Dumbo, by the river
Sometimes you want to go to New York — but you don’t really want to be in New York. What you want is the view of New York, with enough distance to actually see it.
1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge solves that problem perfectly.
We drove into Dumbo from the airport. Coco wanted to stay in Manhattan. I said: wait until you see the room. The driver turned onto Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and there it was — a compact, trapezoidal building in steel, glass and reclaimed timber, the park in the foreground and Manhattan’s skyline straight across the East River.
“Okay,” said Coco. “I take it back.”
The Corner Suite
The room was a corner suite above the park and the bridge. Floor-to-ceiling glass on two walls. To the left: Brooklyn Bridge lit against the evening sky. Straight ahead: the city’s collective glow reflected in the river.
The architects at INC described it at opening: “The view is everything. The bathroom was blown out so nothing would obstruct it.” The shower is clear glass. You can stand facing the bridge while you bathe.
The bed faces the window wall. Not the TV. The view. It’s an architectural decision that says something about what this place means by luxury.
The materials tell a city’s story
More than half the hotel is built from reclaimed materials. Not as an architectural compromise — as a strategy with meaning.
The lobby beams came from the old Domino Sugar Factory further up the river. Floorboards from Brooklyn Botanic Garden — felled during Hurricane Sandy. Planks from the Old Crow Distillery in Kentucky. The rubber-strip installation behind reception: from the roof of a store destroyed by a tornado in 2014.
Each material is a fragment of Brooklyn’s actual history. It gives the hotel something new builds rarely have: a soul older than itself.
New York is always too much. The city decides that for itself. 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge is where you watch all of it from the quiet side of the river — and breathe.
Harriets Rooftop and the lightning-shaped pool
In the evening: Harriets Rooftop. The pool is lightning-shaped and runs to the very edge — with the skyline in full width. The Statue of Liberty just visible above the waterline. Lower Manhattan glittering.
Coco stood at the railing and took it in. For a long time.
“Is this the most beautiful rooftop view we’ve ever had?”
I didn’t answer right away. Thought about Reschio. Capella. El Fenn. Each one is best in its own way. But seeing New York from the Brooklyn side, in evening light, with a drink in hand — that is something of its own.
Sustainability without performance
1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge is LEED Gold certified. But what impresses is not the certification — it’s that you barely notice the effort. Triple-filtered drinking water from every tap. No plastic. Organic cotton. Lights that dim on their own. Rainwater collected on the roof and directed down to the park through exposed pipes in the lobby — visible infrastructure that tells the story of what the hotel actually does.
The park and the hotel are physically woven together. The public walks right through. This is not a hotel placed in a cityscape — it is a hotel that is part of one.
Mr. Kim
Lead Curator, Velour
1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn · A Velour Pick