As Brooklyn’s profile as a hub of artisanal, hipster, Millennial culture has risen in recent years, so have the number of tour books touting their insider knowledge and trustworthy listicles of the boroughs. Trust many of these books blindly and you’ll end up spending the majority of your time and money eating overpriced food in Brooklyn Heights and maybe Williamsburg before skirting across the borough to go to Coney Island with a suggested stop at Prospect Park. This is the Portlandia-ized Brooklyn, the Brooklyn of recent television and real estate brokers’ wet dreams. In reality, all the juicy parts of Kings County can be found in the space between the tourist traps.
Untapped Cities‘ founder Michelle Young’s new “Secret Brooklyn” actually does the borough justice. Instead of focusing on pricey cocktails and well-known sites, it focuses instead on BK’s tiny Torahs, secret museums, morbid freaks and landmarked trees. This is a guide for things not just overlooked but unknown, the types of hard to Google spots genuinely off the beaten track, both in their quirkiness and in their distance from the subway.
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In celebration of “Secret Brooklyn”‘s July 15th launch, Brokelyn will be co-hosting a party at the appropriately wonderful Superhero Supply Co. (372 5th Ave., Park Slope), a nonprofit writing space and undercover front selling Cape Testers, cans of Anti-Matter and the like. The party is free with RSVP, and will take place next Thursday, July 13, from 6 to 8pm.
We’ll be selling Beer Books, there’ll be refreshments, a presentation from Michelle and Untapped-co-founder Augustin Pasquet about their favorite spots and the process of making the book as well as the opportunity to purchase the book and get your copy autographed.
Can’t make the event? Boo. But also, you can buy a copy on Amazon.
