Have you ever heard the term, “the five boroughs?” That refers to the five big sections of New York City, and today we’re going to talk all about Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of New York.
Hi there, I’m Jeff, JR is the producer, and this is episode 235 of Plain English.
Coming up today: For the third in our occasional series on destinations in the English-speaking world, we’re going to Brooklyn. It was once its own city, but is now a part of New York City. The English expression is a quirky one—to be able to tell. Like, “you can tell X; I can’t tell Y,” like that. We have a quote of the week. And our video lesson on the web site for this episode is about probabilities, talking about whether something is likely or not likely, more likely, less likely, based on probabilities, the chance that it will happen. That, along with the other episode resources, is available at PlainEnglish.com/235.
Brooklyn is more than just hipsters
Brooklyn is a borough of New York City—one of five large sections of the city—and though less famous than the borough of Manhattan, it has transformed itself into a destination in and of itself in the past decade. Brooklyn is just across the river from Manhattan—and the place for us to begin our audio tour is Brooklyn’s driveway, the Brooklyn Bridge.
The borough of Brooklyn is separated from Manhattan by the East River. Until the late 1800s, the only way to get from Brooklyn to Manhattan was by ferry. The ferries were popular and competitive, but still less convenient than a fixed bridge. The first fixed crossing was planned in 1870, but it was not until May 24, 1883 that the “New York and Brooklyn Bridge” was opened to the public. At first, it accommodated horse-drawn carriages, then elevated train lines, and now pedestrian and car traffic.
It’s an architectural gem, made of stone arches and suspension cables, and it is Brooklyn’s most famous landmark. The bridge connects lower Manhattan with Brooklyn’s traditional downtown, offering sweeping views of the cityscapes on both sides of the river. JR and I walked across it on a frigid December day when he was visiting New York a few years go.
Today, Brooklyn is known for its art and literature scene, independent restaurants, coal-fired pizza, eclectic shops, and craft breweries.
Brooklyn has a lot of cultural attractions. The Brooklyn Museum is the city’s third-largest and holds over 1.5 million artefacts from around the world. The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, the New York Aquarium, and the New York City Transit Museum are among the other cultural attractions. The Barclay’s Center on Atlantic Avenue is where the Brooklyn Nets basketball and New York Islanders hockey teams play. A women’s professional basketball team is scheduled to take up residence there this year.
If you’re willing to venture a little deeper into Brooklyn, you can visit Coney Island and Brighton Beach. Coney Island has one of the world’s oldest roller coasters, the Coney Island Cyclone. It’s wooden. It opened in 1927 and reaches a maximum speed of 60 mph. I have been on it. It creaks and it shakes, you wonder how it’s still operating, and you pray for dear life. But it is safe and a fun way to experience roller coasters as they once were. The good news is, it’s accessible: you don’t need to pay for a huge theme park. Just walk up to the booth on the street, buy your ticket, and hop right on. Parents take their children on the subway out to Coney Island just to ride the roller coaster and come home.
While you’re out there, you should indulge in Coney Island’s most famous delicacy: a Nathan’s Famous hot dog. Coney Island is the home of the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Held every year on the Fourth of July, its contestants compete to see how many hot dogs they can eat in just ten minutes. The record is 74. You can have just one or two at the famous Nathan’s stand.
If you like to breathe the fresh ocean breeze, you can take a walk along the Coney Island Boardwalk. That’s a two-mile-long path along the beach, with souvenir shops, food, and attractions. You can catch a Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball game in the summertime.
There’s one architectural style that’s always associated with Brooklyn and that is the brownstone. Brooklyn streets lined with brownstones are among the most scenic residential streets in New York City. The Brooklyn brownstone. It’s a rowhouse made of, well, brown stone and built typically in nineteenth century.
Besides its color, how can you tell if a house is a brownstone? Brownstones are typically three full stories above ground, plus a lower level that’s partially underground. They’re generally attached, so that an entire block has one brownstone after another, all sharing a wall, so it looks like one huge long building down the block. Each one has a steep staircase going up a half-story from the street, a stoop you can sit on and watch the world go by, and bay windows. Brownstone as a building material was cheap because it was easy to mine and sculpt, but today is considered prestigious and vintage.
If you can’t stay in a vintage Brownstone, you could at least browse the vintage shops. There’s great shopping in Brooklyn for people of any budget, from vintage resale shops to high-end designers and everything in between. On my most recent walk through Brooklyn, I remember seeing hand-made blue jeans, artisanal soaps, beard care stores, and more.
Speaking of beards, Brooklyn has been, of late, known as the epicenter of hipster culture. In my personal experience, Brooklyn’s reputation as hipster-central is overblown and not an entirely fair statement to make, since Brooklyn is about so much more than hipsters. But nonetheless, the two are often said in the same breath: Brooklyn hipsters.
Hipsters are a subculture that tends to shun mainstream fashions in favor of a style that’s individual, unique, and authentic. A hipster would be more likely to have a beard, wear a checked flannel shirt, wear unique designs, listen to indie music, wear bold glasses, and shop local. You would not find a hipster in a chain restaurant; you would find one in the Park Slope Food Co-op, which is a grocery store owned and operated—yes, operated—by its customers. You would not find a hipster at Urban Outfitters; you would find one at a vintage resale shop. You would not find a hipster at Starbucks; you would find one at Partners Coffee. And at Partners Coffee, you would not find the hipster order the pre-made coffee; it would probably be the fresh pour-over variety.
Who else lives in Brooklyn? Plenty of people. The area facing the waterfront close to Manhattan is dotted with new luxury high-rise condominiums, which start in the seven figures—meaning a million dollars or more for a studio apartment. Those have stunning views of Manhattan and the New York skyline.
Young families live in Park Slope. Carroll Gardens is known as an Italian neighborhood; Brighton Beach as a Russian one, though most Brooklyn neighborhoods, like so much of New York, are a mish-mash of all types of people from every part of the world. Brooklyn has more people than Manhattan; if it were its own stand-alone city, as it was until 1898, it would be the third-largest city in the United States.
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