Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx: these are places some visitors to Manhattan simply donât go to, except maybe to see the zoo or a ballgame, or to take the ferry.
But theyâre really missing out. The Outer Boroughs offer parks, cafĂ©s and gourmet restaurants, museums, and history. Cool bars buzz around Williamsburg in Brooklyn; woodlands and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge beckon on Staten Island; New Yorkâs oldest â and thriving â movie studios are in Queens; and the home of Edgar Allen Poe stokes the imagination in the Bronx. There are architectural sites of Old New York. As well as the zoo, botanical gardens, and Yankee Stadium, of course.
So often overlooked, many of these attractions â all less than an hour from Broadway, and accessible by public transportation â have the added plus of being (with few exceptions) uncluttered by other out-of-towners.
Brooklyn Bridge as seen from DUMBO.
Dreamstime
The Queens building called 5 Pointz, a labor of love by local writer Meres.
Britta Jaschinski/Apa Publications
Neighborhoods
The key word in the Outer Boroughs is âneighborhood.â Neighborhoods change, overlap, and can be a bazaar of ethnic delight. Stroll through Middle Eastern stores selling frankincense, order pasta in Italian, and have kasha served in Yiddish.
Some new neighbors are artists and young professionals in search of affordable rents. Since prices in Manhattan have soared, new generations have turned to former industrial zones, like Long Island City in Queens and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, to live. Co-ops flourish where warehouses once thrived. Burned-out buildings become galleries or restaurants. Then real-estate values skyrocket, and the artists turn their sights elsewhere.
Amid the new is the older side of the boroughs: the avenues, parks, and palazzi built as grand civic projects in the late 19th century. Architects like Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux found open space here unavailable in Midtown. With sweeping gestures, they decked the boroughs with buildings inspired by the domes and gables of Parisian boulevards.
Despite this grandeur, however, one thing âthe boroughsâ lack is Manhattanâs easy grid system. Off the parkways, they are a maze of streets and expressways. With a little attention, though, itâs easy to uncover neighborhoods that can be explored at a comfortable pace on foot â places where the boroughs really breathe.
Brooklyn 1 [map]
More than 70 sq miles (180 sq km) at the southeast tip of Long Island encompasses the most populous borough of New York City, Brooklyn. More than 2.6 million people live here, which would make it the fourth-largest metropolis in the United States if it werenât a part of New York City. Just a 20-minute ride on the subway from the heart of Manhattan will take you out to Williamsburg or Prospect Park.
Brooklyn street scene.
Britta Jaschinski/Apa Publications
Another scenic way to escape from Manhattan is via the Brooklyn Bridge. A stroll across the walkway leads to Fulton Ferry Landing, where cobblestoned streets have come back to life after lying dormant for decades. It was here that the borough inaugurated its first mass transit, carrying Brooklynites to Wall Street. In 1814 Robert Fultonâs steam ferry, the Nassau, replaced the East Riverâs earlier rowboats, sailboats, and vessels powered by horses on treadmills. Ferries remained the main way to cross until the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883.
Brooklynâs East River waterfront has been undergoing the same upscale transition as the Hudson River in Manhattan. Oh-so-cool Red Hook (and the cityâs only Ikea) is hard to reach by subway or bus, but itâs easy by water taxi. Go to www.nywatertaxi.com.
DUMBO
Brooklynâs modern-day renaissance began in now-classic New York style â following the trail of artists. When Soho became too expensive, they moved over the water to lofts in DUMBO (for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), now a thriving neighborhood that includes the innovative cultural hubs St Annâs Warehouse (45 Water Street; tel: 718-834 8794; www.stannswarehouse.org).
Young families followed â so many that recently revitalized Brooklyn Bridge Park incorporated into its design a âdestination playground,â a carousel, open grass fields, and a rock beach on the East River where the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy holds ecology classes for curious minds of all ages. The conservancy has been doing all it can to attract people to the glorious new spaces, and itâs working. Outdoor movies are always big draws, as is the pop-up pool that opens in the summer. In autumn, there are fall foliage tours; in the winter, ice-skating. Construction concluded with piers containing...