offManhattan

New Yorkers are always finding new creative ways to stay in shape when indoor workouts and morning routine jogs around Central Park become mundane. If you catch yourself getting a little distraught at someone for taking “your” treadmill out of the sea of machines available at the gym, it may be time to try a new approach to staying active. Instead of searching for the latest yoga and Tae Bo classes as an alternative, why not challenge yourself, breathe in some fresh mountain air and live life on the edge.

If you’re looking for a taste of Brooklyn’s thriving culinary culture, Olea Mediterranean Taverna is worth the unpredictable G train ride. This Mediterranean tapas and raw bar is located on a tree-lined street in the thriving brownstone community of Fort Greene. The space is homey and simplistic on the outside, and lush and welcoming within.

Olea’s tapas menu offers several kinds of croquettes, including Serrano ham, goat cheese, and salt cod with potato. There is also an array of dips served with warm pita, as well as unusual options like sausage-stuffed olives, baby octopus, and Turkish “cigars.” All hovering around five dollars per plate, it is easy to make a sensible meal out of a few of these plates and a pitcher of the house sangria.

The words “flea market” usually call to mind visions of cheap socks, broken electronics, and yellowed pages of obscure fiction. This time, New York’s newest (and biggest) open-air market, Brooklyn Flea, is filled with much more than boxes of old souvenirs brought down from the attic.

A walk down Fifth Ave often conjures up the standard New York icons: Saks, the Plaza, sidewalks teeming with camera-toting tourists. But Brooklyn’s parry to the Manhattan madness lies in the home-grown staples of Park Slope. You’ll find La Villa Pizzeria amongst the organic coffee shops, kids’ clothiers and quiet cafes that the area is known for. With its warm wood decor and inviting atmosphere, La Villa (rightfully) gives off the aura of a true neighborhood eatery, with all the class and none of the pretension of its brother-borough counterparts.

Don’t let the name fool you. Roebling Tea Room serves much more than tea. There is a brunch, daytime and dinner menu, and inventive drink concoctions like the rosemary hot toddy. It is a good place for those who toil with ordering until they know what the other person wants, or if your friend is on the wagon but you’d like a pint—you can pair tea with an appetizer, a cocktail with dessert, or order a full meal.

For the laissez-faire, settle in on one of the long, comfortable couches in the back. The interior is usually dim and moody, but the high ceilings and large windows prevent any sense of claustrophobia. Homey wooden tables and the green-tiled bar dominate the room, while a patio in the back waits for better weather (which might just be tomorrow).

Over the east river into Brooklyn, you will find yourself smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood dubbed “Condoburg.” It’s a humorous and quite accurate play on the rapid development occurring in Williamsburg. These days the neighborhood is the epicenter of new glass-and-steel, look-alike condo buildings. But all is not as it appears in Condoburg. There is at least one unassuming gem of a building in the Lorimer area known as the Greenbelt. It is an eco-friendly, recently constructed residential structure on Manhattan Avenue that offers market-rate condos with a twist—a nonprofit component on the ground floor and a mission to support the artists who called Williamsburg home before it was “cool.”

Relish (rěl’ĭsh)

1. noun a clumpy, gooey, and green substance that is to condiments what Steve Guttenberg is to Hollywood (forgotten save for a once-a-year hot dog craving or a reality show, respectively)
2. noun a pleasing or appetizing taste, flavor, or quality
3. verb to enjoy or take pleasure in
4. verb to add spice or zest
5. noun the sleek Williamsburg diner encompassing all of the above definitions of its name

Anyone who thinks there’s nothing animate about a rock has never experienced Isamu Noguchi’s natural rock installations and smoothly carved marble designs at the Isamu Noguchi Museum in Queens. Noguchi once said, “The essence of sculpture is for me the perception of space, the continuum of our existence.”

He was born in Los Angeles in 1904 and was considered to be a 20th century icon of abstract stone sculpture, spending much of his 84 years melding the relationship between the majesty of nature and the art of stone. Noguchi built, installed, and designed the museum, and approximately 80% of the artwork the Japanese-American artist originally placed in the museum remains in the same spot twenty years later, a fact that attributes greatly to the transcendent energy of the space. Benches are scattered throughout the garden and galleries to facilitate moments of reflection. The artwork is not labeled with either titles or text; Noguchi liked his pieces displayed in this way. For a little background on the exhibits, boxes with visitor guides line the walls, and guided tours are available at 2pm every day.

Tired of Manhattan’s default pizza, deli, and sushi diet? Christina’s Restaurant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn will plate Polish food that will surprise even your Jean-Georgian and Momofuku-tested palate. From the quickstep of Manhattan to the bohemian calm of an eastern European community, the thirty-minute ride on the L and G is well worth your time. As you make your way from the station, expect to see grandmothers with unnatural orange hair pushing shopping carts side-by-side while engaging in dialogues that waver between argument and gossip. They meander toward Kiszka Meat Market, whose windows are strung with links of sausages.

Like the proverbial phoenix out of the ashes, the little Brooklyn Ditmas Park nabe, known as Cortelyou Road, has risen from its dicey 1970s and 1980s past, blossoming into one of the borough’s most delightful areas. Using “trendy” in only the most positive way, Cortelyou comprises a mini urban wonderland of exciting cafes, restaurants, and shops. The immaculately tended tree-lined streets pass by post-war apartment buildings, renovated brownstones, and (for total anachronistic contrast) an array of gorgeous old Victorian-era private homes—all within a stone’s throw of each other. The prestigious schools and multiple playgrounds and parks make it an ideal environment to raise children, but the burgeoning nightlife similarly beckons the influx of young professionals who have, of late, chosen to make the still-affordable residences here their home. Indeed, Cortelyou has become the bastion for refugees from Park Slope and lower Manhattan where Trump-ed up rents have made comfortable living impossible.