Oct 15, 20153 min read

Are We Hipster Yet?

Adventures in Brooklyn

It’s been a long time since Brooklyn was home to starving artists. Sky high rents and snazzy restaurants mean that you are more likely to find a corporate lawyer than a long haired, chain smoking, future Picasso.

Nonetheless, when Anjli said she had booked tickets to a coffee festival in Brooklyn I knew it was going to be hipster central.

Dressed in the essential skinny jeans and leather jacket combo, we walked up and down the street trying to find where the festival was on. Thankfully we ran into our friend Tunde and he had figured it out.

It was in a warehouse behind an unmarked door.. classic hipster move.

Inside the warehouse there were coffee brewers from all over New York.

At first I was afraid to ask for milk, I am fairly sure that would be frowned upon by the coffee roasting elite.

To our rescue came PT’s Coffee who were serving up some fabulously delicious cappuccinos with no judgement involved!

Obviously I had to get a doughnut. You can’t go to a coffee festival in America and not get one, right?

While Anjli went off on an exclusive search for Kenyan beans, Tunde and I entertained ourselves by photographing the warehouse decor.

Tunde then informed me that the official name for this type of fan is “Big Ass Fan”. Seriously that is what they are called, it is google verified.

After countless silly photos we found Anjli, who was loudly proclaiming that we should all boycott Ethiopian coffee beans right outside the Ethiopian coffee stand! So we made a hasty exit.

It was freezing outside so after a very brief stroll down to the waterfront we hopped in a cab and went in search of lunch.

We wound up at Grimaldi’s, a no frills pizzeria right by the Brooklyn Bridge.

On Time’s list of ‘Top Ten Things to do in New York’, Grimaldi’s is number 4. “Can’t go wrong” as they say…

Though can you ever go wrong with pizza?

Of course a spot of yoga was much needed after all that cheesy goodness.

When I say ‘a spot’ I basically mean just enough to get my signature pose in.

At this point Anjli left Tunde and I to our own devices to go and be a responsible human and do some work.

Terrible idea as minutes later Tunde and I found ourselves in a random warehouse trying to break onto the roof to take a photo of an artsy water tower.

Yes, you did read that correctly.

The warehouse was totally creepy. We couldn’t work out if the vibe was more prison or mental hospital, in the end we settled for Shutter Island.

Sadly we never did manage to get onto the roof, which is a shame as the water tower looks beautiful!

The artwork was done by Tom Fruin, a Brooklyn based artist who has received international fame for his sculptures made out of scrap plexiglass.

Tom Furin Water Tower in Brooklyn photo credit tomfurin

If you are not into breaking into warehouses and climbing onto roofs then the Brooklyn Bridge is a great place to view the tower from.

When we finally escaped the warehouse we headed back into the city for some matcha at Bibble & Sip.

Weirdly enough this was the second time in the one day that someone had asked to take a photo of my coffee. I’m not sure how this became an acceptable thing to do but I’ll roll with it.

In the evening we meet up with Anjli and another friend Uji at a wine bar. We all went to international school together in Kenya so it was a great little reunion.

We then headed to Beauty & Essex on the Lower East Side for dinner and drinks. Beauty and Essex is more of a club than a restaurant but the food was good and they played Fetty Wap on repeat so I was delighted with life.