New York City · Self-guided audio walk

Williamsburg: Brooklyn's Creative Coast

Street art, sugar refineries, and the rebirth of a waterfront: walk the Brooklyn that reinvented itself.

8Stops
4.4 kmDistance
65+ minTime

Photo by Andre Carrotflower on Wikimedia Commons

Williamsburg remade itself from a working waterfront of sugar refineries and barrel factories into a global creative hub. This walk follows the street art murals along Wythe Avenue and Berry Street: a squirrel by Belgian artist ROA, a four-story embrace by South African Faith47, Eduardo Kobra's kaleidoscopic Basquiat and Warhol. It cuts through Domino Park, where the refinery once refined four million pounds of sugar a day, then traces the East River promenade with Manhattan's skyline across the water. You finish at Brooklyn Brewery and McCarren Park, two anchors of the neighborhood's current rhythm. Give yourself roughly an hour and three quarters.

Hear it on the street

Get the turn-by-turn audio guide in the app. The narration plays itself as you reach each stop, hands-free and offline.

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Stop by stop

The route

Interactive map of the route. The full stop list below works without it.

Must see

Photo by Kaodro on Wikimedia Commons

Bedford Avenue station

0:00

The L train drops you at the spine of Williamsburg. Bedford Avenue is the neighborhood's main drag: indie shops, vintage racks, coffee counters, and the constant low hum of a street that never really quiets down.

You are standing at the corner of Bedford Avenue and North 7th Street, the front door to Williamsburg. The L train has been bringing people here since 1924, but for most of that history those people were factory workers, not tourists. This was a working waterfront: sugar refineries, cooperages, barrel factories. The shift started in the 1990s when artists, priced out of Manhattan, crossed the river for cheap loft space.

What happened next is one of the fastest urban transformations in American history. Bedford Avenue is where you feel it first. The shops around you (vintage clothing, independent bookstores, third-wave coffee) are the visible layer. Underneath, the neighborhood is still figuring out what it wants to be.

When you are ready, head west on North 7th Street toward Wythe Avenue. You will turn left on Wythe and walk two blocks down to North 5th Street.

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≈6 min walk to the next stop

Must see

Photo by Danny Best on Unsplash

ROA Squirrel Mural

0:00

A giant black-and-white squirrel clings to a brick wall near Wythe and North 5th. Belgian street artist ROA paints oversized monochrome animals, field-guide drawings blown up to building scale, and this one has become a neighborhood mascot.

Look at the wall ahead. That large black-and-white squirrel is by ROA, a Belgian artist whose signature is giant monochrome animals painted in the precise detail of a field guide. He has left rats in London, rhinos in Cape Town, and rabbits in Los Angeles. This squirrel arrived in Williamsburg around 2017, painted on a garage door.

The animal is dead (you can tell by the closed eye and the stiff pose) which ROA explained as a tribute to a friend who lived nearby. It is not a memorial the neighborhood asked for, but it is one the neighborhood got, and it has stayed. The tag around it changes, the stickers come and go, but the squirrel remains. When you are ready, continue east on North 5th Street toward Berry Street.

Turn left on Berry and walk half a block.

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≈2 min walk to the next stop

Must see

Photo by Danny Best on Unsplash

Faith47 Mural: Lay Your Weapons Down

0:00

A four-story mural of a couple locked in an embrace. South African artist Faith47 painted it in 2015 from photographs she took on a Cape Town dance floor, calling it a meditation on home and human connection.

Turn around. That four-story mural of a multiracial couple embracing is "Lay Your Weapons Down," painted in 2015 by the South African artist Faith47. She based it on an ongoing photographic series of couples kissing on the dance floor of a Cape Town nightclub called Evol. The images are intimate, unposed, caught in strobe light.

Faith47 has said the piece speaks to the idea that home is not a place but a feeling of human interconnectedness. On a Berry Street wall in Brooklyn, that feeling lands differently than it would on a gallery canvas. The scale, four stories, forces you to reckon with it. The couple fills the height of the building, and their tenderness fills the block.

When you are ready, walk south on Berry Street. You will cross under the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge, then turn right on South 5th Street and head toward the river. Enter Domino Park at the waterfront.

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≈13 min walk to the next stop

Free preview ends here · stops 4 to 8 continue in the app

Domino Park

A five-acre waterfront park built on the bones of the Domino Sugar Refinery. Salvaged syrup tanks, screw conveyors, and gantry cranes stand as sculpture. The yellow Domino sign still glows over the East River.

in app

North 5th Street Pier and Park

A waterfront pier with a straight-on view of the Manhattan skyline. The NYC Ferry stops here. On a clear day the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the new supertalls stack up across the water.

in app

Eduardo Kobra Mural: Fight for Street Art

Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra's kaleidoscopic mural of Basquiat and Warhol in boxing gloves, with the words "Fight for Street Art." A statement about the art world painted on the wall of a neighborhood that lives it.

in app

Brooklyn Brewery

The brewery that gave Brooklyn its calling-card lager. Founded in 1988 by a war correspondent and a banker, it helped anchor Williamsburg's creative identity when the neighborhood was still empty warehouses.

in app

McCarren Park

Thirty-five acres of green that have been the neighborhood's backyard since 1906. The WPA pool once held 6,800 swimmers. Today it is softball leagues, summer concerts, and the slow exhale of a borough at rest.

in app

Good to know

Before you go

Is the Williamsburg walk accessible by subway?

The L train to Bedford Avenue drops you at the start. From Manhattan, take the L from Union Square or Eighth Avenue. The Bedford Avenue station has an elevator. The walk itself is flat and paved throughout.

Is the Brooklyn Brewery tour free?

The brewery tasting room is open to the public and you can buy beer by the glass without a tour. Guided brewery tours run on weekends and some weekdays; they cost around $15 and include tastings. Check brooklynbrewery.com for the current schedule.

How long does the Williamsburg walk take?

About an hour and three quarters of walking. With a stop at Domino Park, a pause at each mural, and a beer at the brewery, give it a half day. McCarren Park at the end is a good place to sit and let the afternoon settle.

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Provenance · last verified August 17, 2026

Built from the Wayside route itself: the stops, their order, and the walk between them.

Photo by Andre Carrotflower on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by Kaodro on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Danny Best on Unsplash

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Photo by Famartin on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

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