Beyond Manhattan BlogLooking Beyond Manhattan – Why the Outer Boros are the Real New York
The tourist trap is over.
The throngs of travelers content to snap photos from the line for the Empire State Building elevator, take a ferry to Lady Liberty, or sit through a Sex And The City Location tour will always be there in abundance, propping up many an overpriced venture. The TGI Friday’s in Times Square will always be full, selling $30 salads to willing connoisseurs, and many a holiday-maker will be left to wonder “how does anyone live here as expensive/crowded/inconvenient as it is?”
Answer: no one does.
Well a few people do. The Wall Street crowd can afford it, and live the way you might think they do from the movies (or if you’re a fan of Ted Danson’s George Christoper on Bored to Death), and a great many people live in gradually deteriorating rent-controlled apartments. The rest of us paid Manhattan rent for a few years, then we got hip to the outer boros. People without (and, increasingly, with) extraordinary wealth, but who know the city, tend to head for Brooklyn and Queens. What does that mean? The best restaurants, bars, shopping, and neighborhood culture – indeed, the best things to do in NYC – have moved with them.
A new generation of travelers is gradually getting wise to this.
North 11th Street in Williamsburg, home of Beacon’s Closet – perhaps Brooklyn’s most famous thrift store – and the Vice.com headquarters, is overrun with tourists during weekends. DUMBO, home of Food Network’s Bobby Flay and backdrop for…don’t make me say it again…Sex And The City…has become a bit like “Brooklyn Disney Land”.
These spots are worth visiting, and there are many more you haven’t heard of.
Want the most authentic Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean food outside of Asia? Try Flushing, Queens, a 20 minute ride on the LIRR, and a single subway stop from the Mets’ City Field.
Interested in the next up-and-coming hip neighborhood, like Williamsburg but without the tourists? Look no farther than Prospect/Crown heights, home to a dizzying and ever-changing selection of restaurants, coffee shops and bars, and arguably the best pizza in New York.
Just to the north of Williamsburg, home to the most underrated brunch restaurant, Pizzeria, and steakhouse, respectively, is Greenpoint.
Why the outer boros? The same reason it’s better to stay with friends in a foreign city than to rely solely on a guide book: you’re getting a taste of the city from the vantage point of locals. Sure, Soho has great (if crowded/overpriced) shopping, you should see the East Village before you die, and Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall are worth a visit if you can get tickets. But New Yorkers are both bargain-crazy and inventive to-a-fault. Williamsburg’s Barcade, where you can get a pint from one of the best taps in the city for an average of $6 and play vintage video games for the original prices all night, is more our pace. In the outer boros, especially if you ask a local, you’ll find-
-Authenticity – from Bushwick’s taco restaurant run out of the back room of a real tortilla factory to Woodside’s SriPraPhai, widely acknowledged to be one of the best Thai Restaurants in the country (think you’ve experienced Thai food? maybe…), to Carroll Gardens’ generations-old salami shops on Court Street, the outer boros are chocked full of spots in the magical post-popularity-with-the-locals, pre-tourist-mecca sweet spot.
-Beauty – Prospect Park, and Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and the streets of Cobble Hill, Park Slope, and Brooklyn Heights, are some of the most photogenic urban landscapes in North America, and unlike the Statue of Liberty and Central Park, they’re less crowded than you’d expect. Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Bushwick – rugged spots tattooed with street art -are a different kind of beautiful, but no less “real”.
-Vibrance – it’s true that some of the most daring restrurants, like David Chang’s Momofuku, Masaharu Morimoto’s Masa, and Wiley DuFresne’s WD-50, as well as some of the “expense account” spots like 11 Madison Park and the Grammercy Tavern, still call Manhattan home. Many others, like Carroll Gardens’ Buttermilk Channel, Park Slope’s Al Di La, Williamsburg’s Fette Sau, and a rotating/ever-expanding cast of daring, chef-driven spots are proud to call Brooklyn home. The outer boros teem with entrepreneurial joie de vivre as restauranteurs and business-owners take advantage of their lower rent and growing consumer base.
-Higher Value – You night pay a lot for a meal in Brooklyn (though you certainly don’t need to) but rest assured your dollars are buying more. A luxurious evening can be had at Buttermilk Channel for around $150 for three, including wine – less than a third the price of a comparable Manhattan spot. And there’s a dizzying abundance of great meals under $20. (Prospect Heights’ The Islands, actually overpriced by Brooklyn standards, nonetheless serves up an overflowing plate of jerk chicken for around $10, on the low end of the price of an average Manhattan food truck.) Don’t even mention the bars, where great varietals of beer are available for between $4 and $10 a glass and decent wine bars start at around $8 a glass. (It’s true, there are some decent pubs in Manhattan, but if they’re not divy or overpriced, they’re overrun, like the West Village’s Blind Tiger Ale House – excellent, but standing-room-0nly any time after 4pm, 7 days-a-week.)
To experience a bit of all 3, check out the year-round indoor flea market at One Hanson Place, otherwise known as the Williamsburg Bank Building (not to be confused with Williamsburg the neighborhood unless you want an expensive and inconvenient excursion on the G train). Several hundred small crafts entrepreneurs make this flea market their home every Saturday and Sunday, and a chat with just a few of the razor-sharp, tech-savvy, artsy shopkeepers will imbue you with the outer boros spirit for weeks to come.
Whether you’re traveling to New York and looking to avoid the crowds and high prices, or a Manhattanite ready to look beyond the East River – whether Yelp, the recommendations of a friend, or (we hope) this site is your guide, give the outer boros a try, and get ready to experience the real New York.
