Contrary to what I believed for a distressingly long time, Manhattan does not border the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, there’s a pretty giant landmass to the east, which some Manhattanites and especially NYU students, often seem to forget. It is called Brooklyn, and for the rest of the Wednesdays this year, I will be blogging about it.

 My first goal in this series is to convince you Freshman and unadventurous upperclassman that Brooklyn is really Not That Far Away. For my first year at NYU, I ventured into Brooklyn only rarely, for some concerts, Grimalidi’s pizza, and the occasional super-hip Williamsburg house party. Then I ended up living here, mostly for the cheaper rent, and discovered that not only was my commute fairly easy, I didn’t actually need to go into Manhattan every day. I could live just as full and complete a life on the other side of the river.

 I started to enjoy the calmer pace of the borough and to see in Brooklyn much of what I love about New York. There’s history here in this 374-year-old town, which you can find in the faded-out ads on the walls of abandoned warehouses, or in the cloistered, Old-World kingdoms of the Hasidic Jews below Williamsburg. Brooklyn has been compared to a younger Greenwich Village, since the artists, rebels, and freaks who gave life to Washington Square Park and the Bowery have all fled East now, to Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Red Hook.

 So for the rest of the semester, I’d like you to join me in exploring the neighborhoods in Brooklyn, talking to locals, and seeing what kinds of crazy things go on in NYC’s Easter-Than-East Side. If there’s anything you’re interested in or want me to write about, please leave me a comment.

 As I have nothing left to say for now, I’ll leave it up to a few of the better Brooklyn writers who have come before me:

Stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!

Throb, baffled and curious brain! Throw out questions and answers!

Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!

- “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Walt Whitman

The b-the-r-the-o-the-o-k

Best in the world and all USA

Its the b-to-the-r-the-o-the-o-k

L-y-n is the place where I stay.

- “Brooklyn,” Mos Def

Photo by Dean Stattmann