The Brooklyn Experience: The Ultimate Guide to Neighborhoods & Noshes, Culture & the Cutting Edge (Rivergate Regionals Collection)

A really valuable guide for residents and visitors alike, this book impressed me with the breadth of its information and its inclusive definition of what Brooklyn means in 2016, creating a kind of timeless zone where colonial history coexists with immigrant dock workers and food trucks, in a way that manages to match the borough's unique character. Well-organized as a resourse for any particular need at hand, whether finding a good Italian place for dinner or a nearby park to take the kids to, it is equally enjoyable to sit down with and peruse at length.

Anyone who grew up in Brooklyn will like this book.

I found this book disappointing and not really worthy of its subject. It is basically just a book of lists: where to eat, where to shop, etc., somewhat like an elongated magazine article. The prose is done in a very choppy telegraphic fashion. Sadly no maps, no walking guide to lead you through the various neighborhoods and to let you absorb the 'feel' of the place. Brooklyn is a vast place that requires a huge amount of shoe leather too really appreciate and even after that you've barely scraped the surface. The county of Kings deserves much better.

Brings Brooklyn to life. The ideal guide.

A good guide to Brooklyn

Terrific exploration of Brooklyn

As a suburban Mom (Connecticut) with kids living in Brooklyn, The Brooklyn Experience has made me a whole lot cooler than I actually am - especially in the eyes of my Brooklynite kids. It's been a blast impressing them with my 'insiders' " knowledge and my new found ability to propose exciting places to explore, enjoy, and of course, eat! This author has not only assembled tons of usable, up to the minute information (not just facts but what places feel like.. the character, the crowd, and the overall 'vibe') as to what's hot and what's what.. she also shares the warmth, the traditions, and the history of this enormous borough.. which makes being there all the more sweet.After I'm done impressing my kids, I look forward to giving them their own copies of the book - so they can further discover their new 'home town.' Plus - an extra bonus - Freudenheim is an excellent, passionate writer.. so this is a really good read. I feel she offers real insight as to how to spend a day, a week, or lifetime in a that unweildy place called Brooklyn.

“You’re in Brooklyn! Mix it up!” So writes Brooklynite Ellen Freudenheim in her fourth encyclopaedic guidebook to the borough. It’s the perfect exhortation for the most diverse, mercurial, constantly evolving (and sometimes plain frustrating, as Freudenheim is refreshingly happy to acknowledge) destination on the planet, and it’s equally apt for this book. The Brooklyn Experience – “a Brooklyn collage,” as Freudenheim memorably dubs it – is as fascinating, eclectic and surprising as the neighborhoods with which it so thoroughly and entertainingly engages. Brooklyn is no ordinary place, and it requires a guidebook that is out of the ordinary. This is it. Not only will you find all the usual elements – history, landmarks, places to eat, parks and other green spaces, festivals, cultural hubs – but you will also encounter Brooklyn residents describing, in their own words, the things they love and hate about the place, the changes it has undergone in recent decades, the everyday niggles and delights, and the bigger political questions involved in the ongoing creation of the global phenomenon known as “Brooklyn,” which has become synonymous with creativity, cool, community and enterprise. An underlying assumption of the book – and surely a correct one – is that the people really make the borough, not the brownstones, the independent coffee shops, or the organic baby arugula (I had to look that last one up). With this in mind, most sections include “Brooklyn Voices,” an appropriately diverse range of residents sharing thoughts on everything from neighbourhood restaurants to the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish community.Let me offer a specific example, based on Freudenheim’s discussion of a neighbourhood which, for reasons I don’t need to bore you with here, I have a particular affection for – Bedford-Stuyvesant, or Bed-Stuy. Starting with a general discussion and a side panel of “Basics” (with information about navigation, events and accommodation), the Bed-Stuy chapter continues with “Best Bets” – a quirky list of things to do that allow the visitor fully to experience the neighbourhood, followed by a brief history and a section on “Old/New Brooklyn.” (All the chapters devoted to individual neighborhoods follow a similar structure.) This last topic – old and new – runs throughout the book. Indeed, one of its key strengths is the honest recognition that Brooklyn has changed and continues to change almost too rapidly to comprehend and catalogue. The “Brooklyn Voices” insert in the Bed-Stuy chapter has Colvin W. Grannum, President and CEO of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, talking about his neighborhood’s “cultural richness” but also about the double-edged nature of gentrification which, he states, is “all about access to capital” and leads in many cases to displacement of long-term residents. It is these kinds of observations that make Freudenheim’s book more than a guidebook: it’s also a social history, with some Brooklyn anthropology thrown in.And – it warms this literary critic’s heart to say – there’s also an extensive section on literary Brooklyn: not only the ridiculous number of authors who live there these days, but also the astonishing range of novels set in the borough. As someone who claims to know quite a lot about Brooklyn fictions, I have to admit to purchasing some new and previously unknown titles after reading the list of novels included here. There’s Brooklyn and there is, of course, “Brooklyn,” and Freudenheim recognises that self-representation and self-mythologising, in novels, films and TV shows, are important contributors to Brooklyn’s contemporary identity. So much more, too. Disquisitions on the famed Brooklyn attitude, stoop-sitting, the rivalry with Manhattan, the all-important things to do with kids, and lots and lots of high-quality pizza. I want to visit Brooklyn again. Now. And this wittily written, usable and exciting book is the reason why. Don’t buy any other guide to Brooklyn.

“You’re in Brooklyn! Mix it up!” So writes Brooklynite Ellen Freudenheim in her fourth encyclopaedic guidebook to the borough. It’s the perfect exhortation for the most diverse, mercurial, constantly evolving (and sometimes plain frustrating, as Freudenheim is refreshingly happy to acknowledge) destination on the planet, and it’s equally apt for this book. The Brooklyn Experience – “a Brooklyn collage,” as Freudenheim memorably dubs it – is as fascinating, eclectic and surprising as the neighborhoods with which it so thoroughly and entertainingly engages. Brooklyn is no ordinary place, and it requires a guidebook that is out of the ordinary. This is it. Not only will you find all the usual elements – history, landmarks, places to eat, parks and other green spaces, festivals, cultural hubs – but you will also encounter Brooklyn residents describing, in their own words, the things they love and hate about the place, the changes it has undergone in recent decades, the everyday niggles and delights, and the bigger political questions involved in the ongoing creation of the global phenomenon known as “Brooklyn,” which has become synonymous with creativity, cool, community and enterprise. An underlying assumption of the book – and surely a correct one – is that the people really make the borough, not the brownstones, the independent coffee shops, or the organic baby arugula (I had to look that last one up). With this in mind, most sections include “Brooklyn Voices,” an appropriately diverse range of residents sharing thoughts on everything from neighbourhood restaurants to the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish community.Let me offer a specific example, based on Freudenheim’s discussion of a neighbourhood which, for reasons I don’t need to bore you with here, I have a particular affection for – Bedford-Stuyvesant, or Bed-Stuy. Starting with a general discussion and a side panel of “Basics” (with information about navigation, events and accommodation), the Bed-Stuy chapter continues with “Best Bets” – a quirky list of things to do that allow the visitor fully to experience the neighbourhood, followed by a brief history and a section on “Old/New Brooklyn.” (All the chapters devoted to individual neighborhoods follow a similar structure.) This last topic – old and new – runs throughout the book. Indeed, one of its key strengths is the honest recognition that Brooklyn has changed and continues to change almost too rapidly to comprehend and catalogue. The “Brooklyn Voices” insert in the Bed-Stuy chapter has Colvin W. Grannum, President and CEO of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, talking about his neighborhood’s “cultural richness” but also about the double-edged nature of gentrification which, he states, is “all about access to capital” and leads in many cases to displacement of long-term residents. It is these kinds of observations that make Freudenheim’s book more than a guidebook: it’s also a social history, with some Brooklyn anthropology thrown in.And – it warms this literary critic’s heart to say – there’s also an extensive section on literary Brooklyn: not only the ridiculous number of authors who live there these days, but also the astonishing range of novels set in the borough. As someone who claims to know quite a lot about Brooklyn fictions, I have to admit to purchasing some new and previously unknown titles after reading the list of novels included here. There’s Brooklyn and there is, of course, “Brooklyn,” and Freudenheim recognises that self-representation and self-mythologising, in novels, films and TV shows, are important contributors to Brooklyn’s contemporary identity. So much more, too. Disquisitions on the famed Brooklyn attitude, stoop-sitting, the rivalry with Manhattan, the all-important things to do with kids, and lots and lots of high-quality pizza. I want to visit Brooklyn again. Now. And this wittily written, usable and exciting book is the reason why. Don’t buy any other guide to Brooklyn.

Love all the Brooklyn history. A real treasure trove of useful information for tourists or Brooklyn expats like myself.As a teenager growing up in Brooklyn in the 70's, I couldn't wait to move to Manhattan. Now Brooklyn is the "cool" place.I plan on buying another copy as a gift for other ex-Brooklynites !!!