Dumbo Tidbits

Photo by Mary Hautman

It looks like spring has finally arrived and summer’s not too far around the corner — and what better way to celebrate the sunshine than to take advantage of the dozens of events happening at Brooklyn Bridge Park this summer.

Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy have announced their programming for the 2016 season, with events ranging from film screenings, musical performances, sports and exercise classes, art, and plenty of kid-friendly activities.

Check out the full schedule of events from the two organizations below. (more…)

Courtesy of Brooklyn Cartoons

It’s a sight every Dumbonian is used to by now: dozens of tourists literally lining up in the middle of Washington Street to snap a shot of the Manhattan Bridge, perfectly framed between the buildings of Dumbo.

A recent cartoon by Brooklyn Cartoons recreates the iconic image, jammed with camera phone–toting tourists.

“Okay, we’ve seen Brooklyn,” one of them says. “What’s next?” You can almost see them rushing to head back to Manhattan, or to get in line at Grimaldi’s. (more…)

Dumbo, a small neighborhood that is also a popular tourist destination, can be a tricky place to find parking. We recently published a list of parking garages, which is probably the easiest way to ditch the car and start your day.

But what if you’re determined to avoid parking fees? Drivers are lucky to find street parking here, so it’s always a good idea to plan ahead if you’re going to DUMBO with a car.

Alternate Side Parking
Finding a free spot in Dumbo where you only have to move the car once a week for street cleaning is the holy grail. The Street Parker website can be enormously helpful. Their maps — see the screenshot above — show which streets get cleaned on which days, so you can plan accordingly.

You can also verify all the signs on any given block at the New York City Department of Transportation’s parking regulations page.  (more…)

I was writing a post when I found myself starting to type in the tepid phrase “Dumbo residents.” Then I started to type “Dumboites” and I shuddered. It’s such an ugly word.

The combination of the long O in Dumbo and the long I in -ite is just awkward. (And, as one commenter on DumboNYC once noticed, it sounds a bit like “Dumbo whites.”)

A demonym is a word used to refer to a resident of a certain place, and it seems as if Dumboite (or DUMBOite) has become the default standard demonym for our corner of Brooklyn. (On his site, Barry Popik helpfully catalogs uses of Dumboite on various websites.) After all, residents of Brooklyn are called Brooklynites. But then, you wouldn’t refer to Park Slopites, Willamsburgites, or Brooklyn Heights-ites. (Though the latter would be kind of funny, admittedly.)

Why not Dumbonian? (more…)