Brooklyn Waterfront Reflection

Michelle Chen, Mimi Chen, Robert Lo, Roxanne Luciano

Our area of tourism focuses on the cultural aspects of tourism. Cultural tourism revolves around the region’s culture and lifestyle of its people. It can also tie into the aspects of history, art, architecture, and religion. The cultural landscape of the environment is also a critical point that is associated with cultural tourism. One reason tourists visit New York City is for its cultural activities such as visiting art galleries and museums and going to Broadway theaters, music and dance festivals. Most of them are located on the Brooklyn Waterfront, which are essentials for tourist attractions and to generate revenues. In August, the Brooklyn waterfront conducts a double dutch event that is free for anyone to join. It brings people from all different boroughs and gives off that block party vibe. Block parties are one of the best representative to display the environment and culture that Brooklyn is about. An example of cultural tourism that takes place on the Brooklyn waterfront is Coney Island. Coney Island is famous for its food vendors and activities such as  Nathan’s hot dogs and the infamous Cyclone. From many different food places and activities to choose from , a little bit of every culture is brought to this one attraction for all to experience. Particularly in the Brooklyn Bridge Park, there are cultural activities such as free Shakespeare performances by the waterfront with the view of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. While walking around, there were phrases derived from a poem by Walt Whitman which expresses the historic aspect of how and when the architecture was built. Similarly to the Brooklyn Bridge Park, Sunset Park is a great place at the Waterfront to view the sunset. Both parks are friends and family orientated and great places for photographers to take pictures. The lifestyle of these people are generally more hip and modern to the point where leisure activities such as photography, bird watching, and physical activities are apparent when going into these parks.  During the trip to Brooklyn Bridge Park, there were two sites that tied into the cultural aspect of tourism; Bargemusic and St. Ann’s Warehouse. Bargemusic is significant for its excellent acoustic musics five days a week, every week of the year, while St. Ann’s warehouse which was originally a tobacco warehouse, was transformed into a spectacular theater that holds concerts, performances, and rock and roll. Not only these two are part of New York City’s culture, both Bargemusic and St. Ann’s warehouse can be traced back as historic and heritage of New York City. All of these cultural events comes back full circle to show that they contribute heavily to cultural tourism.

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