35 Orient Ave, PARLOR

Quick Profile

Equal parts family-friendly and millennial haven/nightlife destination, Williamsburg offers the best of all worlds. Whether by night or by day, the ‘Burg has endless options for every type of personality and interest--which has only increasingly become the case after the neighborhood was rezoned in 2005. With the floodgate opened for more varied types of businesses, Williamsburg saw one of the highest rates of development in the past decade than any other part of Brooklyn. 

Referred to as “Little Berlin” for its late night and club-oriented nature, Williamsburg works as hard as it plays. Apart from the Clubland concentrated around Wythe Avenue, there is also a slew of offices (like 25 Kent Avenue, a sprawling eight-floor, 500,000-square foot waterfront building) and co-working spaces such as WeWork, The Yard and Green Desk that make it an ideal location for the corporate-, startup- and tech-oriented set. 

With more offices setting their sights on this part of Brooklyn, it only makes sense that more people want to live close to where they work. Apart from your average walk-up apartment, W-burg has famously become home to numerous condos along the waterfront that continue to grow and expand in concert with the businesses and corporate hubs that have entered the environment. 

Even with its many and undeniable changes, however, Williamsburg remains an arts-friendly community, particularly with regard to music and literature. While DIY spaces have come and gone, certain staples have persisted to become institutions that still provide a place for up and coming musicians to perform. On the literary front, long-standing indie bookstores like Spoonbill and Sugartown and Book Thug Nation have paved the way for others to cross the river, namely McNally Jackson Books.