A Fat Purple Fig

Our hosts, Allen and Ann, are old-school AirBnb, greeting us at the door and inviting us to join them for their nightly news-viewing. Their home is beautiful; high-ceilinged and filled with art and books. Allen tells me it has been leased to celebrities over the years; Keira Knightly, Emily Blunt, and Matthew Goode, who lived here for six months while filming a series. They aren’t supposed to know who their tenants are, but the neighbours keep an eye out, and report back. I would want to live here, if I could. I mean, who wouldn’t?

At breakfast, we sit at a table that overlooks the garden, and each choose a bagel from the basket Ann presents, which she then toasts. Allen sits at the kitchen bench, reading the newspaper, and suggesting New York sights. They communicate like a couple who has been married for 56 years.

‘Catch the Staten Island Ferry, and just stay on and come back.‘
‘You can’t stay on. You have to get off.‘
‘Well, ok, get off and get back on then.‘ Eye roll in our direction.

Kitty is staying in, so I boot up and set off for an exploratory walk, following Allen’s suggestion to ‘…head straight down Atlantic Street to the piers.‘ It is a beautiful day; warm, but not uncomfortably so, and with the spirit of Saturday in the air. I notice the shops first; the pet bakery, the gym for 12-and-unders, the hidden bar wrapped in caution tape, ready for Halloween. I pass a Mexican deli, and a store selling Australian ceramics, and fancy I wouldn’t mind a late-night delivery of warm cookies.

I walk with a cacophony of sirens and car horns as my soundtrack. The traffic really is something else here. You know when cars are last to make it through the light, but there isn’t space for them over the pedestrian walkway, meaning they block the traffic with a green light on the cross street? Well, that happens every time here. Every. Single. Time. And everyone beeps. Crossing the road is about weaving through the cars that are stuck. It’s just how it goes.

Atlantic eventually leads me down to Brooklyn Bridge Park. Once used for ferries and trade, the Port Authority did away with operations in the 1980s, and put the area up for commercial development. This is when, in Allen’s words, ‘some wealthy people got together and made a park instead.‘ They did, indeed. The Friends of Fulton Ferry Landing (later the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy) eventually won the protracted squabble over who got to do what with the area.

The issues – should public parks be privately owned? should luxury housing have been included to fund the park? – quieten when I arrive. I circumnavigate each pier, from six down to one, absorbing the community atmosphere. It is a runner’s paradise, flat and even, and with a view of Manhattan across the East River. The Piers each have a ‘specialty’ too, if you like. Some green, with pizza joints and children’s play equipment hidden amongst the trees, and others devoted to sport, with pickle ball nets, basketball courts, roller skating rinks – all in high-level use. One pier-end has been designated for fishing, and there is a row of fishermen taking advantage of the sinks provided.

The piers are bigger than you might expect. Pier 5, for example, provides five acres of sports fields. Today, the entire expanse is filled with junior soccer players, battling it out in their Saturday competition. Pier 1 is the largest of them all, at 9.5 acres, and includes Granite Prospect, a set of steps created from the stones salvaged from the Roosevelt Island Bridge reconstruction. It is likely as busy as it ever gets down here, but never feels crowded, because the area is so expansive.

I walk under the Brooklyn Bridge, enjoying the different perspective, it reminding me of standing beneath our Harbour Bridge, in The Rocks. Close by is Jane’s Carousel, created in 1922 and installed in Ohio, before being purchased and donated to Brooklyn Bridge Park.

I stop at different stages, beside beaches and at tables and on benches, watching athletes, spotting squirrels, and eavesdropping on conversations. There are photo shoots all over the place, of which this is my favourite:

I pass St Ann’s Warehouse, a church-cum-performing arts venue, and wish I could see their Australian production. Unless they have Australian actors, there will be some entertaining accents on show. Here, I veer away from Brooklyn Bridge Park into DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), which is all cobbled streets and warehouses, and come across an outdoor flea market, set under one of the archways beneath the Manhattan Bridge.

I so love a market.

On my way to the Brooklyn Bridge, I pass the current Etsy headquarters, housed in the warehouse where a Scottish emigrant named Robert Gair invented the first efficient cardboard box (they’re pretty savvy, the Scots). It’s warming up now, but I soldier on. I’ve been on the bridge before, but am keen to be up there again. At least this time, I know the entrance to the bridge isn’t where you might expect it to be.

Up there, I notice a significant change. In 2021, one of the car lanes was transformed into a bike lane, meaning the walkers no longer have to watch out for bikes as they set up their selfie tripods, which is good, I suppose.

I walk halfway, and then head back.

My phone goes flat just after I take a different exit off the bridge, via a set of stairs that lead down into DUMBO. I know the general direction, though, so I set off, walking alongside a row of parks; Cadman Plaza Park, Whitman Park (after the poet), the Korean War Veterans Plaza, and Columbus Park, where there is a food market in full swing.

I really want to buy tomatoes and flowers and a pumpkin for the front step…then I remember I don’t live here. Damn.

Then again, surely only a local would immediately recognise Atlantic Street, and easily wind her way to her brownstone on Pacific, past a group of men playing dominos to latin music, and a dog wearing booties, and the shop owners throwing buckets of water across the sidewalks.

I sure do love Brooklyn.