It goes without saying that if you’re a tourist in New York City, chances are your visit will be confined to Manhattan and you won’t think to visit any of the other boroughs. This may soon change, for Brooklyn at least, as the borough is stepping up to challenge the Manhattan-centric tendencies of tourism through an upcoming tourism website named ExploreBK. While Brooklyn already has a tourism website run by the office of the borough president, VisitBrooklyn, the new ExploreBK website is the brainchild of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and Hybrid Media, a private Brooklyn-based company. ExploreBK will target visitors to New York unfamiliar with the entertainment and culture that Brooklyn offers through advertising events and activities throughout the borough.

After 34 years, the Shakespearean company Theater for a New Audience finally has a place to call home. Performing in Off-Off-Broadway theaters, school gymnasiums, and even a YMCA, it can come back to the Polansky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn time and time again, because, well, it’s theirs.

With all those mega high-rises going up in Manhattan and on the newly tapped waterfront areas, it’s easy to forget about New York City’s outer boroughs and the many neighborhoods throughout. We already know that places like Williamsburg and Long Island City are hot markets, but a recent report released by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) shows that they aren’t the only popular neighborhoods. While Williamsburg and LIC are doubtlessly contributing to the popularity of Brooklyn and Queens, other areas have helped contribute to a 6-year high in home sales. 

Brooklyn, or New York’s other face ... It all started out in 1636 as the Dutch began to buy lands across the East River. Six small Dutch towns saw the light, among them “Breuckelen,” which was named after a small village in the Netherlands. The English soon took over and renamed these six towns as “Kings County” in 1664. Kings County’s streets have witnessed the Revolutionary War, and were occupied by British troops until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. The county then enjoyed the proximity of New York City in the nineteenth century, with urbanization and industrialization taking precedence as more immigrants started to settle in the borough.