How to make friends in Brooklyn
Updated
Brooklyn works differently from Manhattan. People tend to live, eat, shop and spend their weekends within a few blocks of home, and the same faces turn up again and again. That is good news if you are trying to make friends: the repetition that friendship needs is built into the borough. You just have to stay put long enough to use it.
Start with your own few blocks
The quickest way to feel at home in Brooklyn is to become a regular somewhere close: a coffee shop on your way to the subway, a bakery on Saturday morning, a bar with a quiz night. Go at the same time each week. Within a month or two, you will be nodding at people; a little after that, you will be talking to them.
Say hello to your neighbors, too. Stoops, shared laundry rooms and building group chats are underrated places to start.
Use the parks
Brooklyn’s big parks are social places, especially on weekend mornings. Prospect Park, McCarren Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park all have running groups, pick-up games and regular meetups, and some have volunteer programs that need people week after week. A weekly run or a volunteering shift gives you the same group of people at the same time, which is exactly what you want.
Your library branch is a social club
Brooklyn Public Library branches run free events across the borough: book clubs, language conversation groups, author talks, classes and workshops. They are calm, low-pressure and full of people who live nearby. Check your branch’s calendar and pick one thing that repeats.
Choose one weekly thing and stay with it
- A climbing gym, a ceramics studio or a dance class with a fixed group.
- A community garden plot or a food co-op shift.
- A recreational sports league that plays on the same night all season.
- A choir, a band or a writing group.
Whatever you choose, give it two months. The first few sessions are always the hardest.
Cross the river now and then
Friendships do not have to stop at the borough line. If you live in the parts of Brooklyn close to Manhattan, much of the city is a short ride away, and plenty of people make a weekly trip for a class or a dinner.
Simurgsu introduces people in Manhattan and nearby Brooklyn who want the same kind of evening — a calm dinner, quiet company, or a museum or show — starting with a five-minute call. It is a good companion to a neighborhood routine: one regular thing close to home, and one new person every so often.
