Fodor's Travel Launches First-Ever Brooklyn Guidebook

It was inevitable, sure, but it’s still a little surreal.

Fodor’s Travel, arguably the world’s most well-known guidebook publisher, announced Tuesday that it’s now selling a guidebook dedicated entirely to directing tourists around Brooklyn.

Before, Brooklyn was but a chapter in the Fodor’s guide for New York City. Now, it’s a 264-page standalone book exploring 29 of the borough’s neighborhoods. (Most of them in northwest Brooklyn, predictably.)

The paperback is available to purchase for about $20, but much of its content is also available online, via interactive map.

Click on a neighborhood, and you get a quick past-and-present briefing on the area. You also have the option to explore each neighborhood’s “sights,” ”shopping,” ”nightlife” and ”restaurants.”

Arabella Bowen, VP and Editor in Chief of Fodor’s Travel, said in a press statement:

“While all Fodor’s guidebooks have a local perspective, this one is especially close to us since Fodor’s is based in New York and Brooklyn is our backyard. We wanted the guide to be infused with authentic Brooklyn flavor throughout, making it the go-to guide for locals and visitors alike.”

Below are some excerpts from individual neighborhood descriptions.

Carroll Gardens

Carroll Gardens navigates the terrain between trendy and retro with cutting-edge shops, bistros, and cocktail lounges amiably coexisting alongside old-school butcher shops, coffee roasters, and bakeries owned by Italian-American families.

Park Slope

Park Slope can feel more like a liberal arts college town than a neighborhood in Brooklyn — one filled with literary luminaries and thriving shops and restaurants. It’s hard to miss the neighborhood’s focus on families — double-wide strollers and kid-friendly activities and businesses abound, especially along the main drags of 5th and 7th avenues.

Windsor Terrace

A small-town feel pervades Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights, and South Slope, three neighborhoods west and southwest of Prospect Park. Locally owned shops, a quietly flourishing restaurant and bar scene, and verdant Green-Wood Cemetery are the attractions.

Ditmas Park

Ditmas Park’s majestic Victorian homes with wraparound porches and wide front yards evoke a life more suburban than urban. Yet the neighborhood, which encompasses the Ditmas Park Historic District and the Prospect Park South Historic District, harbors a burgeoning restaurant and bar scene that makes it quite cosmopolitan.

Fort Greene and Clinton Hill

Cultural and educational institutions, flatteringly lit cafés, and show-stopping architecture make today’s Fort Greene and Clinton Hill irresistible in many ways. Wedged between the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north and Atlantic Avenue to the south, Fort Greene has leafy streets and an illustrious past: everyone from Walt Whitman to Spike Lee has called this area home, though the neighborhood has been through ups and downs.

Bed-Stuy

Bedford-Stuyvesant (known as Bed-Stuy) and Crown Heights, two large, exciting, and diverse neighborhoods south of Williamsburg and southwest of Bushwick, are noteworthy for their deep African American roots, landmarked architecture, and dynamic mix of ethnic restaurants, cool bars and cafés, and stylish shops.

Prospect Heights

A small neighborhood bordered by several larger ones, Prospect Heights feels like Brooklyn in microcosm. Historic brownstones and longtime attractions such as the Brooklyn Museum and Brooklyn Botanic Garden anchor the neighborhood physically and psychically, while the Barclays Center sports and entertainment arena, which debuted in 2012, looms large as a harbinger of further expansion.

Williamsburg

The kinetic energy of this trendsetting Brooklyn neighborhood hits you the moment you exit the L train at Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg’s main drag. Chic boutiques abound, the arts are in evidence everywhere, happening restaurants and dimly lit cocktail bars beckon, local denizens sport the latest street style, and it’s immediately apparent that this is the neighborhood that defines Brooklyn’s international image.

Greenpoint

Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s northernmost neighborhood, above Williamsburg and below Queens, is often described as “up and coming,” but Greenpointers know it’s already arrived—again. A major 19th-century hub, first for shipbuilding and later for glassmaking, printing, and other manufacturing pursuits, Greenpoint prospered by welcoming successive waves of German, Irish, Italian, and Polish immigrants.

What do you think? Totally off base? Totally on point? Pretty on point but also really annoying cause we’ve got more than enough tourists up in our grill without a gushy Fodor’s Brooklyn guide on the market? Let us know in the comments or reach out: simone.wilson@patch.com.