Smorgasburg

The park that starts outside our front door extends over a mile down Brooklyn's waterfront, and this spring it opened a new section! It's our favorite walk in the City, and most weekends we walk to the end and back several times. When I think about someday maybe not living here, leaving this walk is what gives me heart pangs.

Walker brought the camera along this weekend to show you some of our favorite stops along the way. I was very happy not to be carrying anything heavy.

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You can take the East River Ferry up to other neighborhoods like Williamsburg from nearby. When we first moved, the line was about four people long, so seeing this made us literally stop walking and gawk.

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This line is on the first of 6 huge piers that are slowly being developed into parkland. Pier 1 is complete, with lots of grassland. Here's the ferry coming in, and a view of the Brooklyn Heights nabe and the BQE (the ugly road that runs behind the park).

The little lighthouse is the famed Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, which is good, old-fashioned ice cream and only comes in a few classic flavors like chocolate and strawberry.

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As you walk around the end of Pier 1, there's a little marshland that sometimes smells like the sea, and Lady Liberty in the distance.

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Here's another pier being built; I just found out it's going to have a roller rink!

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A new subway line is being built in Manhattan and has been under construction for an obscenely long amount of time. They transported soil from digging that tunnel and made a barrier between the highway and the park; it blocks the noise amazingly well and is just starting to sprout its first grass.

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When we saw the mounds of sand a few weeks ago, we both cringed, thinking of the tourists that will wade into the East River from this new little 'beach'.

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On the weekend, hundreds of people descend onto Pier 5 for Smorgasburg. Started in the Williamsburg nabe on Saturdays, Smorgasburg is a food fair that hosts about 100 food vendors selling their specialties--from Bon Chovie (fried anchovies) to homemade mayonnaise, from Belgian brownies (Walker's fave) to arepas (Colombian flatbread with fresh cheese), we always find a yummy treat at the end of our walk. They even have maple bacon on a stick. So yum.

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One of our long-standing favorites is Blue Marble Ice Cream, made from grass-fed dairy. Our flavors of the week were vanilla (can't beat it) and sea salted caramel.

The line is a little ridiculous, and it's $6 for a small cup, but since it was so beautiful out and the ingredients so clean, we didn't mind.

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Behind these awnings are huge soccer fields, and every Saturday morning, walking by them makes me so happy watching the kids running in the wrong direction. It makes Brooklyn seem so homey.

In a few weeks, I think the farmer's market will open here and we can bike down. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually do bike around Brooklyn now thanks to Citibike, New York's new bike sharing system. It's pretty exhilarating, until you hit the cobblestones.

I know these photos make the park look a little brown, but it was a cloudy day and soon it will be greener.

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We're so grateful to get to live in our favorite place in the City. Come visit us soon!