At least according to a feature last week by The L Magazine, 4 of the 50 “Best Blocks” in Brooklyn are in Dumbo. The following ‘blocks’ in and around Dumbo were named ‘the best’:

Best Block For Date Night: Water Street between Main and Old Dock Streets – “Highbrow culture at St. Ann’s Warehouse or Galapagos Art Space; drinks before dinner or after at Water Street Restaurant; and fancy-ass dessert at Jacques Torres (closes at 9pm on weekends). Top off the night with a stroll through Brooklyn Bridge Park for that Woody Allen moment…”

Best Block For Celebrity Sightings: Front Street between Jay Street and the Manhattan Bridge – “Jason Schwartzman, Cynthia Nixon, Jay Z, Beyonce, Spike Lee, Alexis Bledel (of the Gilmore Girls!), the entire cast of Gossip Girl, Paul Dano, Michael Pitt… These are just a few people we’ve recently seen near our office.”

Best Block For Gallery-Hopping: Washington Street between Water and Plymouth Streets – “See large-scale projects by established artists and new works by emerging locals skipping between Smack Mellon’s massive refurbished boiler house space, the Dumbo Arts Center’s expansive loft and Rabbithole Studio’s raw basement gallery.”

Best Block for New Media: Main Street between Water and Front Streets – “Realtors recently re-dubbed Dumbo “Silicon Beach.” Seriously. A sampling of new social networking locative buzzword emergent media companies operating in this block’s behemoth office building: Digital Gravel, Fusia Communications, Red Herring Design, Lost Boys International, FreeAssociation, Domani Studios, Freeserver, Big Spaceship, The Joey Company, and so on. Also, The L, keeping it real for old media!”

There was one from Vinegar Hill for Best Block For Pretending it’s the 1930s (“Little” Street at the corner of Evans Street) “Tucked between the outskirts of Vinegar Hill and the Navy Yard, behind wrought-iron gates, sits the Commandant’s Mansion. The driveway is filled with vintage cars from the 30s and 40s and Don Corleone could walk out at any minute.”

{The 50 Best Blocks in Brooklyn, 27Oct2010, The L Magazine}