Saturday evening, 9:30 p.m. The Manhattan to Williamsburg subway is packed with young people. Girls in short skirts shiver in the air conditioning cold. Boys in plaid shirts hold on to the steel bars. One has a boom box with him. The train jerks over the East River, on the right the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge span the river, on the left the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building glow. The big old skyline lags behind the young people.
Ahead of them lies Brooklyn, the sparse lights of the Williamsburg neighborhood. There are a handful of new, glass luxury residential towers by the river, but otherwise the houses here are low, flat-roofed brick warehouse blocks. The old domino sugar factory is crumbling. And yet everyone goes here.
—Williamsburg Bridge, behind it the old Domino sugar factory.
(Foto: Bloomberg)
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“I actually only go out in Brooklyn,” says Michael Swann, a friend of the one with the boom box. “The mood is more aggressive in Manhattan, there are more drunks and show-offs.” He and his friends want to have a drink first, maybe dance later. There are no specific plans, and that’s exactly what the 23-year-old likes. “Brooklyn is a great place to drift through the night.”
Brooklyn. It used to be ugly and dangerous here, a neighborhood for people who couldn’t afford Manhattan. Songs have been written about the hard life in Brooklyn’s ghettos, for example by the rapper Jay Z, who comes from the neighborhood: “Brooklyn we go hard, we go hard!” He sings. But the rough times are long gone.
Today Jay Z is a multimillionaire, and that Magazin GQ made Brooklyn the coolest place chosen on the planet. People from Brooklyn used to come to Manhattan to go out. Today the subways from Manhattan to Brooklyn are full on Saturday night, those from Brooklyn to Manhattan are almost empty.
The best small shops, restaurants, bars and clubs are on this side of the East River – especially in Williamsburg. Brooklyn is no longer defined by Manhattan, Brooklyn is cool itself.
Almost everyone on Marcy Avenue gets off the J-Line, including Michael. “I’m moving to Williamsburg next year, I’ve been here all the time anyway,” he says. He got cheap dorm room from his university in Manhattan’s East Village, but all of his friends live in Brooklyn. They want to start their night in the Crown Victoria Bar, a former police car workshop. “That’s where the beer is best,” says Michael. The little group squeezes in single file over the subway platform.
There’s a little bit of old Brooklyn left here on Marcy Avenue. There are nail salons and McDonald’s, the 99-cent store Loco-Crazy-Loco and Chinese food made from cardboard boxes at Fortune Place. Manhattan’s yellow taxis are missing, the sidewalks are full of pigeon poop.
The hip part of Williamsburg begins a few street corners further. A chain of lights shines in the tree in front of a red brick building. Music enters the street when the door opens: “When The Saints Go Marching In.” Welcome to the Saint Mazie Bar on Grand Street. It is still fairly empty at this time, there are seats available at the long bar. The bartender wears suspenders, runs a piece of lemon around the rim of the cocktail glasses and uses ice cubes to cool them down to the perfect temperature before pouring the freshly shaken drink.
Brooklyn, especially Williamsburg, is the epicenter of the cocktail movement. Actually, the bartender is no longer allowed to be called a bartender, but a mixologist. Drinks are as great an art as a carefully cooked dinner. A Hemingway Daiquiri tastes like white rum and lime juice and costs ten dollars. Old mirrors hang on the wall, the ceiling fans are activated by leather straps, candles light up on the counter. The live music starts at 11 p.m. The trio A-Toner plays jazz. It’s really full now.
“Now the sore people from Manhattan are all here, and there’s nowhere to go”
But if you really want to leave New York, you can’t stay too long. New York, including Brooklyn, is not a city to linger. Williamsburg has a pub to suit all tastes. The bar in the Post Office is full of bottles, the walls are paneled with dark wood and the selection of whiskey is large.
Pete’s Candy Store has no candy, but cheap beer and rock music. Union Pool used to be a shop for swimming pool equipment, today pretty young people dance here mostly to indie rock and without paying admission. There’s a taco stall in the back yard. It’s a good place to have some casual dancing before the big party starts. It is now midnight.
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