game-changers for safety.
• Congestion pricing: Proposed for years, still not implemented. Would fund transit but politically contentious.

Transit Advocacy

Better transit doesn't happen by accident. Organizations like Transportation Alternatives, Riders Alliance, and Straphangers Campaign push for improvements. Attending community board meetings, emailing representatives, and supporting advocacy organizations actually matters.

Urban Observation

Paying attention to details: architectural styles, signage evolution, storefront changes, street furniture, how people use public spaces. NYC is dense with information if you pay attention. Every block tells a story about who lives there, what they value, how they move through space.

What to Notice

• Architecture: Building materials, styles, ornamentation, fire escapes, water towers, rooflines.
• Signage: Hand-painted signs (disappearing), neon (rare now), LED screens (ubiquitous), language diversity.
• Storefronts: What businesses exist, how they've changed, vacancy rates, window displays.
• Street life: How people use sidewalks, stoops, parks. Who's outside at different times.
• Infrastructure: Subway grates, fire hydrants, street trees, bike racks, benches, trash management.
• Traces of history: Ghost signs, old building names, repurposed structures, surviving details from previous eras.

Current Projects

• Photographing changing storefronts (before/after documentation)
• Documenting disappearing vernacular signage (hand-painted, neon)
• Mapping neighborhood boundaries (fluid and contested)
• Tracking new bike infrastructure
• Reading building facades (dates, original purposes, alterations)

Tools & Methods

• Walking, always walking (you notice nothing from a car or subway)
• Camera (phone is fine, dedicated camera is better for archival)
• Notes app for observations
• Historical maps and photos (NYPL Digital Collections, Oldnyc.org)
• Building databases (NYC Building Information System, DOB Now)
• Local history books and walking guides

Why This Matters

Attention to place builds connection. The more you notice, the more you care. The more you understand how a place works, the better you can participate in shaping it (or resisting harmful changes).

Also: documenting change creates a record. Cities are constantly erasing their past. Photos, notes, and observations preserve what would otherwise be forgotten. Your attention is a form of care.