A Brooklyn Twofer

If you're looking for a pleasant excursion in Brooklyn that gives you both the glorious history and current glory of the borough, allow me to suggest the following agenda: a visit to Greenwood Cemetary followed by another to Industry City.

Greenwood Cemetary is a nearly 500-acre park-like beauty with some of the most head-snapping Gothic Revival architecture ever constructed. Located at the intersection of Park Slope, South Slope, Windsor Park, Kensington, and Sunset Park, Greenwood is a lush and hilly preserve that stuns the eyes while also calming the senses. (The place became so popular in the 19th century that the cities of New York and Brooklyn were inspired to construct two new parks you may have heard of -- Central and Propsect Parks.) Interspersed amongst the many gravestones are stone chapels, memorials, and mausoleams of breathtaking and intricate design. Amongst the grassy hills, you'll see various nature projects (like bee-keeping and grass-cutting experiments) as well as ponds and lakes with benches where you can sit in the shade and relax. Greenwood is a stunning, gorgeous place, and is not too full of people, even on a Saturday afternoon. You can also seek out, if you want to, some of the famous "residents" of the cemetary: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Bernstein, DeWitt Clinton, Horace Greeley, Townsend Harris, Alice Roosevelt (Teddy's first wife), Henry Steinway (founder of the Steinway Piano company), Louis Comfort Tiffany, and many others. Here is the cemetary's website for more info. 

Then, a short walk way in Sunset Park, is Industry City. This is another all-consuming experience but an extremely modern one. Like in other parts of the city, it is a prime example of "repurposing" where old factories and industrial infrastructure (like the Highline) was transformed into something more genteel. In this case, Industry City consists of a vast complex of 16 buildings originally constructed in the 1980s as "Bush Terminal", a manufacturing and distribution hub on the waterfront that was convenient for shipping. In the 1960s it was largely abandomed as manufacturing vanished from the city. After around 50-year of lying empty, the buildings were developed into a "mixed-use" complex of office space, tech/production hubs, restaurants, retails stores, and a whole array of businesses. When you get there, you can walk from building to building to building, taking in the offerings, and each building is seperated by a small courtyard with sitting areas and activities. Even if you don't stop and buy or eat or drink anything, or partake in any activities, it's a fun stroll through a notable part of this of Brooklyn's past and present.