Views and more views,,,

Tuesday - our last full day in NYC, with Brooklyn on our daily schedule. We took the train to CityHall (photo above) and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, packed with people! For the first time we noticed the love locks on fences here, too. Views are incredible!

The bridge ends in Brooklyn Heights (photos), a very high-society historic neighborhood (with not only the famous brownstone houses, but also much older colonial architecture. Over the zigzagging Squibb Bridge (photo below) we  went down to the Brooklyn Bridge Park, a smaller version of Hudson River Park in Manhattan. Years ago, they started gradually to transform the old Brooklyn piers starting at Manhattan Bridge, into public parks, sports fields and playgrounds, beaches and eco areas, marinas, fishing piers, promenades and seating areas. 

 

 

At the end of this strip of piers, connected by more green and a main promenade, is a ferry terminal, and here runs Atlantic Avenue. This street is perfect for shopping and dining (many middle Eastern restaurants!), and, best thing: Sahadi's - the probably best dried goods, deli and spice store (picture below). Grains, spices, nuts, dried fruits, imported olives, coffee and tea, you name it, all available in this  family operation, founded here in 1948.

 

 

Atlantic Ave ends in Downtown Brooklyn where since 2012 the Barclays Center (photo, right) is located: 19,000 seats, home of the Brooklyn Nets and the NY Liberty, the profi basketball teams (male/female). It's surrounded by a lot of new skyscrapers which just came up in the last years.  Brooklyn on its own would be the fourth-largest city in the U.S., after NYC, L.A. and Chicago. It became a borough of NYC in 1898. And it really feels like a city on its own, the atmosphere and population are different.

 

With a last detour to Strands bookstore, we ended up in Hell's Kitchen again. We were invited to a new rooftop bar and restaurant, Hudson VU and Hudson Local, in the Ink48 Hotel. The rooftop lounge was fantastic - if you don't want to spend a lot of money for one of the observation decks, go for it! 

 

Cocktails aren't inexpensive, but well worth the money! The views are just gorgeous, day and night! The meal in the restaurant was super-delicious, too. We had a couple of appetizers, mains and deserts, accompanied by some wines of their well-curated wine menu,,,

 

 The views:

 

What a great last dinner - best on this trip! - and good conversation with our friends, too!