Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

There are some neighborhoods in New York that seem more like a small town or village, rather than part of the big city, and one of the most famous is Williamsburg, Brooklyn .
We'll spend most of our time in this visit walking along the main street, Bedford Avenue, lined with all kinds of restaurants and bars, coffee shops and little boutiques, one-of-a-kind shops that you don't find anywhere else.
Williamsburg is a rather large neighborhood, and we will be focusing our attention on that central retail area around Bedford Avenue and some of the side streets.
Williamsburg is like a village within the city. It has gone through many changes over its history, and now it's very popular part of town, and it is only about twenty minutes away from midtown by subway, easy to get here.
We walk the main street of Williamsburg, Bedford Avenue. It goes for about ten blocks right through the middle of this section of town and there are interesting side streets that go off from it.
This neighborhood does have a resemblance to parts of lower Manhattan, such as what Soho might've looked like thirty years ago or the East Village today, but you'll find it enjoys its own unique atmosphere, an authentic slice of Brooklyn, which is still considered an Outer Borough, quite different than Manhattan.
Of course, in Williamsburg, there's food all over the place, restaurants, delis, take-out pizza, including some lunch trucks parked right on the street.
Italian, Spanish, all sorts of cuisines here, including some Asian vegetarian.
You are surely going to work up an appetite and a desire to dive into these cute little stores as you walk along on Bedford. We're heading north a few blocks, passing some more restaurants and pubs with an international cuisine such as The Bedford, a gastropub with a rustic charm. It's a busy street, with a big variety and no empty shop fronts.
Two blocks further north brings us to McCarren Park, which opened in 1906, and is a popular place for many outdoor sports like volleyball, soccer, swimming, ice skating in the winter, handball, and many other games.
In the old days, Brooklyn had been a powerhouse of American beer production, but that, along with many other factories, tended to fade away in the late twentieth century. And now there's been a revival of beer with the opening in 1996 of the Brooklyn Brewery, with their famous tasting room.
They're located next to Wythe Avenue, which is the other main road in this part of Williamsburg, and it has a few more shops and more residential buildings along the way. There's even a hotel, The Hoxton, one of half a dozen nice places you could stay in Williamsburg, and of course there's a lot of Air B&B type rentals as well.
They even have a beautiful waterfront promenade, and some parks along the East River with views across to Manhattan and of the majestic Manhattan bridge.
There's a ferry service two blocks over from the Sixth Street Pier that can take you either down to Wall Street or up to the East 34th St.
There are several parks along the river here, including Domino Park and the East River State Park.

The first village was chartered here in 1661 by the Dutch West India Company, which owned the land that they supposedly purchased from the Native Americans, who had occupied the area previously.
The English took over in 1664 and called the area Bushwick Shore, which became a farming community supplying food across the East River to New York City.
This area then achieved remarkable industrial and economic growth, with local businesses thriving. In 1855 the city of Williamsburg was annexed into the city of Brooklyn, which was independent from New York at the time, until 1898, when it became part of the City of New York.
The population them was heavily German, but many Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan came into the area to get away from the overcrowded, slum tenements. And then after World War II refugees from Eastern Europe, especially Hasidic Jews from Hungary and Romania, streamed and leading to a population explosion. Williamsburg is still well-known for its large Jewish population.
The area went into decline in the 1960s with a big increase in unemployment, and crime, gang activities, illegal drug use, but it really bounced back in the 1980s. Low-rent became a big draw to bring artists from Manhattan, which had become too expensive, over the Brooklyn, which was relatively cheap back in the 1970s, 1980s, it was a bargain.
This led to Williamsburg becoming a center of hipster culture – a lot of art, music, fashions. The creative crowd moved in. Now, however, property values have skyrocketed, and things have changed once again.
Life is good here in Williamsburg. You've got your Whole Foods. This has become a very upscale and gentrified part of town. Rents for two bedrooms could be up there at about $4000 a month. Crime rates are back down to normal for the city. It's a wonderful place to be.