Going Local: One Couple’s Journey in Rediscovering Brooklyn
First and most importantly, this article was a collaborative effort with my lovely (and supremely smart) wife Amanda. Alas, this site hasn't yet figured out how to ascribe double-billing for articles written by teams, so here I am, on my own for now.
When the company we work for announced in March that they were relocating from mid-town Manhattan to Brooklyn, we weren’t very happy. We live in Brooklyn already, so we thought we’d never go into Manhattan on a regular basis again. To be honest, we didn’t really move here to be in Brooklyn. We liked the excitement and constant newness of Manhattan. And to make matters worse, there isn’t a convenient subway connection between our apartment in Prospect Heights and the new office in DUMBO.
Then we had a thought. It actually isn’t very far from Prospect Heights to DUMBO. Maybe this would be a great opportunity to get on our bikes, which had been working very hard at collecting dust in the hallway. So we mapped out a good route that included as many bike paths as possible and would take us past Fort Greene Park.
The ride is lovely and we’re actually getting exercise! It takes only half the time as the subway and we’re saving a ton of money on subway fares. We also found that there is a bus nearby that goes straight to DUMBO. It takes the same amount of time as on our bikes, so that’s our mode of transportation when it rains.
This article isn’t about riding bikes to work, however. It’s about our opportunity to get to know the city we live in, up close and personal. This article is also about acknowledging the growing trend of more companies relocating to Brooklyn and what that means for the community and the environment.
You can get the feeling that you’re missing a lot when you ride the subway or when you’re zooming by in a car. If this feeling gets you down, it might be because it’s true. Spending more time on the ground looking at the neighborhood you live in allows you to get to know what is going on. And when you know what’s going on, you can be more effective as a citizen and resident of your community.
For example last year we were at Atlantic Antic, a several block long flea market that takes place annually in Brooklyn, and signed up to participate with the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative. BGI is a great organization working towards rebuilding the Brooklyn waterfront into public parks and pedestrian/bike paths, running from Red Hook all the way up to Greenpoint.
We also discovered the Gowanus Canal clean-up project. The canal is a seriously polluted waterway that runs from Brooklyn into the harbor. We fully support this initiative!
Via our morning and evening bike constitutionals, we have found more and more community gardens which we are actively pursuing membership for. Not only is it wonderful to get your hands in the dirt but it also adds tremendously to any neighborhood to have dedicated green space.
Supporting local businesses is always a favorite, especially bars and restaurants. As the demographics of Brooklyn change, with more and more residents leaving the little island in search of affordable housing, businesses are popping up to meet their needs. Within the past three months alone, two new bars have opened just blocks from our apartment, both of which have parent businesses in Manhattan: Abigail Wine Bar & Café on Classon and Sterling and Weather Up on Vanderbilt between Bergen and Dean. The Habana Outpost must be mentioned here as well, as the only solar powered restaurant in NYC, located here in Fort Greene. It’s parent restaurant is Habana Café in SOHO. More than just bars are moving in, however. In DUMBO, we have discovered no fewer than four film production houses that have moved over from Manhattan too.
The more we explore and get to love working and living in Brooklyn, the more ideas we get. We never stop talking about working for ourselves and with the demographics and location working in our favor the opportunities to realize that goal are getting closer to reality.
Let’s just think about this a little broader for a moment. The “Green Movement” is taking over and one of the major issues at hand is suburban commuting and the subsequent car pollution and depletion of oil involved. So if more and more communities were able to focus on the nearby, those communities could eventually grow into micro-cities. New Yorkers have been found to have the smallest carbon footprint per capita in the nation. Couldn’t we all learn something from this?
Back here in Brooklyn, as the bike lanes and pedestrian crossings increase, and the public waterfront parks come together, we get to see more and more of the beautiful borough we live in and we fall in love with it more and more. We don’t make the trip all about the destination but instead what we can learn on the way.
