Living in Brooklyn is like living in a city of its own. In fact if you look at the history of this, the most populous of New York City's five boroughs with its current population of 2.5 million, and the second largest in terms of the area it covers, you'll find it was a self-sustaining and prosperous city prior to consolidating with New York City in 1898. To this day, it retains its own unique flavor thanks to its architectural heritage and the diverse populations that have called and continue to call Brooklyn home.
Downtown is Where It's At
Source: myclean
In recent years due to an influx of young, musicians, and entrepreneurs priced out of Manhattan, certain neighborhoods are acquiring a reputation for their vibrant cultural and entertainment scenes. Not only are the vibrant offerings of their art galleries giving Manhattan a run for its money, but their quirky shops and music venues are siphoning off its weekend shoppers and nighttime crowds. Recently added to the Brooklyn mix is the area along the waterfront where the Barclay Center opened in September 2012. New home to the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Islanders, it has become a mecca for basketball and hockey fans as well as concert goers. Since it's opening, the Barclay's stage has attracted top entertainers including part-owner Jay Z and Beyonce, as well as Pink Floyd, Pearl Jam, Madonna, Cold Play, The Rolling Stones, and Brooklyn Homegirl Barbra Streisand.
As is usually the case, the affordable housing prices that drew these newcomers to the borough's oldest sections, are rapidly rising as Brooklyn absorbs a second wave of young affluent professionals who are renovating the area's many fading brownstones, and real estate developers who are turning vacant warehouses into sophisticated stylish condos. If this sounds like your kind of scene, you might want to look into the neighborhoods in the northern reaches of the borough just across the narrow expanse of the East River that separates Downtown Brooklyn from Manhattan.
Living in Brooklyn - Fort Greene
Source: condenast
If you make tree-lined Fort Greene your home you're apt to spend a weekend day or two at a flea market and a few summer nights viewing vintage films in Fort Greene Park. This is an ever-changing neighborhood as evidenced by the mom-and-pop bodegas that share the streets with upscale speakeasies and independent booksellers offering a homey atmosphere in which to peruse a classic book while sipping organic shade-grown coffee brewed from just-ground coffee beans. With a median price of $999,000, Fort Greene is drawing an affluent
eclectic wave of homebuyers to the area. As a result, it would appear that a tipping point of sorts will soon be reached with only 55% of the population native New Yorkers, as in born and raised here.
DUMBO and Downtown Brooklyn
No, DUMBO is not named after the lovable sad-sack Disney elephant, it's an acronym for its landmark location, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. DUMBO which was once home to major manufacturing facilities turning out household staples like Brillo soap pads and Grand Union tea bags now holds the distinction of being the
NY neighborhood with the highest concentration of technology. 25% of New York's technology companies reside within one 10-block area, and employ over 10,000 people in 500 creative and tech firms. Interestingly enough 20% of its workforce is made up of people in the arts. Still, whether arts or tech-related, all work and no play would make DUMBO a dull neighborhood, so rest assured this is far from true. DUMBO's borders actually embrace Downtown Brooklyn, with "Downtown" contributing the stadium-seating multiplex previously mentioned, and a public transit hub, while DUMBO supplies the art galleries, food trucks, specialty food shoppers, and oh, yes sprawling views of lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridges.
DUMBO also provides access to the waterfront, which along with Brooklyn Bridge Park, are particularly appealing in summer. Recognizing it as one of New York's most significant existing waterfront areas, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 91 of DUMBO's buildings as part of a historic district. So if you like cobblestones, big warehouse buildings, and open spaces, DUMBO might be the place for you. Although, the price tags on prime properties can be a bit high, with properties offering a view running as high as $1,400 a square foot, it may help to think about it this way. You could pay the same price for an apartment in Manhattan, and get a view of a brick wall!
Bushwick
Source: gissler
By now, you may have gathered that many neighborhoods in Brooklyn are throwing off their industrial trappings to become part of the-up-and-coming scene. Bushwick is the latest to claim its place, with former beer breweries providing the raw materials from which the neighborhood's unconventional signature loft apartments are being fashioned. After the repeal of prohibition, these pilsner-producing businesses brought Bushwick the distinction of being one of the country's major mid-20th century brewing centers. A neighborhood in transition, Bushwick still displays its recently acquired Hispanic culture, while retaining relics of its more-distant past in the form of well-worn mansions, social halls and churches. Also historic reminders are the as yet undeveloped vacant areas that bear witness to the riots and looting of the late 70s.
Rather than viewing these as blight, Bushwick sees them in terms of potential. Although the crime waves that plagued the city during the 70s and 80s brought Bushwick to its knees, its current ascendancy is viewed as a major real estate resurrection. Plummeting crime rates are yet another proof of this tough old neighborhood's triumph. City statistics show major crime rates have dropped 75% since 1990, and 20% since 2001. If you consider the neighborhood's relative safety, add to it the affordable two-family houses clustered in a 30-block area, Bushwick Avenue's rows of brownstones, and the new unique and unconventional lofts in the industrial area and you'll see why
Bushwick is an area with widespread appeal.
Yes, Brooklyn offers someplace for everyone and as you may suspect there is more to the borough than downtown. Each of its many neighborhoods manages to retain its ethnic enclaves and tinge of old world flavor while embracing the shiny and new. If you are looking for family neighborhoods, there are Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst in the southern portions. If you're looking for neighborhoods still steeped in gentility with a dash of the Bohemian, Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope are worth exploring.
