The throngs of travelers content to take pictures from the queue for the Empire State Building elevator, board a ferry to the Statue of Liberty, or sit through a Sex And The City Location tour will always be there in abundance, supporting many an steeply-priced venture. The TGI Friday's in Times Square will always be full, offering $30 salads to willing consumers, and many a tourist might be left to wonder "how does anyone exist here as expensive/crowded/inconvenient as it is?"
Answer: nobody does.
Well a few individuals do. The Wall Street public have enough money for it, and dwell how we might imagine they do in the movies (or if you're keen on Ted Danson's George Christoper on Bored to Death), and a great many people are now living in gradually deteriorating rent-controlled rentals. Everyone else shelled out Manhattan rent for a while, then we got hip to the outer boros. People without (and, more and more, with) extraordinary wealth, but who know the city, usually tend to head for Brooklyn and Queens. What do I mean? The best dining places, watering holes, shopping, and neighborhood culture - indeed, the best things to do in NYC - have moved with them.
A new generation of travelers is progressively getting aware of this.
North 11th Street in Williamsburg, home of Beacon's Closet - perhaps Brooklyn's most famous second hand shop - as well as Vice.com head office, is overrun with tourists for the duration of week-ends. DUMBO, home of Food Network's Bobby Flay and backdrop fordon't make me say it againSex And The Cityhas turned into a bit like "Brooklyn Disney Land".
These spots are worth going to, and there are a lot more you haven't heard of.
Want the most genuine Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean food beyond Asia? Check out Flushing, Queens, a 20 minute journey on the LIRR, and a solitary subway stop from the Mets' City Field.
Enthusiastic about the next up-and-coming cool neighborhood, like Williamsburg but devoid of the travelers? Look no farther than Prospect/Crown heights, the home of an amazing and ever-changing variety of eateries, coffee houses and taverns, and perhaps the very best pizza in The Big Apple.
A little to the north of Williamsburg, where you can find the most overlooked brunch restaurant, Pizza joint, and steakhouse, respectively, is Greenpoint.
Why the outer boros? Exactly the same reason it's better to lodge with family and friends in a foreign place than to rely exclusively on a manual: you're acquiring a taste of the city from the perspective of local residents. Sure, Soho has wonderful (if crowded/overpriced) shops, you need to check out the East Village during your lifetime, and Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall can be worth a visit if you're able to get tickets. ButNew Yorkers are generally bargain-crazy and imaginative to-a-fault. Williamsburg's Barcade, where one can find a glass from one of the best taps within the city for an average of $6 and play classic video games for the original prices through the night, is more our pace. In the outer boros, particularly if you ask a local, you'll find-
-Authenticity - from Bushwick's taco diner run out of the rear room of a genuine tortilla plant to Woodside's SriPraPhai, roundly regarded to be probably the greatest of Thai Restaurants in the united states (think you've experienced Thai food? maybe), to Carroll Gardens' generations-old salami shops on Court Street, the outer boros are replete with places in the magical post-popularity-with-the-locals, pre-tourist-mecca sweet spot.
-Beauty - Prospect Park, and Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and the roadways of Cobble Hill, Park Slope, and Brooklyn Heights, are amongst the most photogenic urban landscapes in The United States, and in contrast to the Statue of Liberty and Central Park, they're less crowded than you'd expect. Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Bushwick - rugged places tagged with street art -are another kind of eye-catching, but no less "real".
-Vibrance - it's correct that some of the most daring eateries, like David Chang's Momofuku, Masaharu Morimoto's Masa, and Wiley DuFresne's WD-50, in addition to a few of the "expense account" spots like 11 Madison Park and the Grammercy Tavern, continue to call Manhattan home. Many others, like Carroll Gardens' Buttermilk Channel, Park Slope's Al Di La, Williamsburg's Fette Sau, as well as a rotating/ever-expanding cast of daring, chef-driven spots are happy to call Brooklyn home. The outer boros thrive with business joie de vivre as restauranteurs and business-owners take advantage of their lower rent and expanding consumer base.
-Higher Value - You night pay a lot for a dish in Brooklyn (though you certainly don't need to) but rest assured your hard earned money are buying more. A luxurious evening can be had at Buttermilk Channel for about $150 for 3, including wine - less than a third the cost of a comparable Manhattan locate. And there's a dizzying variety of fantastic meals under $20. (Prospect Heights' The Islands, in reality high-priced by Brooklyn standards, still delivers 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 pubs, where great varietals of ale are accessible for between $4 and $10 a mug and decent wine bars start at around $8 a goblet. (It's true, there are some decent watering holes in Manhattan, but if they're not divy or too expensive, they're overcrowded, like the West Village's Blind Tiger Ale House - excellent, but standing-room-0nly any time after 4pm, 7 days-a-week.)
To get a bit of all 3, have a look at the indoor flea market at One Hanson Place (except during spring and summer), also known as the Williamsburg Bank Building (not to be confused with Williamsburg the neighborhood unless you want an expensive and bothersome trip on the G train). A couple of hundred small crafts entrepreneurs make this flea market their home every Saturday and Sunday, and a talk with just a few of the razor-sharp, tech-savvy, artsy shopkeepers will fill you with the outer boros character for weeks to come.
Whether you're planning a trip to New York City and looking to avoid the crowds and high price tags, or a Manhattanite prepared to look past the East River - whether Yelp, the advice of a good friend, or (we hope) our site is your guidebook, give the outer boros a try, and get ready to enjoy the real New York.
Answer: nobody does.
Well a few individuals do. The Wall Street public have enough money for it, and dwell how we might imagine they do in the movies (or if you're keen on Ted Danson's George Christoper on Bored to Death), and a great many people are now living in gradually deteriorating rent-controlled rentals. Everyone else shelled out Manhattan rent for a while, then we got hip to the outer boros. People without (and, more and more, with) extraordinary wealth, but who know the city, usually tend to head for Brooklyn and Queens. What do I mean? The best dining places, watering holes, shopping, and neighborhood culture - indeed, the best things to do in NYC - have moved with them.
A new generation of travelers is progressively getting aware of this.
North 11th Street in Williamsburg, home of Beacon's Closet - perhaps Brooklyn's most famous second hand shop - as well as Vice.com head office, is overrun with tourists for the duration of week-ends. DUMBO, home of Food Network's Bobby Flay and backdrop fordon't make me say it againSex And The Cityhas turned into a bit like "Brooklyn Disney Land".
These spots are worth going to, and there are a lot more you haven't heard of.
Want the most genuine Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean food beyond Asia? Check out Flushing, Queens, a 20 minute journey on the LIRR, and a solitary subway stop from the Mets' City Field.
Enthusiastic about the next up-and-coming cool neighborhood, like Williamsburg but devoid of the travelers? Look no farther than Prospect/Crown heights, the home of an amazing and ever-changing variety of eateries, coffee houses and taverns, and perhaps the very best pizza in The Big Apple.
A little to the north of Williamsburg, where you can find the most overlooked brunch restaurant, Pizza joint, and steakhouse, respectively, is Greenpoint.
Why the outer boros? Exactly the same reason it's better to lodge with family and friends in a foreign place than to rely exclusively on a manual: you're acquiring a taste of the city from the perspective of local residents. Sure, Soho has wonderful (if crowded/overpriced) shops, you need to check out the East Village during your lifetime, and Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall can be worth a visit if you're able to get tickets. ButNew Yorkers are generally bargain-crazy and imaginative to-a-fault. Williamsburg's Barcade, where one can find a glass from one of the best taps within the city for an average of $6 and play classic video games for the original prices through the night, is more our pace. In the outer boros, particularly if you ask a local, you'll find-
-Authenticity - from Bushwick's taco diner run out of the rear room of a genuine tortilla plant to Woodside's SriPraPhai, roundly regarded to be probably the greatest of Thai Restaurants in the united states (think you've experienced Thai food? maybe), to Carroll Gardens' generations-old salami shops on Court Street, the outer boros are replete with places in the magical post-popularity-with-the-locals, pre-tourist-mecca sweet spot.
-Beauty - Prospect Park, and Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and the roadways of Cobble Hill, Park Slope, and Brooklyn Heights, are amongst the most photogenic urban landscapes in The United States, and in contrast to the Statue of Liberty and Central Park, they're less crowded than you'd expect. Williamsburg, Crown Heights, and Bushwick - rugged places tagged with street art -are another kind of eye-catching, but no less "real".
-Vibrance - it's correct that some of the most daring eateries, like David Chang's Momofuku, Masaharu Morimoto's Masa, and Wiley DuFresne's WD-50, in addition to a few of the "expense account" spots like 11 Madison Park and the Grammercy Tavern, continue to call Manhattan home. Many others, like Carroll Gardens' Buttermilk Channel, Park Slope's Al Di La, Williamsburg's Fette Sau, as well as a rotating/ever-expanding cast of daring, chef-driven spots are happy to call Brooklyn home. The outer boros thrive with business joie de vivre as restauranteurs and business-owners take advantage of their lower rent and expanding consumer base.
-Higher Value - You night pay a lot for a dish in Brooklyn (though you certainly don't need to) but rest assured your hard earned money are buying more. A luxurious evening can be had at Buttermilk Channel for about $150 for 3, including wine - less than a third the cost of a comparable Manhattan locate. And there's a dizzying variety of fantastic meals under $20. (Prospect Heights' The Islands, in reality high-priced by Brooklyn standards, still delivers 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 pubs, where great varietals of ale are accessible for between $4 and $10 a mug and decent wine bars start at around $8 a goblet. (It's true, there are some decent watering holes in Manhattan, but if they're not divy or too expensive, they're overcrowded, like the West Village's Blind Tiger Ale House - excellent, but standing-room-0nly any time after 4pm, 7 days-a-week.)
To get a bit of all 3, have a look at the indoor flea market at One Hanson Place (except during spring and summer), also known as the Williamsburg Bank Building (not to be confused with Williamsburg the neighborhood unless you want an expensive and bothersome trip on the G train). A couple of hundred small crafts entrepreneurs make this flea market their home every Saturday and Sunday, and a talk with just a few of the razor-sharp, tech-savvy, artsy shopkeepers will fill you with the outer boros character for weeks to come.
Whether you're planning a trip to New York City and looking to avoid the crowds and high price tags, or a Manhattanite prepared to look past the East River - whether Yelp, the advice of a good friend, or (we hope) our site is your guidebook, give the outer boros a try, and get ready to enjoy the real New York.
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Finally, if you're interested in the best things to do in NYC , including comprehensive articles about Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods, eateries, and hot spots, check out the Beyond Manhattan Blog.
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