Let me tell you why you need to come to Brooklyn for a day during your next New York City visit with your kids:
It’s less crowded than Times Square. It has abundant art and architecture. Restaurants are less expensive and more family-friendly. It has historic neighborhoods full of families, playgrounds and local coffee shops.
DUMBO is one such neighborhood. Just across the river from Lower Manhattan, it’s popular with local families as well as with visitors.
Here some of my favorite things to do when exploring the area with kids. But a stroll around this evolving waterfront area will always turn up new gems.
Plan This Trip!
• Book a flight and hotel package with Expedia.
• Rent a Brooklyn apartment or townhouse to live like a local
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A 1-Day Guide: Brooklyn’s DUMBO Neighborhood With Kids
Introducing Brooklyn’s best waterfront neighborhood
DUMBO is short for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, where most of this quickly changing neighborhood sits.
Once a busy area with warehouses and other businesses serving the nearby piers, it now has booming tech and design industries and a residential population that have converted those warehouses to all kinds of new uses.
You might want to consider a walking tour to become familiar with the area before you wander around on your own.
Make sure to explore under the Brooklyn Bridge and all of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is built along a series of those piers.
Historic Brooklyn Heights, the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Red Hook, where some cruise ships dock, are nearby, too.
Pause for skyline views + history
You’ll come across references to Walt Whitman as you walk around. He lived in a few different places in the area and worked for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which made its home on Old Fulton Street in a building that says “Eagle Warehouse.”
Pier 1, also called Fulton Ferry Landing, is rimmed with words from Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. It has great views of the skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty.
On any warm weekend, you’ll see a steady stream of couples taking wedding photos, and teenage girls taking quinceañara photos in elaborate, brightly-colored dresses.
Washington Street between Water and Plymouth streets is one of the most photographed — and Instagrammed— spots in New York City. They’ve actually closed part of it to traffic during certain hours so that visitors can safely stand in the street to take their pictures.
Frolic in an impressive playground
You can start your day at Pier 6, at the south end of Brooklyn Bridge Park. The playground here is one of the best in the city and keeps kids busy into their tweens. The first time I saw this playground, I wished I were a kid again.
It has a large area with sprinklers, a stream, rocks, and water-play features. Kids flock to it on warm days. Some parts are designed for elementary-school-aged kids, but you see all ages splashing here.
There are also giant slides, Tarzan swings and funky climbing structures for big kids. Youngsters love the enormous sandpit area with more water and play houses.
The designers actually gave parents some consideration and I was usually able to find shady places to sit in each of these areas while my kid ran around.
Tip: Kids go barefoot in the water-play area. But Crocs or sports-sandals are handy, especially in the sand, which can get hot. Some kids wear bathing suits, but if you left them home, don’t worry; kids’ clothes dry pretty fast in New York’s hot summers.
Tip: The playground is designed into four discreet zones. If you have kids of different ages, they’ll gravitate to different things. If you aren’t comfortable letting them explore on their own, it will be handy to have more than one adult.
If you walk past the ferry pier toward the water, Pier 6 also has an excellent lawn for picnicking, running around or just stretching out and people watching.
There are toddler-only playgrounds at Pier 5 and Pier 1. And you’ll find more sprinklers scattered around, too.
Pier 2 has an outdoor roller skating rink on Pier 2 during the summer. It has great prices and views, but not the best floor. There’s also free kayaking for all ages near Pier 2 in the summer months.
The park always has interesting, large-scale, interactive, outdoor artwork in the summer. It’s always a surprise to see what it will be.
You have to briefly veer away from the park to go past the famous River Café restaurant and under the Brooklyn Bridge.
Take a left on New Dock Street or Old Dock Street, a block apart, and the greenway continues as Empire Fulton Ferry park.
The attraction here is Jane’s Carousel. It’s glass-enclosed, swift, and must have the best views you’ll ever enjoy on a merry-go-round. Do not feel the least self-conscious about riding it as an adult.
There’s also an expanse of green grass, a small beach for skipping stones and an older, but sometimes less crowded ship-themed playground..
Read about the Best Carousels across the U.S.
Take in Brooklyn culture & shopping:
As you walk around the area between the two bridges, notice the exposed cobblestone streets embedded with a maze of trolley tracks. These take you back to the days when Brooklyn had a busy working waterfront. Trolleys carried commuters to the ferries, which carried them across to Manhattan before there were subways.
Seek out Powerhouse Books, an indie bookstore under the Manhattan Bridge on Water Street. You’ll find books about every aspect of New York City culture and history, along with the latest fiction and excellent photography books. It’s the place I go to buy gifts for book lovers, and I almost always find something for myself as well.
The kids’ section has graphic novels and books for all ages with characters that reflect Brooklyn’s incredible diversity, often by local authors like Oliver Jeffers or Adam Gidwitz.
There’s more shopping back along Water Street and in the Empire Stores Warehouse.
A tip just for teens
If you’re visiting NYC with a teen, try to get to DUMBO on a weekend, when the Brooklyn Flea sprawls out from under one of the Manhattan Bridge arches across from Powerhouse Books.
You’ll find antique and artisan jewelry, purses and other accessories, vintage and handmade clothes, prints and posters, and used books. Much of it fits within a teen budget.
During the summer, you and your teen can return on a weekday evening to see Movies with a View, which sets up near to the Brooklyn Bridge and shows an eclectic series of outdoor movies.
Read more:
• 24 NYC Desserts You Really Have to Try
• 10 Unique NYC Museums Kids Love
• 6 Ways To Enjoy NYC Like A Local
Try These Great Places To Eat:
Outdoor vendors in Brooklyn Bridge Park change a bit from summer to summer, but you’ll find food options around most of the piers.
• Eat charred, thin-crust New York pizza at Fornino on Pier 6. It’s always busy on weekends, but there’s plenty of seating upstairs, and you can take it to go and picnic in the park.
• You can enjoy my favorite NYC thin-crust pizza at Grimaldi’s and its offshoot Juliana’s. You’ll have to brave long lines, but you’re in for a treat.
• Superfine is a few blocks back from the water on Front Street. It has a slightly grunge-hipster vibe, but the brunch is excellent and it’s entirely kid-friendly during the day.
• Shake Shack has an outpost under the Brooklyn Bridge and Luke’s lobster has a hut nearby. The lobster rolls are expensive, but the delicious crab rolls are a good deal.
• Now for dessert: Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, across from Shake Shack, scoops a handful of classic flavors and always has a long line. It’s worth it. Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry are rich and anything but basic. Peaches & Cream is the perfect summer flavor. They make their ice cream sodas with local Boylan sodas.
Tip: Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory has a bar. If you aren’t in the mood for ice cream, you can enjoy a beer or summer cocktail while your kids dive into their cones.
• Almondine is a French bakery that can do no wrong. It’s our go-to morning spot for lattés, almond croissants and jelly doughnuts.
• Chocolate lovers must visit the cocoa-based paradise of Jacques Torres. Look for chocolate-covered marshmallows, dark- and milk-chocolate bark with nuts and chocolate bon-bons filled with fruit, nuts, caramel and more. If it’s chilly, try his extremely thick and rich hot chocolate.
Read about
19 more places in NYC to get unique and delicious desserts
• The Time Out food market features popular food from around the city, all in one place. It’s not laid out well, and definitely doesn’t have enough seating, but you can take your food outside where there are more tables or you can sit on the grass.
Purveyors come and go. Right now, look for filled arepas from the Maiz Project and Palestinian food from Tanoreen. You’ll also find Japanese noodles, hot chicken, tacos and mini doughnuts.
A good food tour is a good way to sample some of these places, plus the best of nearby Brooklyn Heights.
How to get to Brooklyn:
Walking: Take the E to World Trade Center, the N/R/W to city hall, or 2/3/4/5/A/C to Fulton Street. Then find your way to the pedestrian ramp for the Brooklyn Bridge.
This is one of my favorite walks in New York City. The views from the center of the bridge are amazing and the bridge is graceful and timeless.
When you reach the Brooklyn side there will be a point where you have two options: You can continue to the end of the bridge or take a set of stairs off to the left. Take the stairs. At the bottom, turn left and you’ll be in DUMBO in a few short blocks.
Subway. Take the A/C to High Street, the F to York Street or the 2/3 to Clark Street. All are the first stop in Brooklyn.
Driving: I don’t recommend it, but if you arrive by car take the easy way and pay for a parking garage. There are a lot of places you can’t park and the one part of NYC you don’t want to visit is the city tow pound.
Ferry: You can catch a ferry from 2 docks in Manhattan that will leave you at one end or the other of Brooklyn Bridge Park (the DUMBO stop is closer to the stores and restaurants).
It costs the same as a subway ride (kids ride free), plus $1 for every bike you bring with you.
Tip: The Ideal day would include walking over the bridge in one direction and taking the ferry in the other.
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*Photos courtesy of NYC Go except Taxi Cab (Pixabay), Pier 6 water playground and Kayaking (Brooklyn Bridge Park) and Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory (BICF).