by Mara Taylor
Brooklyn isn’t a theme park, nor is it a neutral ground for your self-discovery. It doesn’t exist to validate your aesthetic choices. It’s, at any given moment, a brutal contradiction of idealism and cynicism, gentrification and resistance, opulence and disrepair. If you’re visiting, approach with curiosity, but also with a sense of consequence. This borough will absorb you if you let it, but it will not cater to you.
Here are 15 tips—none of them about where to get a bagel.
1. Know Your Gentrification Timeline
Before you step into a neighborhood, understand what version of Brooklyn you are stepping into. Bed-Stuy and Bushwick are not Williamsburg, and Williamsburg is no longer Williamsburg. Gentrification doesn’t move in straight lines; it moves in waves, sometimes in cruel circles. The café you love might be the death knell of the block. Look at the rent prices, and you’ll know what era you’re standing in.
2. Your Edgy Photo Spot is Someone’s Front Yard
Yes, that graffiti-covered wall looks fantastic behind your thrifted leather jacket. But before you pose, ask yourself if this is public art or a neighborhood’s visual protest against eviction. Brooklyn is full of history that doesn’t always want to be your backdrop.
3. Subway Etiquette is Not a Joke
Stand clear of the closing doors. Move to the center of the car. Don’t perform your existential crisis on the L train at rush hour. The subway is an ecosystem built on barely contained rage, and your obliviousness is the sand in its gears.
4. Don’t Bring Your Car
If you think you can “just drive,” you have already failed Brooklyn. You will circle for an hour before giving up and parking illegally. You’ll get towed. You’ll complain. No one will care. Take the train.
5. The Best View of the City is Not Where You Think
DUMBO is flooded with tourists, Brooklyn Heights has hedge fund money, and the Williamsburg waterfront is someone’s nightmare idea of progress. If you want a view that still feels like something, try Sunset Park. Or the rooftop of a friend’s cousin’s apartment in Crown Heights. It’ll cost you less and mean more.
6. Nobody Needs Your Pizza Opinion
Yes, we know you read an article about Di Fara or Lucali or L&B Spumoni Gardens. No, we don’t care. Every Brooklynite has their spot, and loyalty is thicker than mozzarella. If you have to ask, you’re already wrong.
7. Don’t Call It “Brooklyn Style”
There is no such thing as “Brooklyn style.” What you think is Brooklyn—cuffed jeans, independent bookstores, a specific kind of boot—is just a well-marketed sliver of reality. Brooklyn style is an 80-year-old man feeding pigeons in Canarsie. It’s a West Indian parade costume. It’s a Hasidic tailor’s work apron. It’s not a curated Instagram look.
8. Understand the Borough’s Borders
No, you’re not “basically in Brooklyn” when you’re in Ridgewood. No, you can’t call Astoria a “Brooklyn neighborhood.” If you mix up East New York and Crown Heights, that says more about you than about the map.
9. Street Smarts Still Apply
Brooklyn is not an enchanted land free of reality. Your unlocked bike will be stolen. If someone is walking toward you yelling, step aside, not into. If the bodega owner tells you to stay out of that alley, listen. This is a borough built on mutual respect, not your naivety.
10. Respect the OG Spots
Junior’s isn’t just a cheesecake factory, and the Caribbean bakeries along Nostrand aren’t just “cute.” These places existed before you knew how to pronounce “Prospect Lefferts Gardens.” Don’t be the reason they disappear.
11. Public Space is Actually Public
Fort Greene Park isn’t your yoga studio. McCarren Park isn’t your festival venue. Parks belong to the people who live here, not just the people who discovered them last summer.
12. Hipster Nostalgia Has a Body Count
That “authentic Brooklyn dive bar” used to be a place where union workers cashed their paychecks. That “charming industrial loft” was once a sweatshop. Before you romanticize, consider who paid for the atmosphere.
13. Know When to Leave
Brooklyn doesn’t owe you an experience. If you can’t handle the realness, if you find yourself yearning for the safety of Manhattan, just go. Brooklyn will survive without you.
14. Learn from the Locals
If someone at a bar tells you a story about a block that burned down in the ’80s, listen. If a shop owner explains why they don’t take credit cards, nod. Brooklyn is full of living history, but only if you pay attention.
15. Don’t Be the Problem
Gentrification isn’t a force of nature; it’s a collection of small, bad decisions made by individuals who could have chosen otherwise. Tip well. Learn your neighbors’ names. Don’t complain about noise in a city that breathes it. If you move here, move here for real, or don’t move here at all.
Conclusion: Brooklyn Doesn’t Need You, But You Might Need It
Brooklyn has survived centuries of change, of immigration, of industrial booms and busts, of arson waves and real estate schemes. It does not require your validation. But if you approach it with humility, awareness, and a willingness to listen more than you speak, you might walk away with more than just a weekend’s worth of photos. Brooklyn isn’t here to serve you. It’s here, period. Act accordingly.