There are some neighborhoods in New York that seem more like a small town or village, rather
than part of the big city, and one of the most famous is Williamsburg, in Brooklyn.
We'll spend most of our time in this visit walking along the main street, Bedford Avenue,
lined with all kinds of restaurants and bars, coffeeshops and little boutiques, one-of-a-kind
shops that you don't find anywhere else.
Williamsburg is a rather large neighborhood, and we will be focusing our attention on that
central retail area around Bedford Avenue and some of the side streets.
Williamsburg is like a village within the city.
It has gone through many changes over its history, and now it's very popular part of
town, and it is only about twenty minutes away from midtown by subway, easy to get here.
From Manhattan you want to get down to Union Square and 14th St., which you can reach by
three different subway lines – will get you there from anywhere in midtown, pretty
much, very convenient.
Then change trains at Union Square and get on the L line, that's the subway that'll take
you underneath the East Village, then the first stop in Brooklyn is Bedford Avenue,
putting you right into the center of the commercial area.
We are on the main street of Williamsburg, which is Bedford Avenue.
It goes for about ten blocks right through the middle of this section of town and there
are interesting side streets that go off from it.
This neighborhood does have a resemblance to parts of lower Manhattan, such as what
Soho might've look like thirty years ago or the East Village today, but you'll find it
enjoys its own unique atmosphere, an authentic slice of Brooklyn, which is still considered
an Outer Borough, quite different than Manhattan.
Of course, in Williamsburg, there's food all over the place, restaurants, delis, take-out
pizza, including some lunch trucks parked right on the street.
Italian, Spanish, all sorts of cuisines here, including some Asian vegetarian.
You are surely going to work up an appetite and a desire to dive into these cute little
stores as you walk along on Bedford.
We're heading north a few blocks, passing some more restaurants and pubs with an international
cuisine such as The Bedford, a gastropub with a rustic charm.
It's a busy street, with a big variety and no empty shop fronts.
After walking around a little bit we already worked up an appetite, so we popped into Wild
Ginger for some pan-Asian, vegan cuisine.
They're located just off Bedford on N. 10th St. We enjoyed some potstickers, tempeh, seitan
and samosas.
Two blocks further north brings us to McCarren Park, which opened in 1906, and is a popular
place for many outdoor sports like volleyball, soccer, swimming, ice skating in the winter,
handball, and many other games.
While we're up in this neighborhood, we thought we'd take a stroll on some of the side streets
just off of Bedford.
North 12th street's interesting – it's residential, some new buildings along with the old wooden
clapboard structures.
And then we got down to Eleventh Street.
We'd heard about a famous brewery that we had to go in and check out.
In the old days, Brooklyn had been a powerhouse of American beer production, but that, along
with many other factories, tended to fade away in the late twentieth century.
And now there's been a revival of beer with the opening in 1996 of the Brooklyn Brewery,
with their famous tasting room.
"Welcome to Brooklyn Brewery."
Okay.
And how many kinds of beer do you brew?
"Uhm, we do about thirty or forty over the course of the year."
I see all those taps.
Those are all your brood beers?
"Yep."
Wow.
And you've got tours and tasting tours.
"Uhm-hm."
They export beer to more than half the US and over thirty countries.
It's the first brewery to win a James Beard Award.
There located next to Wythe Avenue, which is the other main road in this part of Williamsburg,
and it has a few more shops and more residential buildings along the way.
There's even a hotel, The Hoxton, one of half a dozen nice places you could stay in Williamsburg,
and of course there's a lot of Air B&B type rentals as well.
They even have a beautiful waterfront promenade, and some parks along the East River with views
across to Manhattan and of the majestic Manhattan bridge.
There's even a ferry service two blocks over from the Sixth Street Pier that can take you
either down to Wall Street or up to the East 34th St.
There are several parks along the river here, including Domino Park and the East River State
Park.
This empty old diner might be one of the casualties of the upscale modernization.
The residential side streets have a quiet and casual atmosphere.
They even have little front yards, giving it an almost rural feeling.
The first village was chartered here in 1661 by the Dutch West India Company, which owned
the land that they supposedly purchased from the Native Americans, who had occupied the
area previously.
The English took over in 1664 and called the area Bushwick Shore, which became a farming
community supplying food across the East River to New York City.
This area then achieved remarkable industrial and economic growth, with local businesses
thriving.
In 1855 the city of Williamsburg was annexed into the city of Brooklyn, which was independent
from New York at the time, until 1898, when it became part of the City of New York.
The population them was heavily German, but many Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan
came into the area to get away from the overcrowded, slum tenements.
And then after World War II refugees from Eastern Europe, especially Hasidic Jews from
Hungary and Romania, streamed and leading to a population explosion.
Williamsburg is still well-known for its large Jewish population.
The area went into decline in the 1960s with a big increase in unemployment, and crime,
gang activities, illegal drug use, but it really bounced back in the 1980s.
Low-rent became a big draw to bring artists from Manhattan, which had become too expensive,
over the Brooklyn, which was relatively cheap back in the 1970s, 1980s, it was a bargain.
This led to Williamsburg becoming a center of hipster culture – a lot of art, music,
fashions.
The creative crowd moved in.
Now, however, property values have skyrocketed, and things have changed once again.
Life is good here in Williamsburg.
You've got your Whole Foods.
This has become a very upscale and gentrified part of town.
Rents for two bedrooms could be up there at about $4000 a month.
Crime rates are back down to normal for the city.
It's a wonderful place to be.
Metropolitan Avenue is as far south as we're going in our little visit to Williamsburg.
It's quite wide and has some brand-new buildings.
One popular hangout is this big triumph dealer, which has a broad selection of new and used
bikes, including some motor scooters.
It's almost like a clubhouse where some of the local motorcyclists gather and trade some
stories.
Bedford Avenue keeps going many blocks further south, because it's the longest street in
Brooklyn, ten miles from one end to the other.
We've seen the nicest part.
Further south, it's mostly residential, all the way to Sheepshead Bay.
The bathhouse on the corner contains the Metropolitan Recreation Center, with a swimming pool, a
fitness room, along with arts and crafts, and computer resources.
A quick recap of our little walk through the heart of Williamsburg, starting at that Bedford
Avenue subway station, up and down Bedford Avenue, up to the park, McCarren Park, and
then down Wythe Avenue, over to take a look at the East River, and then back in to Metropolitan
Avenue to complete our visit.
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