Secret Brooklyn

by Michelle Young, Augustin Pasquet

New edition - 20 new secret locations Discover secret museums, go on an urban safari for wild parrots, locate a landmarked tree, enter the oldest building in New York City, watch a performance of robots in a church, stand tall next to hobbit doors on an otherwise normal residential street, learn how to breathe fire, swallow swords, hammer a nail into your skull and charm a snake, touch the oldest subway tunnel in the world and the world's smallest Torah, forage for food in Prospect Park, taste wine atop the world's first commercial rooftop vineyard, step inside a grocery store frozen in 1939, take in a basketball game inside a historic movie theater. Far from the crowds and the usual clichés, Brooklyn offers countless off-beat experiences and is home to any number of well-hidden treasures that are revealed only to residents and travellers who find their way off the beaten track. An indispensable guide for those who thought they knew Brooklyn well or would like to discover the other face of the city.

Genres: New York

256 pages, Paperback

Published May 7, 2019

About the author

Michelle Young is an award-winning journalist, author, and professor whose writing and photography has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Hyperallergic, The Forward, and Narratively. She is a graduate of Harvard College in the History of Art and Architecture and holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she is a Professor of Architecture. She is the founder of the publication Untapped New York. She divides her time between New York City and Paris.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though Secret Brooklyn is a guidebook (separated into sections by neighborhood, with color photos and page-long listings about various places/attractions), I think it'd be useful only to very intrepid tourists. I think it's a better book for NYC/Brooklyn residents who are interested in the weird/quirky/overlooked: there are some things in this book I would go out of my way to go to, but there are more spots that are just cool to read about, especially if they're things I've passed by without even knowing about them. There are places in this book that are familiar to me, and others that are totally new to me. I had no idea, for example, that there are two fragments of Plymouth Rock in Brooklyn Heights, or that the doors of a Lebanese church in that neighborhood are from the SS Normandie. I didn't know that the blue-and-yellow "L" tiling in the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station advertises a long-gone department store (Loeser's), or that the silver-gated area you can see next to the F-train track at Jay Street was where money was unloaded from a special train that ran until 2006, or that there's a cheese-aging business in an old brewery building's lagering tunnel, right next to a beer-hall that I've been to more than once. I love that this book includes a listing for the Pratt Institute Steam Plant, which used to power my favorite New Year's Eve event, though when I tried to take my boyfriend to look at the steam plant last year, it was locked and we were only able to peer in through the interior windows. I like that it mentions the abandoned lower-level Bergen Street subway station, which you can see from the train when the F runs on the express track. I like that it mentions the Masstransiscope, and the eruvin that serve as loopholes to the "no carrying things on the Sabbath" rule for Orthodox Jews, and how it calls out interesting parts of well-known attractions, like the Fragrance Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (which I love), or the Statue of Liberty replica in the parking lot at the Brooklyn Museum (whose story I hadn't previously known). And I love this, from the listing for the City Reliquary (which is definitely worth a visit): "You may not know yet that you're interested in scale models of the Statue of Liberty, or the skeletons of urban rats, or rock samples from the different New York boroughs. But you probably are. Helping you realize this is what The City Reliquary in Williamsburg is about" (65). If those few sentences appeal to you, the rest of this book probably will, too.

[Tripfiction · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best way to get under the skin of BROOKLYN



I do like the Secret… Guides. They are the next level up when you have done a lot of the ‘typical’ tourist venues and you want to go to the next level. They help you get under the skin of a place.

IN Brooklyn there is a vineyard, atop the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where the location and wind patterns are ideal for growing grapes. I mean, seriously, who knew!

There are catacombs and places of worship and green spaces. Oh, and those beautiful Native American faces at the Montauk Club.

There are enough things to do here to keep you going for many days.

[Jessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very excited to read this book after reading the one about DC. However, for whatever reason, I don't think this volume was as interesting. There were just a few entries that I cared enough about to read all the way through, which I thought was a little sad. Perhaps a volume about New York City in general would be better? I'm not sure.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with the earlier review that stated that this is a great book for locals. Much of it was interesting to read, but not interesting enough to visit during our trips.