Cultural Tourism: A type of tourism where people from different parts of the world come to visit and explore a country’s culture especially people’s lifestyle, art, food, and architecture. In Wikipedia, “Cultural tourism (or culture tourism) is the subset of tourism concerned with a country or region’s culture, specifically the lifestyle of the people in those geographical areas, the history of those people, their art, architecture, religion(s), and other elements that helped shape their way of life.”

Members: Boey, Steven, Gion Sun, Michelle, Kathy

Cultural activities in the Waterfront:

1. The Fence – is a collaboration between United Photo Industries, Photo District News (PDN), Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Flash Forward Festival, and Atlanta Celebrates Photography (ACP) as they join forces to curate and produce this unique site-specific exhibition aimed at fostering conversations and exploring new thematic directions in photography. Armed with the task of curating such a large, public exhibition, UPI assembles a jury of more than 30 highly-respected professional photographers from around the world. They offer their time, energy, and years of experience to curate this monumental outdoor exhibition – presenting the work of 40 talented photographers from around the world to a combined audience of over 1.5 million visitors each summer. New Yorkers are always proud of their art works, no matter it’s the scrawl on the wall or the art collection hold in fancy place. Art shows the sense of New Yorkers and the culture of United States, artists use their way to show America in their eyes. It’s a really good way to learn culture from the eyes of artists.

2. Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) – BAM the Brooklyn Academy of Music (founded in 1862), is a major cultural force in both Brooklyn and New York City overall. With an international reputation for edgy, provocative pieces, it’s one of the stars in New York’s cultural and performance firmament. Find out about BAM, the BAM Bus, the BAM Opera House, the Harvey Theater, the BAM Fisher space, and BAMCafe. Find out where it is, what venues are part of BAM, annual festivals from the edgy Next Wave Festival to the ethnic DanceAfrica, and more about this dynamic performing arts center.

3. Jane’s Carousel – When you go to the Brooklyn Waterfront, one activity that you can not miss is to take a spin on the beautiful, antique Jane’s Carousel, especially when you with your kids. Jane’s Carousel has a long history, it created in 1922, and it still keep its intact now. Its housed in a gorgeous glass pavilion, you can enjoy it rain or shine. Also, you may interested in the decoration of the horses, the horses were rendered in faithful detail, every horse like endow a life when it spinning, it is lifelike and it looks like they are running around the room. All in all, when you take a ride on the carousel, you can also enjoy the art of the horses.

4. Biking at Brooklyn Bridge Park – Biking is a transportation option for tourists or people who are interested in cycling around the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Biking is a fascinating activity that can let New Yorkers and visitors get around the Brooklyn Bridge Park by themselves and without worries, because they can rent CitiBike from one station and then return to another station. CitiBike is New York City’s bike sharing system, and there are bike racks located throughout the Brooklyn Bridge Park. People can bike around Waterfront greenway to traverses the park from Pier 1 to Pier 6, and to sightseeing Brooklyn Bridge Park in order to enjoy their leisure moment. In addition, tourists can explore the park by biking in order to learn the history of Brooklyn Bridge Park and to figure out different activities in the park.

5. Brooklyn Roasting Company – Just a few blocks away from the Jane’s Carousel is a popular coffee shop called The Brooklyn Roasting Company. This coffee shop is located in 25 Jay St, Brooklyn. During the trip, we stopped by there to get some details on what they do and what kinds of coffee they have. They have different kinds coffee that are imported from other countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Asia, and East Africa. Each coffee has a different taste to it, such as the Brazilian coffee (I guess) which has a strong taste to it than most coffees do. This coffee shop I believe is trying to bring coffee from different countries so their customers can taste coffee from different cultures and know how its different from coffee here.

From this trip, we learned that in the Brooklyn Waterfront has a lot of culture within its history, community, and even activities. The trip also made us see how beautiful the the Waterfront is. An interesting thing I found in the Waterfront was that they have cellphone charger stands that is powered by the sun, along with the street lights there. Going to the Waterfront, you get fast food restaurants like Shake Shack, the Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, and the Brooklyn Ice Cream factory. The view there is an amazing site, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the World Trade Center. Many people come to the Waterfront to get a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge and the World Trade Center. After the Waterfront, we went to the Brooklyn Roasting Company. The coffee there is not like what you get at Starbucks or any other coffee shop you go to. Their coffee beans come from different countries. We learned from them that before making a cup of coffee, they must put the coffee beans through a process. The Brooklyn Roasting Company was very delighted to have us visit their shop for our study on tourism. They gave us samples of the coffee they have and even posted a picture of us on their website thanking us for visiting. This trip was a wonderful experience, it expanded our knowledge about tourism.