Jessica’s e-mail was long, but its message was brief: if I went to New York, but didn’t get to Brooklyn, I would be missing the best, the hippest, the most exciting part of all. Her argument made sense: “Every last centimeter of Manhattan has been gentrified,” she wrote. “Even Harlem has a high gloss on it these days. Brooklyn (or, as the hip-hop boys like to call it, BK) is the most diverse of the city’s five boroughs, home to a veritable UN of ethnicities.

And out of diversity spring oh so many things: great music, food, shopping, etc. Oh, and I live there.” Okay, I thought, Brooklyn it is. But the week before I flew to New York, she sent word that she had to be in London for work on those dates, which was why I found myself crossing the East River alone.

Brooklyn Bridge was almost 14 years in the making and, when finally completed in 1883, its stone towers dominated the skyline, as they continue to do (remember Woody Allen’s 1970s film Manhattan?). The views from the bridge were as spectacular as the structure: behind lay the skyscrapers, bright lights and big hustle of Manhattan, the archetypal 21st-century megalopolis; ahead were the low-rise brownstones and tenements of Brooklyn; below lay one of the world’s great harbours and, to the right, I could see the Statue of Liberty.

On the raised path between the bridge’s two carriageways, fitness-hungry New Yorkers formed a human chain between the two halves of their city.

When the neoclassical Borough Hall was built in 1848, Brooklyn was a separate, rival city, not simply the New York borough it is now. (Had it remained independent, it would now be one of the largest cities in the USA.) At that time, the great American poet Walt Whitman was editing the local newspaper and Olmstead & Vaux, the creators of Manhattan’s Central Park, were preparing for their masterpiece, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

I spent the day walking in the park and strolling around the other civic spaces — the beautiful and skilfully managed Botanic Garden (the highest-rated attraction in Zagat’s Brooklyn survey) and the Brooklyn Museum, whose world-class collection make a remarkable journey from ancient Assyria and Egypt to 19th-century France and 20th-century America. From there, sticking closely to Jessica’s instructions, I ended the day at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Paganini and Caruso made the BAM’s reputation, and the likes of Radiohead and Merce Cunningham perform there now.

This, Jessica gushed, “is where all the great avant-garde epics are performed, where you can see a film, an opera, a play or listen to music”. I settled for live jazz and pizza at the BAMcafé.

Civic sights were one thing, but to understand Brooklyn’s past — and to glimpse its future — I enlisted help, in the form of the Big Apple Greeters. The Greeters are one of New York’s best-kept secrets. Their aim is “to enrich the New York experience” by finding a local who will take visitors for a walk. Greeters will show you the big sights, but they would rather take you through their home neighbourhoods.

Ted Scull, my Greeter, is a writer who specialises in cruise ships, but he knows parts of Brooklyn intimately. He walked me around Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and the other waterside neighbourhoods, popping into shops, peering through windows and explaining how Brooklyn was “made” by waves of immigrants. “Even now, if you followed a straight line across the city, you’d cross continents as you pass communities from Italy and Africa, Hassidic Jews from central Europe, Hispanics from the Caribbean... and you’d end with the big Ukrainian community at Brighton Beach, which we call Little Odessa.”

Out of this cultural stew, brilliance has emerged. Ted mentioned George Gershwin, Danny Kaye, Norman Mailer, Mae West and, of course, Woody Allen, all children of the borough. He omitted to mention Al Capone. He took me down Willow Street, to the house where Arthur Miller lived, and to Henry Street, where a plaque commemorates the birthplace of Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome. Then, down on the waterfront, we strolled along the promenade, with its big view of Manhattan, where Abraham Lincoln conceded that “there may be a finer view than this in the world, but I don’t believe it”. Many still don’t.

When we reached Atlantic Avenue and the docks, Ted’s passion for cruise ships burst out and he reminisced about the arrival of the Queen Mary 2. The way he told it, it all sounded so charming that it was hard to believe Brooklyn had ever fallen out of fashion. But it did. To make the point, he took me to the old St George Hotel. Nothing could have been more eloquent. In the entrance to the hotel’s rundown subway station, Ted explained that the St George once filled a city block and boasted the largest indoor saltwater swimming pool in the USA. “This was about as ritzy as New York got between the wars.” The 2,632 rooms were empty for a long time, but have now been converted into apartments.

So when did the rot set in? Some people point to the great betrayal of 1957, when the world-beating local baseball team left Ebbets Field, moved to California and were renamed the LA Dodgers. Others point to the 1960s, when the shipyards started to close. The borough attracted immigrants because it needed cheap labour. A hundred years ago, 40% of Brooklyners were foreign-born, but by 1970 that number was down to 18%. It is a sign of the borough’s revitalisation that it is now back up to about 40%.

TED LEFT ME in Brooklyn Heights, and from there, I pounded the streets, I eyed Macy’s and the other shops along Fulton, I went to Junior’s deli, to eat what the management modestly claim to be “New York’s best cheesecake”. (When a fire swept through the place in the 1980s, people out in the street shouted: “Save the cheesecake!”) I walked around the converted waterfront warehouses in Dumbo (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), found a great pizza joint and the arts centre where David Bowie last performed. Finally, I arrived in Williamsburg.

Jessica had described it as “home not only to twentysomething hipsters, but to the city’s largest concentration of Hassidic and Orthodox Jews. The guys with forelocks are living cheek by jowl with the hipster nerds in trucker hats.” What she didn’t mention was the galleries, for which the place has become famous — artists and dealers forced out of Manhattan by high rents have settled here, and there is a flurry of shops, boutiques, bars and restaurants.

The next day, I had lunch back across the East River with a native of Manhattan. “You went where?” she asked. “Oh, Brooklyn...”

And, once she’d worked out that I’d liked the place, she confessed: “I’ve been over there recently, looking for an apartment. It’s the hip place to be now, you know.”

“Yes,” I assured her. “I know.”

Anthony Sattin travelled as a guest of Elegant Resorts

Travel brief


Getting there: American Airlines (0845 778 9789, www.american-airlines.co.uk), United Airlines (0845 844 4777, www.unitedairlines.co.uk) and Virgin Atlantic (0870 574 7747, www.virgin-atlantic.com) fly from Heathrow; British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow and Manchester; and Continental Airlines (0845 607 6760, www.continental.com) flies from Gatwick and several UK regional airports, as well as Dublin and Shannon. Prices start at about £350 in June, or €440 from Ireland.

Where to stay: Brooklyn has few sleeping options, but is within easy reach of Manhattan’s many wonderful hotels. The stylish Soho Grand (00 1-212 965 3000, www.sohogrand.com) has doubles from £250. More modest, but spotless, is the Cosmopolitan Hotel, in TriBeCa (212 566 1900, www.cosmohotel.com); doubles from £86.

Tour operators: Elegant Resorts (01244 897222, www.elegantresorts.co.uk) has three nights at the charming St Regis from £845pp, including BA flights from Heathrow and private transfers. Or try British Airways Holidays (0870 243 3407, www.baholidays.com) or Original Travel (020 7978 7333, www.originaltravel.co.uk).

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