So far, I think the best way to discover the districts of New York is with Soundwalk’s audio guide. Soundwalk is a cutting-edge audio guide in which you are able to follow a narrator: in the Dumbo experience, the narrator is Asa Mader-a filmaker- because this is his neighborhood. Honestly, this is the kind of experience that gives you shivers. You have to follow the steps of the narrator and follow the instructions. At some point of this audio guide you have to enter a building with a secret code, to get acces to the roof:

And here’s the view you get:

That is for sure something you won’t find in a Lonely Planet! After this magnificent view, we visited the artist area to see some Guerilla art. Here are few snapshots of these art works:

We also stoped by the Gleason’s Gym (You really have to look at this post). Every corner of this area is amazing! I think I took close to 200 photos…

After this experience, I have to admit I totally fell in love with Dumbo. Soundwalk really shows the best of the New York’s district. See the map of this audio guide to visualize the tour. And visit Asa Mader’s website to learn more about his work.

Soundwalk created many audio guide: Chinatown, Little Italy, Meat Packing and many more. Visit www.soundwalk.com/

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While doing the Dumbo’s Soundwalk we came across the Gleason’s Gym. It’s not your average Gym, in fact it’s the oldest active boxing gym in the United States. They have trained 131 world champions and two Olympic Gold medalists. When we got in the gym, we could really feel the history behind the place. We were lucky enough to see the WUW or the World of Unpredictable Wrestling. It was really unpredictable: we saw a Zombie, a wannabe french wrestler called The Musketeer with his assistant called “Oui Oui”, a Pimp called Tristan Spade and the Gay Wrestler Rick Cataldo (Veronique’s coup de coeur) in action.

Watch a few videos to get the feeling of the place:

Gleason’s Gym
77 Front Street 2nd Floor, Brooklyn (Dumbo)
www.gleasonsgym.net

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Fashioning Felt is presented at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum until September 7. It’s a beautiful exhibition that explores the uses of felt now and in the past. Felt is used in product design, fashion, architecture and home furnishings. It’s very difficult to avoid touching the felt even if it’s wrtitten all over the place : ‘Please don’t touch’.

If you want to learn more about the Felt transformation process watch this video:

You can also watch the creation process of the Palace Yurt Felt:

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The trip is starting really weirdly! We met some weird people at the airport…and a guy who looks like Benjamin Linus (the bad guy) from the tv series Lost

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