Things to Do in Brooklyn

Tourists can spend their time looking up when in the Streets and Avenues of Manhattan; they can get a crick in their necks. It is far easier to get an overall perspective of the buildings and skyline by being some distance away and walking across the Brooklyn Bridge before seeing some of the attractions on the Brooklyn Side is one of the ways to do it.

The Bridge is the direct connection between the two boroughs and is 1.3 miles long over the East River and it is an ideal place to take photographs of all Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. There are plenty of signs to direct tourists and there is a walkway across specifically because walking across is such an obvious thing for the walker.

It is obviously also a good vantage point to see the other Bridges on the East River and Brooklyn from a distance.

Once on the Brooklyn side, there is plenty to do and see starting with a leisure stroll in Prospect Park which has its own zoo, a lake, and a 90 acre meadow.

Alternatively visitors can go to the nearby Botanic Gardens which has a cherry tree esplanade, a rose garden and a Japanese hill and pond garden among other things; hire a bike which can be by the hour or day; the company is right across the City to bikes can be hired in one location and dropped off in another. There are also boating, playgrounds and activity fields.

St.Ann’s Warehouse is worth a look, an old 14,000sq.ft. spice milling factory on the River Front. The theatre has regular performances which the tourist can research before his or her trip.

The Brooklyn Heights Promenade is a further good vantage point for photographs of the surrounding landmarks. The New York Transit Museum is in Brooklyn Heights.

Powerhouse Arena is a cultural experience, a 5000sq.ft. building which is a gallery, book store and boutique. It contains some wonderful art and books.

Brooklyn is the second largest of New York’s Boroughs in terms of area, and there are 2.5m people living there many of whom work in the Borough hose commercial base grew as a spin off from Manhattan.

Brooklyn has the second largest public Art Museum in USA with over 1.5m exhibits. It is over a century old and displays everything from Egyptian artefacts to contemporary art. There is also a children’s museum, the first dedicated purely to children which has been open a similar length of time

The Brooklyn Academy of Music has an opera house with over 2000 seats as well as a smaller theatre. The world famous Brooklyn Philharmonic plays at the Academy.

Coney Island was once a place of the rich and famous before becoming the Country’s first amusement grounds. They have been renovated and opened as Luna Park in 2010.

Brooklyn is a little alternative to the bustle of Manhattan while still holding both culture and leisure as options during the day.

Steven blogs for NYC Vacation Rentals, a supplier of vacation rentals in New York.