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I am coming to visit NY for the first time in my life in less than a month. I'm going to stay in a hostel in midtown manhattan but i'm really interested in seeing as much as possible of the outher boroughs.
therefore it would be good to know which neighborhoods i should avoid.
There is a lot of great stuff to see in the outer boroughs.
If you like to eat there are many great, inexpensive restaurants underneath the 7 train in Queens on Roosevelt Avenue. You can check out chowhound.com for some recommendations, everything from Colombian, Romanian, Peruvian, Korean to Taiwanese. You can also visit Flushing Meadow Corona park where you can see the famous unisphere and the museum.
Prospect Park in Brooklyn is very beautiful. The Brooklyn Museum is there as well and the Transit Museum is not far away.
If you avoid the Bronx, you will miss Pelham Bay Park. Here, you can see the southernmost piece of rocky coastline on the Eastern seaboard. During the summer, there is a bus from the subway station, but not now. You would either have to cab, or walk. I've done the latter many times.
The neighborhood is not the best around the train station, but you should be OK during the daytime.
Thanks Johnny and dedalus, I'll keep that in mind.
Exnewyork, i'm not moving to NY, but i've heard the outer boroughs have a lot to offer, and I can imagine that restaurants and nightclubs in manhattan are pretty **** expensive. So the bronx is sketchy huh? how about queens and brooklyn, I'm pretty sure there are some crazy ruff areas there too..
Please recommend more stuff from your own neighborhoods.
Don't be a redneck and do go to the other boroughs.
Brooklyn has the museum and the park, architecture, and great pizza and restaurants. Get info and avoid the many ghettos.
Queens has good museums (I love the ones in Long Island City), the most varied food and people in New York, the great Queens Museum and the World Fair site and so on. Big as it is, many parts you won't want to visit.
I don't like The Bronx, which is mostly a dump but has the real Little Italy in Arthur Avenue, Edgar Allan Poe's house, the Botanical Garden and the Zoo and Yankee Stadium if you care for sports.
Staten Island is not worth. Seriously. But its' home to a Tibetan Museum, a Frank Lloyd Wright house and beaches.
I would recommend you buy a good guide of New York and read more about the five boroughs, but if you have little time, focus on the essentials of course. Sorry this is all too general anyway.
with the exception of the very north of manhattan and parts of the bronx and brooklyn ( to which there would be no reason to go) new york is rediculously safe. i've lived here all 27 years of my life and it is currently as safe as its ever been. make sure to atleast see north brooklyn on your visit- dumbo,brooklyn heights,park slope,ft. greene,clinton hill (where i live) etc. it is the finest city on earth period. enjoy your trip.
I wish I was back in New York, I'd offer to be your tour guide. The Boros are wonderful--rich in culture, differences, sites and sounds.
a) in the Bronx, you have the Botanical Garden -- just that alone is worth seeing.
b) in Richmond, which is called Staten Island, take the ferry, it is free, walk around, eat up the hill from the Government house, take a camera, ask questions.
c) in Queens, like someone said, great museums in LIC, and ethnic food from one country to the other, sometimes side-by side, sometimes in just the next neighbourhood.
d) in Brooklyn, which I know best, you have Coney Island, the boardwalk, different ethnic foods and restaurants, one of the world class museums, the Brooklyn Museum right in Crown Heights. In one little corner there is a hidden Chinatown with better food than the neighbourhood in Manhattan.
NYC is a treasure trove of sights---don't pass it up! Enjoy!
Quote:
Originally Posted by anttewuan
Hi,
I am coming to visit NY for the first time in my life in less than a month. I'm going to stay in a hostel in midtown manhattan but i'm really interested in seeing as much as possible of the outher boroughs.
therefore it would be good to know which neighborhoods i should avoid.
Thanks guys this is all great stuff,
in queens all the different people and ethnic food is really fascinating, i live in Helsinki, Finland, and we really don't have too much of that stuff around here. But what about specific neighborhoods? (other that LIC)
Brooklyn sounds like a great place, i've read about brooklyn heights and park slope, and those are places i'll definately visit.. so is the southern and eastern parts of brooklyn generally the more ghetto areas??
In the Bronx, see City Island. In Queens, enjoy the incredible ethnic diversity, which we have in other places in New York City, but not to the same extent.
I'm from Brookyn. Coney Island is a dump, but it is iconic and therefore good to see. See, if you like, the Brooklyn beaches. They're not as nice as those in Rockaway (Queens) and in places out of NYC, but maybe worth seeing, if for no other reason than to note the diversity of environments here. Northern Brooklyn is the more classic Brooklyn, with brownstone homes and lots of history. Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope are two of my favorite areas. Southern Brooklyn has a more suburban, provincial feel, with many houses built in developments in the 1920's.
Sunset Park has become Brooklyn's Chinatown. There are wonderful Victorian homes in the Midwood and Ditmas Park neighborhoods. Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights are also nice. And don't forget the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Sheepshead Bay.
Also, Brooklyn is the only borough with its own downtown. Before it joined New York City, it was a city in its own right.
Prospect Park was regarded by its designer as his masterpiece, and he was the designer of Central Park!
But don't try to see everything. You can live in New York for a lifetime and always have new things to explore. There is a limit to what you can see and do in a vacation visit. The outer boroughs have a lot to offer, but I would imagine that the main destination for a tourist would be Manhattan.
Neighborhoods to avoid in Brooklyn: Brownsville, East New York.
Last edited by arel; 12-28-2006 at 03:32 AM..
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