I haven’t been hiking or doing much outdoors lately. In fact been holed up in Brooklyn for family reasons. Still not an excuse to not go out and explore. In fact there are many street art and eateries to be enjoyed in this fascinating borough that alone equates nearly the population of Chicago, US’s 3rd largest city.
Fun fact about Brooklyn is back in the day it used to be 6 separate towns. The first 5 were owned by the Dutch and the 6th by the British:
- Bushwick
- Brooklyn
- New Utrecht
- Flatbush
- Flatlands
- Gravesend
Here's an old map of what the area used to look like:
Today we’re going to explore:
I wanted to go to the Greenpoint Terminal Market to check out arts & crafts. During winter it takes place inside the Brooklyn Expo Center.
I went and wasn’t too impressed with the options, seemed more like a flea market. I decided it would be more fun to walk around and explore.
This is a four-story building façade mural by Swedish artist Ola Kalnins. It was just an intersection that used to be boring and the mural gave it life.
This red brick, brownstone and terra-cotta housed the Mechanics and Traders Bank of Brooklyn which ultimately got gobbled up to what is today JP Morgan Chase . It is currently for sale and was the site of 2 movies:
- 1996 film “Sleepers.”
- 1998 film “The Siege,”
This here is the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company’s factory. The plant was in operation until 1956. Faber is credited for bringing German pencil making techniques to America, changing the way the simple pencil was constructed, a change that is still as popular today as over a hundred years ago. Faber himself invented the eraser at the end of the pencil. Now the complex houses the HQ of Kickstarter the crowdfunding platform:
The star and diamond logo you see on the pediments of the building are part of the brand. Along the facades you can also notice incribed pencils
The water tower pictured below served an assemblage of ancient warehouses known as the Greenpoint Terminal Market. It was marked with “Save the Palestine” and a Polish flag before it got covered with gray paint. The building alongside it is now set to be a gleaming, 155-room hotel
Along the way to Transmitter Park. Came across 3 fascinating murals, the women lying down is by Faile titled ‘Love me, Love me not’. The bottom 2 are Black Lives Matter themed but could not find the artist
WNYC Transmitter Park is a 1.6 acre site with two transmitter towers used from 1937 to 1990 until the station began broadcasting its AM frequency from the Meadowlands. Its been transformed now into an open green space, a playground and a recreational pier over the East River.
Further upstream is the Indy st ferry pier where you can catch a ferry to take you over to Manhattan. Dominating there is the Greenpoint tower
Right alongside the entrance there’s a sculpture that consists of two figures dressed like a greyscale Mickey Mouse with X’s for eyes. The sculpture, which is called “Waiting,” is the work of popular artist KAWS. A year ago I saw the same sculpture in Detroit
The views from the pier were something else, across the river the Manhattan skyline and then southwards you can see the transmitter park.
Another impressive historical building called the Astral. I was built by Charles Pratt a pioneer in the oil industry and it served as a tenement for his refinery workers.
Fun fact of Greenpoint. The streets starting at the Northern end in Greenpoint after the letters of the alphabet with a few exceptions: Ash, Box, Clay, Dupont, Eagle, Freeman, Green, Huron, India, Java, Kent, Greenpoint (Avenue), Milton, Noble, Oak, Calyer, and Quay Streets.
A thing I love about Brooklyn is the amount of detail you can extricate from a single picture. Aside from the obvious Shepard Fairey mural, notice the vandalized sign of a former chicken slaughterhouse. The area here obviously changed a lot from being an industrial town to more residential. The slaughterhouse only existed because it was grandfathered before new zoning laws took effect. The neighbors did not tolerate it and the city did nothing to relocate the business until it suddenly went out of business and its old sign got vandalized. The community loved the vandal so much that t-shirts now exist about it.
Lastly I leave you with food stuff. I did not have a chance to eat anything in my short stint but everyone talks about Paulie Gee’s Pizza joint. They do Neopolitan pizza in this shack here but there is also a slice joint near the expo center that always commands long lines.
This was fun, I recommend you also check out this YouTube clip below where they traverse most of the things I describe and more in video format
