Jessica’s e-mail was long, but its message was brief: if I went to New York,
but didn’t get to Brooklyn, I would be missing the best, the hippest, the
most exciting part of all. Her argument made sense: “Every last centimeter
of Manhattan has been gentrified,” she wrote. “Even Harlem has a high gloss
on it these days. Brooklyn (or, as the hip-hop boys like to call it, BK) is
the most diverse of the city’s five boroughs, home to a veritable UN of
ethnicities.
And out of diversity spring oh so many things: great music, food, shopping,
etc. Oh, and I live there.” Okay, I thought, Brooklyn it is. But the week
before I flew to New York, she sent word that she had to be in London for
work on those dates, which was why I found myself crossing the East River
alone.
Brooklyn Bridge was almost 14 years in the making and, when finally completed
in 1883, its stone towers dominated the skyline, as they continue to do
(remember Woody Allen’s 1970s film Manhattan?). The views from the bridge
were as spectacular as the structure: behind lay the skyscrapers, bright
lights and big hustle of Manhattan, the archetypal 21st-century megalopolis;
ahead were the low-rise brownstones and tenements of Brooklyn; below lay one
of the world’s great harbours and, to the right, I could see the Statue of
Liberty.
On the raised path between the bridge’s two carriageways, fitness-hungry New
Yorkers formed a human chain between the two halves of their city.
When the neoclassical Borough Hall was built in 1848, Brooklyn was a separate,
rival city, not simply the New York borough it is now. (Had it remained
independent, it would now be one of the largest cities in the USA.) At that
time, the great American poet Walt Whitman was editing the local newspaper
and Olmstead & Vaux, the creators of Manhattan’s Central Park, were
preparing for their masterpiece, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.
I spent the day walking in the park and strolling around the other civic
spaces — the beautiful and skilfully managed Botanic Garden (the
highest-rated attraction in Zagat’s Brooklyn survey) and the Brooklyn
Museum, whose world-class collection make a remarkable journey from ancient
Assyria and Egypt to 19th-century France and 20th-century America. From
there, sticking closely to Jessica’s instructions, I ended the day at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music. Paganini and Caruso made the BAM’s reputation,
and the likes of Radiohead and Merce Cunningham perform there now.
This, Jessica gushed, “is where all the great avant-garde epics are performed,
where you can see a film, an opera, a play or listen to music”. I settled
for live jazz and pizza at the BAMcafé.
Civic sights were one thing, but to understand Brooklyn’s past — and to
glimpse its future — I enlisted help, in the form of the Big Apple Greeters.
The Greeters are one of New York’s best-kept secrets. Their aim is “to
enrich the New York experience” by finding a local who will take visitors
for a walk. Greeters will show you the big sights, but they would rather
take you through their home neighbourhoods.
Ted Scull, my Greeter, is a writer who specialises in cruise ships, but he
knows parts of Brooklyn intimately. He walked me around Brooklyn Heights,
Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and the other waterside neighbourhoods, popping
into shops, peering through windows and explaining how Brooklyn was “made”
by waves of immigrants. “Even now, if you followed a straight line across
the city, you’d cross continents as you pass communities from Italy and
Africa, Hassidic Jews from central Europe, Hispanics from the Caribbean...
and you’d end with the big Ukrainian community at Brighton Beach, which we
call Little Odessa.”
Out of this cultural stew, brilliance has emerged. Ted mentioned George
Gershwin, Danny Kaye, Norman Mailer, Mae West and, of course, Woody Allen,
all children of the borough. He omitted to mention Al Capone. He took me
down Willow Street, to the house where Arthur Miller lived, and to Henry
Street, where a plaque commemorates the birthplace of Winston Churchill’s
mother, Jennie Jerome. Then, down on the waterfront, we strolled along the
promenade, with its big view of Manhattan, where Abraham Lincoln conceded
that “there may be a finer view than this in the world, but I don’t believe
it”. Many still don’t.
When we reached Atlantic Avenue and the docks, Ted’s passion for cruise ships
burst out and he reminisced about the arrival of the Queen Mary 2. The way
he told it, it all sounded so charming that it was hard to believe Brooklyn
had ever fallen out of fashion. But it did. To make the point, he took me to
the old St George Hotel. Nothing could have been more eloquent. In the
entrance to the hotel’s rundown subway station, Ted explained that the St
George once filled a city block and boasted the largest indoor saltwater
swimming pool in the USA. “This was about as ritzy as New York got between
the wars.” The 2,632 rooms were empty for a long time, but have now been
converted into apartments.
So when did the rot set in? Some people point to the great betrayal of 1957,
when the world-beating local baseball team left Ebbets Field, moved to
California and were renamed the LA Dodgers. Others point to the 1960s, when
the shipyards started to close. The borough attracted immigrants because it
needed cheap labour. A hundred years ago, 40% of Brooklyners were
foreign-born, but by 1970 that number was down to 18%. It is a sign of the
borough’s revitalisation that it is now back up to about 40%.
TED LEFT ME in Brooklyn Heights, and from there, I pounded the streets, I eyed
Macy’s and the other shops along Fulton, I went to Junior’s deli, to eat
what the management modestly claim to be “New York’s best cheesecake”. (When
a fire swept through the place in the 1980s, people out in the street
shouted: “Save the cheesecake!”) I walked around the converted waterfront
warehouses in Dumbo (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), found a great
pizza joint and the arts centre where David Bowie last performed. Finally, I
arrived in Williamsburg.
Jessica had described it as “home not only to twentysomething hipsters, but to
the city’s largest concentration of Hassidic and Orthodox Jews. The guys
with forelocks are living cheek by jowl with the hipster nerds in trucker
hats.” What she didn’t mention was the galleries, for which the place has
become famous — artists and dealers forced out of Manhattan by high rents
have settled here, and there is a flurry of shops, boutiques, bars and
restaurants.
The next day, I had lunch back across the East River with a native of
Manhattan. “You went where?” she asked. “Oh, Brooklyn...”
And, once she’d worked out that I’d liked the place, she confessed: “I’ve been
over there recently, looking for an apartment. It’s the hip place to be now,
you know.”
“Yes,” I assured her. “I know.”
Anthony Sattin travelled as a guest of Elegant Resorts
Travel brief
Getting there: American Airlines (0845 778 9789,
www.american-airlines.co.uk), United Airlines (0845 844 4777,
www.unitedairlines.co.uk) and Virgin Atlantic (0870 574 7747,
www.virgin-atlantic.com) fly from Heathrow; British Airways (0870 850 9850,
www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow and Manchester; and Continental Airlines
(0845 607 6760, www.continental.com) flies from Gatwick and several UK
regional airports, as well as Dublin and Shannon. Prices start at about £350
in June, or €440 from Ireland.
Where to stay: Brooklyn has few sleeping options, but is
within easy reach of Manhattan’s many wonderful hotels. The stylish Soho
Grand (00 1-212 965 3000, www.sohogrand.com) has doubles from £250. More
modest, but spotless, is the Cosmopolitan Hotel, in TriBeCa (212 566 1900,
www.cosmohotel.com); doubles from £86.
Tour operators: Elegant Resorts (01244 897222,
www.elegantresorts.co.uk) has three nights at the charming St Regis from
£845pp, including BA flights from Heathrow and private transfers. Or try
British Airways Holidays (0870 243 3407, www.baholidays.com) or Original
Travel (020 7978 7333, www.originaltravel.co.uk).
