For the past few weeks I’ve been traveling in Peru and Bolivia with a tour company that practices what it dubs “responsible travel.” Essentially, Gecko’s Adventures designs their tours to minimize travelers’ impact on the environment while maximizing interaction with the local community and ensuring that those communities benefit financially from Gecko’s tour groups (e.g. we stay in locally-owned hotels vs. the Holiday Inn).

On this particular trip, my tour group also had the opportunity to spend the night with a host family on Amantani Island, where 800 families live in mud-brick homes with no electricity and a single faucet in the yard for running water. In return for our lodging, we brought gifts of rice, sugar, cooking oil, and bananas – items that are difficult to come by on the island.

This got me thinking that I didn’t have to fly to the Southern Hemisphere to have a positive impact on an economically depressed neighborhood.

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (1)

I’m still on vacation in South America, and I had this grand plan to bring you a list of Brooklyn’s best parks to tide you over until I return. But then I checked out the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, in the hopes of finding a short, digestible list of parks in Brooklyn. But it turns out, between neighborhood green areas, playgrounds, etc., Brooklyn has over 200 parks. Way too many for me to research and consider while I’m supposed to be off the grid.

So I’m going to take an easier route. Much like I look at people with incredulity when they tell me they still haven’t made it to the top of the Empire State Building, here are the Brooklyn Parks You Really Shouldn’t Skip, plus a few personal favorites.

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)

I’m on vacation in South America for the next few weeks, so rather than just leave you without your weekly Brooklyn Sting, I thought I’d put together some quick facts to give you more background on Brooklyn and make you a hit at the next Brooklyn Historical Society* party. After the jump, Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Brooklyn.

*Note: I cannot confirm if the Brooklyn Historical Society even has parties.

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (2)

No matter how long I live in Brooklyn, no matter how many times I get off the L at Bedford Avenue, or spend the afternoon in Fort Greene Park, I don’t really think that anyone will really be able to call me a hipster. It’s probably because of this that I love looking at (and talking about) hipsters. They fascinate me. However, as far as I’m concerned, hipsters can only come from, live in, or hang out in Brooklyn. There may be plenty co-habitating in Alphabet City or repopulating Astoria in the hipsterian image, but to me, they’re a different breed.

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)

As the middle class, the upper middle class, and even the upper class continues to be priced out of Manhattan, developers have noticed that Brooklyn really isn’t all that far away from the center of the universe after all, and contains quite a bit of land just waiting for development.

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)

*April 16 - Jazz Wednesdays with Jeff Newells New-Trad Octet at the Brooklyn Lyceum in Gowanus

*April 17 - Homebuyers Seminar at HSBC Bank in Flatbush

*April 17 - Reading by Paul Muldoon at BAMcafe in Fort Greene

*April 19 - Last Exit to Brooklyn - Red Hook walking tour with the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment

*Through April 23 - “Chaotica” exhibition by Nancy Lunsford at Brooklyn Artists Gym on Seventh Street

*Through April 26 - Brooklyn Designers Showcase at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights

*Through July 13 - Murakami exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in Park Slope

read comments (0)

Hi, I’m Jaime, and I’ll be covering the Brooklyn beat here on the neighborbee blog every week. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for eight years, but I definitely don’t know everything about it. So while I’ll be bringing you news and events from BKLYN, I’ll also rely on the community to keep me informed and in check about anything I’ve missed.

When you live in Brooklyn as long as I have, you notice your friends falling into one of two groups: those who live in Brooklyn, and those who refuse to step foot in another borough besides Manhattan. So to introduce you to my Brooklyn neighborhood as well as drag some of you over one of the three bridges connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, I’m presenting you with the Reluctant Bridge-Crosser’s Guide to Brooklyn. Strap on your most comfortable ironic footwear!

Read the rest of this entry »

read comments (0)