Brooklyn - a world on its own

The last weekend we explored Brooklyn – another, completely different part of NYC, a city of about 2,6 mio. people, with many different neighborhoods. Every tourist knows Dumbo, Williamsburg or Brooklyn Heights in the meantime, but not many ever have heard about Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Sheepshead Bay, Fort Greene or Flatbush. Well, we got to know new parts of Brooklyn this time, starting on Saturday with the Brooklyn Bridge Park and Dumbo (with a great view towards Manhattan) and heading on to the Brooklyn Navy Yards in the Northern part of the borough for an interesting tour.

For over 150 years, starting in 1801 and being closed in 1966, the Brooklyn Navy Yard built America’s most famous fighting Naval ships. Today, the Yard is a model for a sustainable urban industrial park with a large rooftop farm and home to over 300 different businesses, among them the famous Steiner Studios (movies). By bus and walking we explored the vast, usually non accessible property along Brooklyn’s waterfront with drydocks, historic military buildings and a modern and highly instructive museum in Bldg. 92 (see pic).

Despite of the rain, we explored the partly creepy neighborhood (e.g. Vinegar Hill) and walked back to downtown Brooklyn and Fulton Street Mall, which was adecorated for X mas. One of our best culinary experiences ever, we then had in a hotel restaurant by name "Kimoto".

An elevator with a good-looking black guy brough us up to the rooftop, door opened to the restaurant and from there on we were treated like royality. Chef Brian himself - renowned and showered with awards - served us a ten-course tasting meal of creative japanese-inspired dishes, paired with cocktails and beers - it was pure heaven! In addition, the view of the city of Brooklyn from up there (see pic) was just fantastic.

Sunday we took the subway to Industry City, part of Sunset Park, another (former industrial) Brooklyn neighborhood, and in one of the huge warehouses a flea and gourmet market by name "Smorgasburg" took place. It has just moved to this new location this winter. Great vintage clothing, jewelry, knick-knack, porcellan, antiquities and such offered here besides local food producers and a pretty "hip" clientele.

In the afternoon we met our American-Italian friend Dom from Bensonhurst, who's living now in Gravesend (see pic), another interesting neighborhood of Brooklyn. After lunch in nearby Sheepshead Bay, with heaping amounts of unfamiliar uzbek food (part of former Russia) on the table in an hole-in-the-wall restaurant with servers barely speaking English, he showed us the "wild side" of Brooklyn.

Marine Park, a saltwater marsh with trails and a nature center, was our first stop, then on to Calvert Vaux Park, close to the famous entertainment district of Coney Island. This bay was off-limits for a long time and Dom told us, that even now many body parts regularly show up - besides ship wrecks and the famous "yellow submarine" (see pic). This was built by a wealthy guy who wanted to explore the famous Andrea Doria but never got around.


It was windy and ice-cold there at the beach, but it felt like being in another world. We concluded the evening with an NBA basketball game in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn before we arrived "home" in Harlem very late after a diverse and interesting day.

Railroad Park and Art Museum

Time is flying and days are much too short, though we get up early and home late every day. Commuting by subway costs a lot of time and besides having lots of exercise by walking all the steps up and down subway stations, we spent quite a bit of time on trains these days. But, that's exactly where you meet the whole "melting pot" of NYC...

The High Line Park and the new Whitney Museum were on top of our to-do-list and on "Black Friday" we combined nature and culture instead of going shopping as many locals do on that day because of special sales on this day after Thanksgiving. Many stores open very early, at 6 am or even earlier, and some streets (especially Broadway) were packed with people.


The High Line is an old elevated railroad track, which opened in 1934 and was mostly used for carrying goods to and from Manhattan's largest industrial district. In 1980 the last train run and demolition was discussed, until in 2012 eventually a group, called "Friends of the High Line" took the initiative and commissioned a famous design and landscape architecture team to plan a new "strip park" with "authentic" plants and flowers, with stages, deck chairs, art installations etc. It took until fall of 2014 when the park - constructed, planted and opened in three sections - was accomplished and the whole thing, from the Hudson Rail Yards and Javits Convention Center (north) down to the Meatpacking District, through different neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, was opened.

Designed by famous Italian architect Renzo Piano the new building is situated between the High Line and the Hudson River and makes the collection much more attractive than before, besides increasing the space. While the indoor galleries are rather plain (with movable walls for changing exhibits), the outdoor space - several museum terraces towards the river and the High Line – are spectacular and offer a completely new perspective of Chelsea and the Meatpacking District.

The Whole World in one Place: NYC

Back to NYC, the "Big Apple", a 8,5 mio. metropolis consisting of five cities on its own (officially called "boroughs"). It is not just another American city, but the whole world in one place; it's not your typical U.S.A. at all and it doesn't consist exclusively of Manhattan with its famous skyscrapers and museums - there is much more! It's a universe of its own, multi-ethnical, multi-lingual, multi-everything.

We were welcomed warmly at Heidi's & Tom's brownstone in Harlem (see pic), a beautifully restaurated house in which they live and rent out four guest rooms. It took us a while to get from Newark Airport to Harlem by train and subway. With heavy luggage you soon start to curse all the narrow turnstiles and stairs. We were pooped when we arrived, but glad to be "home", in our large room with a view down to the still-green little backyard garden.

Wednesday was an unusual slow day for us. We went grocery shopping first, to get some breakfast items and drinks, then we walked the 125th Street (the main axle of Harlem with the famous Apollo Theater), chatted with Heidi and Tom and the mixed crowd of guests (French/Italian/German) and in the afternoon departed to see the balloon blow-up at the Museum of History closeby Central Park for the Thanksgiving Parade. We walked through Central Park to Columbus Circle, all decorated for Christmas already (see pics). In the park we noticed, that trees still have quite a few colorful leaves - amazing for this time of the year!

We took the subway down to Herald Square/Penn Station later to pick up our media credentials for the top-notch hockey game Canadiens:Rangers in the Madison Square Garden. Great game and great show before the game, too.

We definitely dressed much too warmly in the early morning of Nov. 26 - Thanksgiving, a holiday, which is more important in the U.S. than Christmas, a big family gathering. We were out early to see Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Did it before in 2010 and, boy, it was cold then. This time, about 60 deg. F. (15 C) and sun, a perfect day for a parade!

The tradition of having a parade on Thanksgiving was started in 1924 by the department store Macy's for their employees. Figurative balloons were added constantly, corresponding to current "fashion", starting with Mickey Mouse, to Sponge Bob, Shrek, Hello Kitty, Spider-Man, Snoopy, Happy Hippo, Ronald McDonald and - newly added this year - Scrat the squirrel from “Ice Age” and Red from “Angry Birds".


More than 8,000 people participate in the parade, including clowns, balloon handlers and marching bands, while 3.5 mio. people line the streets along the 2.5 mi long parade route - it gets bigger each year. 17 giant character balloons, 27 floats, over 1,000 cheerleaders/dancers, over 1,000 clowns, about a dozen marching bands, many celebrities, and Santa Claus at the end, who rings in the Christmas season. Despite of fears of terrorism and heavy police presence, it was a peaceful and fun event.

We celebrated Thanksgiving in the afternoon in Brooklyn with our friends Paula & Gail (pic of the neighborhood) - not with turkey, but with pork roast and all the fixings (and, of course, with Manhattans). It was delicious! We bacame a little "nostalgic", too, having stayed there so many times since the late 1990ies and having enjoyed many meals there. It was a perfect day.

Hockey and Beer

Our last full day in Toronto included, of course, a hockey game of the Maple Leafs. We paid our respect to legendary historic Maple Leaf Gardens in the morning (now a university sports facility) before we attended the NHL game against Boston in the evening.


Before watching the game we had a tour in the Amsterdam Brewery's adventure brewery, the oldest microbrewery in town and grabbed a bite to eat there. The brewery is picturesquely situated at Toronto's waterfront (see pic), where right now, in the winter, not much is going on.

On our way to the Air Canada Center CN Tower and the skyline were spectacularly lit up and we forgot about the snow flurries coming down.

Game ended late (overtime) and it's been a long day! This morning we had a "business breakfast" - very delicious! – in the Chelsea hotel, walked St. Lawrence Market neighborhood with the famous flatiron building (see pic) for the last time and then took the new (expensive) fast train to the airport. Thanks to Global Entry immigration and customs went fast, flight is delayed and we have time to catch up with paperwork at gate 68 of Toronto Pearson Airport (see pic).

City of Neighborhoods

Toronto is a city of neighborhoods, more or less distinct, some small, some big, some ethnic, some just fancy and hip. From ethnic neighborhoods like Chinatown and Little Italy or India Bazaar and Greektown (still very "greek"!), to the more up&coming neighborhoods like West Queen West, Leslieville. The Annex or the Village (LGBT neighborhood) and Kensington Market - Toronto has a lot of diversity to offer (see pics). We tried to check as many as we could by walking and taking public transportation and our feet became sore.

The Village:



Greektown & Leslieville:

Fortunately, though it was cold, especially on Sunday we had beautiful blue skies and sunshine and first thing in the morning we therefore took the elevator up to CNN Tower (ca. 550 m). From the observation deck in 350 meters height views were spectacular: towards the islands (a recreational area where a handfull of people live permanently) and towards downtown and inland.


Also, at our following visit of Fort York – the old fortification, dating in the 18th century, around which the first settlement grew – sun was out.

In the so-called Annex "Honest Ed" is a landmark, a variety store with daily-changing offers, really cheap merchandise of all kinds: clothing, hardware, fabrics, household items, even medicine and groceries. What you can't find here, you won't find anywhere. It's an institution since 1848 but is endangered now. Most probably Honest Ed will go out of business next year, but at least Ed Mirvish's (the founder) theater imperium in town will stay.

In the afternoon we visited some museums, four in total. Started at Bloor Street, a main axle of the city, with the famous ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). A spectacular cube-like expansion was added a couple of years ago by famous architect Daniel Libeskind (see pic). Second came the Gardiner Museum, one of the best museums for ceramics, including a prestigious Meissen porcellan collection.


In the Entertainment District we visited AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), also great architecture, this time by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry. ACAD (Academy of Design Toronto) is an eyecatcher because of its colorful building on stilts (see pic).

Back to Downtown: The Old and New City Hall - what a contrast! Passing by Eaton Centre (the largest shopping mall in downtown) and The Bay - short for "Hudson's Bay Company", which was a trading company founded in 1670, which became famous for its striped blankets which were traded in the past for native american artwork.