Unusual Brooklyn Travel Guide: 10 Strangest Places

In The Secret Brooklyn: An Unusual Guidebook (Secret Brooklyn: An Unusual Guide) from the founders of Untapped Cities Michelle Young and Augustin Pasque described 10 strangest places in Brooklyn. These are stories about places and people who made the city great, as well as architecture and infrastructure that made it unique. The publication wrote about this in detail. Brokelyn.

These are the weirdest places in Brooklyn, one of the boroughs of New York.

Barkalu Cemetery, the oldest in Brooklyn

At the corner of Mackay Place and Narrows Avenue in Bay Ridge is the smallest cemetery in Brooklyn. Only two people are buried here. The land was purchased in 1725 by the Dutch immigrant William Barkalu as a family cemetery. Today it is the only family cemetery independent of the larger ones in the district.

Barkalu lived in the area in the 1962th century. On the memorial plaque, installed in XNUMX at the gate, it is indicated that this is a "revolutionary military cemetery." It is alleged that the two men buried there (Harmans Barkalu, son of William, and Simon Cortelu) fought on the side of the patriots at the Battle of Brooklyn during the American Revolution. Harmans served as a lieutenant; Cortelou ended up in the Barkalu cemetery because he married the widow of Jacques Barkalu.

Coney Island Sideshow School

This school teaches you to breathe fire, swallow swords, drive nails into skulls, tame snakes and much more. A three-day lesson costs $ 1000 - a lot for those who are just curious about what it is. But the school is in demand: magicians and circus artists hone their skills here. They come from all over the country, as this is the only school of its kind in the United States supporting the tradition of touring.

According to one of the professors of the school, Adam Wrynn, this institution provides an opportunity "in a safe environment to learn unsafe crafts." Rinn teaches that all the secrets of the profession are related to biology and physics. The safest and easiest ways to perform tricks are taught here.

But to be able to study here, you must be 18 years old or more.

The Puppet Library

The library is located in a very comfortable place in Roosevelt's house at Brooklyn College. She has more than 100 dolls up to 6 meters tall, sitting in the stands of the gymnasium. This spectacle alone is amazing and worth the trip.

The puppet library has been here since 2008. The premises themselves are subordinate to the Brooklyn College Public Partnership Management. The puppet library does not have a website or a phone number. And it seems that wherever it is located, it is always in a rather hidden place. Until 2008, the museum was located in the Arch of Soldiers and Sailors on Bolshaya Army Square - a place that, according to the museum's librarian Teresa Linnikhan, was very "mysterious." People never knew that you could go inside and climb the spiral staircase. Puppet shows were held in the upper part of the building. But when the arch began to leak and the roof fell, the museum needed to find a new house - large enough to house the collection.

Wild brooklyn parrots

The story of the wild Brooklyn parrot, one of the most amazing finds in the area, begins in Argentina. Bright green subtropical birds have been living in New York for over 40 years. Considered a pest for farmers in Argentina, this species of parrot first survived an extermination attempt in its homeland, and then an exotic bird export scheme to the United States, after which the flocks were formed from fugitives from shipping containers, pet stores, and owners.

The best way to see parrots is Steven Baldwin's monthly free tour (Steven Baldwin). According to his estimates, today in Brooklyn there are 150 Quaker parrots. He conducts these “safaris” in the hope that the more people find out about these birds, the more they will perceive them as “part of Brooklyn’s magnificent mosaic”. To prevent poachers who came to catch birds, he asks guests to keep this place a secret.

You can see the parrots on the green residential street in Flatbush. The birds moved here after landscape changes had been made to their previous residence at Brooklyn College. The neighbors of this street took the parrots under their protection, allowing them to nest in the trees. Accustomed to changing seasons, Quaker parrots remain in New York all year round.

Fake townhouse on Joralmon Street

Walking past a number of houses on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn, you may notice that something is wrong. Take a close look at house number 58; the windows, as you will see, are completely black. Suspicious, right? As it turned out, building number 58 is not what it seems, it is a fake town house, behind which there is a hidden installation for ventilation of the metro. It also functions as an emergency exit.

Park Slope crash marks

On December 16, 1960, United Airlines and TWA Super Constellation planes collided over Staten Island. A TWA plane crashed on the south coast of Staten Island, and a United Airlines plane crashed onto Sterling Place in Park Slope. It was the deadliest plane crash at that time. The total number of deaths was 134 people. This was the first accident investigated using the infamous black box.

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Today the traces of the 1960 plane crash are almost obliterated, but there are some of which can be found to this day.

The Robotic Church

This is a truly secret pearl of New York. Walking along the street next to this place, you will not notice anything that might suggest the idea that it is located inside this former Norwegian sailors' church in Red Hook. Only the doorbell next to the locked door gives some idea of ​​what is located here: Amorphic Robotic Works is written on it.

The robotic church is open to performances several times a year - the rest of the time it functions as a workshop for artists, engineers, technicians and programmers. It was founded by Chico McMurthy in 1991. He is known for his large-scale sculptures and has recently been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for the construction of inflatable bridges that can connect the United States and Mexico.

There are performances that usually last from 40 to 60 minutes. During performances, robots communicate with each other using body language and sound. Sizes of robots vary from 3 to 5 meters. They are located at different levels of the church, “which is a deliberate reference to the placement of religious saints in the chapel,” while guests are sitting on wooden benches, which symbolizes a regular church visit.

Crown finish caves

Next to the popular Berg'n Brasserie, in the 1850s tunnel under the former Nassau Brewery, more than 9 meters underground cheeses ripen. Opened in 2014, Crown Finish Caves is a licensed New York dairy factory that produces aged cheeses from nearby and distant places. There are cheeses from the Hudson Valley, Vermont, Wisconsin, and even from Italy. The tunnels that can be visited during special events were dug for beer aging, but the brewery closed in 1914.

In this tunnel, you can withstand almost 10 thousand kilograms of cheese at a temperature of about 10 degrees Celsius. At Crown Finish Caves, cheeses are aging according to old practice, involving dozens of steps that can bring each cheese to a perfect state.

Young cheeses arrive at Crown Finish Caves when they are from one to fourteen days old. Aging can take more than a year, but the time depends on the type of cheese. In addition to dosing aging, Crown Finish Caves helps growers experiment with new types of cheese.

Hobbit Doors at Dennett Place

Near the industrial outskirts of Gowanus Edge, there is a tiny walkway called Dennet Place. Until recent years, the entire street was like an ethnic microclub populated by a close-knit community of Italian Americans. The curiosity in these parts is caused by tiny doors about 1,2 meters high, which are affectionately called "hobbit doors". They are located under concrete stairs leading inside the houses.

Each door is slightly different from the other, and not only in color. Some doors have brass knockers, others are just street numbers. Some have mailboxes, while others have a small window or two.

Dennet Place houses were built for workers erecting the Catholic Church of St. Mary Star of the Sea on the same block between 1853 and 1855. Mafia history buffs may know that this is the very church where Al Capone's wedding took place.

New Jersey floating train barge

South of Brooklyn's Army Terminal at Sunset Park is one of New York’s surviving infrastructure facilities: a floating freight rail barge that runs from 65th Street Railway Station to Jersey City across the Hudson River. Founded in 2005, the New York-New Jersey Railroad is currently operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Although the line is only 6,4 km long, it serves as a small but still important transport link for freight in the New York region.

“We are an anomaly. Of the 500 railways in the United States, the closest is Alaska, ”says Donald B. Hatton, Managing Director of New York and New Jersey Rail. - The trip takes from 35 to 40 minutes. At the same time, 14 train wagons are being transported. ” According to him, they want to increase throughput over time.