The Brooklyn Bridge looks mighty glorious when you peak out of your window. As you walk through the Cadman Plaza Park, you discover the equally impressive Brooklyn War Memorial. The gigantic limestone wall was erected in 1951 to honor the 300,000 Brooklynites who served in WWII. Two giant statues flank the space: a male warrior and a female with a child. Google search on your phone reveals they are symbols of victory and family. The memorial also lists the 11,000 Brooklyn residents that perished during the war.

The thing with Downtown Brooklyn is that it's riddled with history, and has a distinctly business appeal of the Manhattan bustle & hustle kind. There sure are moments you may feel like you are Manhattan, with all the old stores, bumper-to-bumper traffic and high-rises (don't tell that to any homegrown Brooklynite!) But as you walk down Fulton Mall, you begin to see the old Brooklyn, with a long line of vintage storefronts and buildings. The area was Brooklyn’s first successful commercial district in the late 19th century, as result of the completion of the Fulton Street Elevated Rail Line in 1888. Today, you see all of the original buildings and magnificent architecture of the old department stores such as Abraham & Strauss (400 Fulton Street), Al Namm & Son (1 Hoyt Street), Weschler Brothers (505 Fulton Street and Loeser’s Department Store (Fulton between Elm Place and Bond Street). The area continues to be a retailer magnet with its pedestrian-friendly outdoor mall and stores like Macy’s, Banana Republic, Adidas and American Eagles. 

Rejuvenated and rested, you jump out of you seat when you realize that the New York Transit Museum is closing in less than two hours. You race back to Boerum Place to make into one of the city’s hottest museum excursions. The  New York Transit Museum is pretty darn cool. You get a chance to see and walkthrough the old subway and trolley cars that date back nearly 100 years ago. There’s even the progression of the turnstile and a look at the history of the MTA worker. Now that you travel the subway on a daily basis you have gained an appreciation for the country’s largest and oldest transit system.

As you begin to learn your new home, you really want to delve deeper into the history of the area. You already know that this is the city’s third largest commercial district. But there’s a long history here to dig up. You’ll find an Old Downtown Brooklyn District hidden within the MetroTech campus. As you start patching together landmarks, you start with the NYU-Poly building. The building was once the Bridge Street AWME – African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal – Brooklyn’s first African American Church. Numerous historic events took place at the AWME, including Harriet Tubman’s 1865 speech. Not too far away down the Myrtle Promenade, you uncover the Duffield Street Houses, a collection of four 19th century townhouses (182-188 Duffield Street). The story has it that these houses had once been transported from Johnson Street, and preserved to highlight the legacy of Brooklyn’s middle class of the time. You continue down to Bridge and Willoughby Streets, and as if in a sudden twist of time, you find yourself in the epicenter of 20th century technology. This corner was the former Long Island Headquarters of the New York Telephone Company (365 Bridge Street), an Art Deco building since dubbed the BellTel Lofts. Your self-guided tour ends at 85 Willoughby, which is where the Beaux-Art home once housed the New York and New Jersey Telephone Building in 1898. And in the distance you could get a glimpse of one of Brooklyn’s most iconic buildings: the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, a true architectural wonder.