Girls: Manhattan is dead
NEW YORK.- If 10 years ago, the four protagonists of Sex and the City claimed Manhattan as the cool center of the world (Brooklyn was the boondoggle for these cosmoaddicts), today, the new four HBO Girls have chosen Brooklyn as their operations center. For various supposed reasons: it's cheaper (at least in some areas), it's more hipster, it's younger and, ultimately, it's cooler . Another good reason is that three of its protagonists (Lena Dunham, Jemina Kirke and Zosia Mamet) grew up and now live in the most populous neighborhood in New York, although yes, also in the most expensive area (and, therefore, more boring). ) : Brooklyn Heights.
Waiting to see what places they will teach in the second season, we go through the neighborhoods that the four Girls (and their boys) have set foot in Brooklyn, their natural habitat, although they often go to Manhattan for work or to visit Shoshanna at her Nolita apartment.
GREENPOINT
Hannah (Lena Dunham) and Marnie (Allison Williams) live here, on indian street . It is the northernmost neighborhood in Brooklyn, bordering Queens. North of beaten track Williamsburg, just as trendy and almost as expensive as more and more hipsters flee here . And that is quite isolated, it only has one subway stop, Greenpoint Avenue (line G), which does not connect with the City.
Manhattan Avenue is the center of this neighborhood that has the largest concentration of Polish population . Little Poland they call it. So his thing is to try a goulash in a Polish restaurant, like Polska (136 Greenpoint Avenue) . If you are a fan of the series, you should approach the grumpy cafe, the place where Ray works (Alex Karpovsky) who, in turn, hired Hannah. You can also run for dupont street and try to easily overcome the mark of the protagonist: about four apples.
The Cafe Grumpy, which really exists
BUSHWICK
West of Williamsburg, **still in the early stages of widespread and feared gentrification**. Due to its still cheap prices, the good combination of transportation with Manhattan (L/J/M/Z lines) and the proximity to Williamsburg keeps it as a young neighborhood with an 'authentic' spirit of Brooklyn. If that exists. It is an area with an industrial atmosphere, with many warehouses and old warehouses that have not yet been recovered and others already converted into small lofts for students. That's why they came here to shoot, in an abandoned building, "the best party in New York" in an episode of the first season of Girls. As a **recommendation, directly stolen from the Clinton family (yes, Bill and Hillary), you have to try the pizza at Roberta's ** (261 Moore Street). Don't be scared by that sinister entrance. In fact, if you can't find a table there, go to Arancini Bros. (940 Flushin Avenue) for their Sicilian rice croquettes.
The pizza the Clintons like: Roberta's
PROSPECT HEIGHTS
It is one of the smallest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, but more recommendable . Adam (Adam Driver), Hannah's weird boyfriend, a parody of the New York hipster, seems silly, but he's not: his dilapidated and huge apartment (by New York dimensions) in the series is here, in St. John 's Place. He lives in one of the remaining late 19th century houses, but there are also modern residential buildings in the area and mansions similar to those on Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Despite being located between Park Slope and Fort Greene, the new Williamsburg, Prospect Heights retains cheap prices in its houses and in the active life of bars and restaurants that it has, although according to Hannah, you can only drink in a "dive" in this neighborhood , the Washington Commons (748, Washington Avenue). But the essential visit in Prospect Heights is the Brooklyn Museum and the Botanical Park.
Two girls with the Williamsburg Bridge behind
WILLIAMSBURG
It is already almost as seen as Soho or the Village . But keep going even though the hipsters are leaving, pushed by Manhattan yuppies moving into ridiculously expensive apartments like Thomas-John's (Chris O'Dowd) in Girls, Jessa's (Jemina Kirke) boyfriend and surprise husband. ) .
And why do you have to keep going? For its vintage shops (with Beacon's Closet at the top), for the views from the weekend market on the East River Waterfront or from the rooftop of the Wythe Hotel, for the fun Brooklyn Bowl... or for any of the new bars, New restaurants and cafes that keep popping up or renovating themselves from time to time. Like the old Royal Oak, where Hannah meets her ex-boyfriend Elijah (Andrew Rannells), who is now the recommended **The Bellwether, a restaurant run by real Williamsburgians**
Neighbors in the urban park of East River State Park
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS
It is “the adult Brooklyn” Lena Dunham calls him contemptuously in the series. And you are somewhat right . Because the sky-high prices of its well-maintained brownstones (the typical NY front-stairs reddish row houses) can only be afforded by adults with high incomes (famous actors, writers, and musicians live in this area) … or TV up-and-comers, like all the protagonists of the series: Dunham recently bought a one-bedroom penthouse for half a million dollars. With the "adult", Hannah also refers to the boring of the neighborhood: it has few and expensive bars and restaurants . It is a purely residential environment, with many parks, **in which Capote, Whitman, Arthur Miller or now Paul Auster lived and wrote **. For that reason alone, her Promenade, in front of Manhattan, deserves a stroll. [*As a curiosity for Dunham fans, a little further south, in Cobble Hill , this Henry Public , the bar where the actress usually goes to eat her turkey sandwich].
Hannah and Marnie walking through Brooklyn
CONEY ISLAND
Here ended the first season of Girls. On the beach at Coney Island with the amusement park behind it. Hannah woke up there, after falling asleep on the subway (a common and recognized practice among young Brooklynites, by the way).
Otherwise, surely a modern like her would not have set foot this neighborhood south of Brooklyn, impoverished after a lousy urban management in the 70s . And yet it is **one of the nicest, kitsch, decadent visits to New York**, especially if you go between April and October when the 1920s theme park is open, you can catch good sunny days to walk the promenade, eat a hot dog in the mythical Nathan's , the first place in the chain where the annual contest is held to see who is the beast that eats the most puppies, or see freak mermaids come out of the sea in the Mermaid Parade .
*PS: From here, a small act of justice from the author to a great series that, before Girls, claimed Brooklyn: Bored to Death.
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- 100 things you should know about New York - All the information about New York - Williamsburg, chronicle of a hipster neighborhood - Interviews with sad destinations: today, Coney Island
Lena Dunham waking up at Coney Island
Coney Island amusement park
Riding it on the streets of Brooklyn