BrooklynA Feast for the Eye and the Stomachby Evelyn Kanter
It�s a shame most visitors to the Big Apple don�t get around to exploring this vibrant, colorful -- and still fiercely independent -- branch of� the city, especially since one of its most interesting and picturesque areas, Brooklyn Heights,� is just one or two subway stops from downtown Manhattan.
�In between, the promenade is crowded with joggers, roller-bladers, bicyclists and others who just, well, promenade, along the broad walkway, drinking in the view and the salt air that drifts in from the bay and the ocean beyond it.�� Hang around long enough to drink in the rest of the view.� To the left,� the� Verrazano Bridge, links Brooklyn to Staten Island.� To the right is the Brooklyn Bridge,� that spidery umbilical cord to Manhattan.� In between, there ferries, barges, freighters, helicopters buzzing in and out of the Wall Street Heliport, and, of course, all those skyscrapers, north to the Empire State Building, and beyond, many of which� are outfitted with festive holiday lights. Another spectacular view is from Fulton�s Landing, the pier from which Robert Fulton ran his revolutionary steam-powered ferries, a short walk from the promenade. On a sun-warmed autumn or early winter day, nothing beats walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, over a walkway that is part metal grating that lets you look straight down to the water below, and part concrete.� With every step, the skyline ahead changes, as does the intricate pattern of those cobweb-like support wires overhead. Montague Street, perpendicular to the promenade, is the commercial heart of Brooklyn Heights, lined with arts and crafts shops and galleries and a combination of� upscale restaurants and local hang-outs.� For me, though, the culinary appeal of this part of Brooklyn is the melange of Middle Eastern foodstuffs along Atlantic Avenue, a few blocks away, where you can eat yourself into oblivion and still have enough money left to play in the antique shops that line the next few blocks of this broad boulevard. Just follow your nose as it picks up the scents of cumin, coriander, honey, roasted nuts, fresh-baked bread and strong coffee. Sahadi Importing, at 187 Atlantic Ave., is as Old World as a store can be in the new world.� Wooden shelves groan under the load of cans and jars of mysterious things bearing Arabic labels.� Open barrels of dozens of different kinds of� green and ripe olives and sacks of dried apricots and other fruits, coffees and long and short-grain rices, tempt the senses and the shopping bag.� It is impossible not to nibble, and once you do, equally impossible not to swoop up a half-pound of this and a full pound of that. Damascus Bakery, a few doors down at 195 Atlantic Ave., bakes the round pita breads served by many of the Middle Eastern restaurants in New York and New Jersey, as well as packaging them for supermarket sale.� Here, the shelves are lined with stacks of fresh, fragrant pitas in several sizes. �The showcases are filled with� the trays of baklava, layers of flaky pastry mortared together by a mixture of crushed nuts and honey, and bird�s nests, circular little confections of thread-like pastry centered by another honey and nut melange.� They are great fortifications for the three or four blocks of Atlantic Avenue known as Antiques Row, that start as soon as the Middle Eastern shops peter out.� Even if you have no intention of buying, spend at least a little time as browsing.� Each of the dozen-plus shops on this strip specializes in something -- Victorian furniture and dolls or� Art Deco furniture and bibelots or rusted highway signs and other stuff from the 1940s and 1950s.� A stand-out is Time Trader Antiques, 368 Atlantic Ave., with three floors of restored antique furniture.� The building is easy to spot:� just look for the mosaics and stained-glass windows that highlight the facade.
For information:Brooklyn Tourism Council Brooklyn Museum of Art NYC Convention and Visitors Bureau Evelyn Kanter is a lifelong Manhattan resident who still refers to a certain baseball team as the Brooklyn Dodgers. -Updated 12-10-99- |
|
TM
If Brooklyn were an independent city instead of one of the five boroughs of New York City, its population of� 2.3 million would make it be one of the ten largest cities in the United States.� Indeed, Brooklyn was an independent city until 1898, and loyalists called the decision to join the city across the East River �the great mistake of �98� and marked the night before the� �marriage� with a formal ball at which everyone wore black.
The view east across the water from the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade (nobody calls it that; it�s known locally simply as �the promenade�) is spectacular, particularly at sunrise or sunset.� In the morning, the sun�s rays throw fiery orange light into the mirrored facades of the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan and silhouette the cobweb-like support wires of the Brooklyn Bridge.� In the evening, the sun sets in between those same buildings and wires, creating wonderfully eerie patterns of color and shadow.
Anywhere else, the Brooklyn Museum would be considered a world-class facility, but like Cinderella, it gets less respect than its better endowed step-sister, Manhattan�s Metropolitan Museum of Art.� Pity.� Brooklyn, like Manhattan, offers an impressive collection of ancient Egyptian art and artifacts.� Ditto primitive African objects and Impressionist paintings and sculpture � all in a structure that is easier to negotiate and appreciate than its competitor.� Another bonus � Brooklyn Museum is attached to Brooklyn Botanic Garden, an oasis of green calm, especially the Japanese teahouse area.� The museum, 718-638-5000, is open Wed.-Sun.; the garden, at 718-622-4433, is open daily.