Picking a Hotel in Brooklyn: Location
Periodically I get clients who ask me for advice on choosing a hotel in Brooklyn (or for a visit to Brooklyn), or ask me what I think of their hotel choice. I respond with my candid opinion. (I don't get kickbacks!)
Obviously, you pay more for a nicer room in a better equipped hotel. Or you might have hotel points you want to deploy.
My main advice regards location, and access to nearby public transportation and proximity to shopping/restaurants, as well as access to other attractions in Brooklyn.
Sure, if you want to spend money on taxis/Ubers, that's fine, but New Yorkers typically rely on the subway or bus, and like to be able to walk to at least some restaurants and stores.
My advice can't guarantee you a great room or a true bargain. Please read reviews of any hotel--especially the negative ones--to recognize patterns and tradeoffs. But I can help you plan to make the best use of your location.
Location matters
Please recognize that simply lodging in Brooklyn does not position you to reach every attraction in Brooklyn. I once had clients who chose a nice hotel in Williamsburg, and planned to visit the Brooklyn Museum, twice. They had to take costly, and slow, Ubers, because there's no easy connection via public transportation.
Had they stayed in Downtown Brooklyn or Gowanus, it would have been much easier. A lot of places in Brooklyn are also easily accessible from hotels in Lower Manhattan, in the Financial District, given good subway access. Those may be relative bargains.
So, for example, staying in Greenpoint or Williamsburg does not position you easily for the Brooklyn 101 tour. You are nowhere near those locations! (If you're staying long enough to both explore those neighborhoods and make the travel time to reach the Brooklyn 101 tour reasonable, that's fine. But don't say one night in Greenpoint or Williamsburg to see "Brooklyn." Focus on the immediate neighborhoods.)
Obviously, you pay more for a nicer room in a better equipped hotel. Or you might have hotel points you want to deploy.
My main advice regards location, and access to nearby public transportation and proximity to shopping/restaurants, as well as access to other attractions in Brooklyn.
Sure, if you want to spend money on taxis/Ubers, that's fine, but New Yorkers typically rely on the subway or bus, and like to be able to walk to at least some restaurants and stores.
My advice can't guarantee you a great room or a true bargain. Please read reviews of any hotel--especially the negative ones--to recognize patterns and tradeoffs. But I can help you plan to make the best use of your location.
Location matters
Please recognize that simply lodging in Brooklyn does not position you to reach every attraction in Brooklyn. I once had clients who chose a nice hotel in Williamsburg, and planned to visit the Brooklyn Museum, twice. They had to take costly, and slow, Ubers, because there's no easy connection via public transportation.
Had they stayed in Downtown Brooklyn or Gowanus, it would have been much easier. A lot of places in Brooklyn are also easily accessible from hotels in Lower Manhattan, in the Financial District, given good subway access. Those may be relative bargains.
So, for example, staying in Greenpoint or Williamsburg does not position you easily for the Brooklyn 101 tour. You are nowhere near those locations! (If you're staying long enough to both explore those neighborhoods and make the travel time to reach the Brooklyn 101 tour reasonable, that's fine. But don't say one night in Greenpoint or Williamsburg to see "Brooklyn." Focus on the immediate neighborhoods.)
The screenshot above is from this map I've created of hotels in Brooklyn.
Three main clusters
I think of hotels as located in three main clusters: Downtown Brooklyn (blue); Gowanus (dark maroon); and Williamsburg (green).
Downtown Brooklyn gives you access to transportation--both to Manhattan and deeper in Brooklyn (like Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum), as well as the key clusters of neighborhoods in Brownstone Brooklyn (as in my Brooklyn 101 and Brooklyn 202 tours), and many other neighborhoods in the borough.
Some hotels are better located than others. I often recommend the Nu Hotel, the southernmost, because it has the quickest access to charming tree-lined streets and good shopping/dining in the adjacent neighborhoods of Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. (But do read reviews about noise from construction nearby and check your room's location.) Also nearby: Hilton, Ace, Holiday Inn, Even.
The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge does offers good access to walk the bridge, but it's farther from neighborhood Brooklyn. Still, as the borough's largest hotel, it's always easy to get a ride from there.
Note: DUMBO has Brooklyn's most luxurious and expensive hotel, the One Hotel Brooklyn Bridge (orange). It offers great access to the waterfront (including the ferry to Williamsburg and Greenpoint), but may not be well positioned for a long visit if you want to see other parts of Brooklyn, since it's not near the subway.
Gowanus is an industrial/commercial area with lower-cost and more basic hotels, but it offers fairly quick access, by foot, to the residential neighborhood of Park Slope, with good shopping and dining, and, ultimately, Prospect Park. The R train is nearby. It's just a little more desolate at night. The neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill are walkable, at least by day, through a mixed industrial and construction zone, with some retail.
Note that some hotels in Gowanus, and in Sunset Park (not listed here) and Long Island City in Queens (ditto), have been converted, at least temporarily to shelters. So the Holiday Inn Express in Gowanus is not at this moment accepting guests.
Williamsburg is Brooklyn's hipster zone, with a cluster of hotels in the north, near McCarren Park and a nightlife zone, a few hotels near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (check reviews for noise), and one new hotel (the Moxy), along Bedford Avenue in the Southside.
Williamsburg, along with adjacent neighborhood Greenpoint, offer lots of things to do/see/eat, and Williamsburg, thanks to the L train, offers good access to neighborhoods in Manhattan along 14th Street (Union Square, East Village, West Village).
Note the hotels I've marked in gray. The two close to Flushing Avenue are far from hipster Williamsburg but close to the Hasidic (Orthodox Jewish) section. The one on Broadway is not as remote, but still a long walk to most places visitors might want to see.
Further afield
Also note three Greenpoint hotels in yellow. Greenpoint's a great neighborhood where I enjoy leading tours, but it's at the northern tip of Brooklyn. If you're focused on Greenpoint, fine, but the two main hotels (not the Franklin Guesthouse) are a good walk from the subway and somewhat far from the prime shopping and restaurants (though that zone is expanding). Greenpoint even gives you access to nearby Long Island City in Queens.
Also note three Bedford-Stuyvesant hotels in the center of the map. Two, marked in gray, are along busy, noisy Atlantic Avenue, and are less expensive hotels. Bed-Stuy shopping, restaurants and tree-lined streets are within walking distance, but not immediately nearby. The Akwaaba Mansion, on the other hand, is a lovely real bed-and-breakfast on a prime block, so a good location for visitors focused on Bed-Stuy.
I've marked, in black, two hotels worth a cautious assessment. I'm not saying they're bad hotels, but their location is remote, so they're best for people who have reasons to be nearby.
Of course, different budgets mean different choices. The Holiday Inn in Downtown Brooklyn will be more expensive, and offer more amenities, than the Holiday Inn Express in Gowanus (labeled, confusingly, New York-Brooklyn) or the Holiday Inn Express in Sunset Park. The Gowanus location, if/when it's no longer serving as a shelter, is a far better location than Sunset Park.
A note on AirBnB: there are fewer such locations available, but, beyond obvious questions about price and quality, they come with the same significant questions about location, including proximity to transit and shopping, as well as--unlike with most hotels--sometimes issues of safety. See my advice here.
Three main clusters
I think of hotels as located in three main clusters: Downtown Brooklyn (blue); Gowanus (dark maroon); and Williamsburg (green).
Downtown Brooklyn gives you access to transportation--both to Manhattan and deeper in Brooklyn (like Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum), as well as the key clusters of neighborhoods in Brownstone Brooklyn (as in my Brooklyn 101 and Brooklyn 202 tours), and many other neighborhoods in the borough.
Some hotels are better located than others. I often recommend the Nu Hotel, the southernmost, because it has the quickest access to charming tree-lined streets and good shopping/dining in the adjacent neighborhoods of Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. (But do read reviews about noise from construction nearby and check your room's location.) Also nearby: Hilton, Ace, Holiday Inn, Even.
The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge does offers good access to walk the bridge, but it's farther from neighborhood Brooklyn. Still, as the borough's largest hotel, it's always easy to get a ride from there.
Note: DUMBO has Brooklyn's most luxurious and expensive hotel, the One Hotel Brooklyn Bridge (orange). It offers great access to the waterfront (including the ferry to Williamsburg and Greenpoint), but may not be well positioned for a long visit if you want to see other parts of Brooklyn, since it's not near the subway.
Gowanus is an industrial/commercial area with lower-cost and more basic hotels, but it offers fairly quick access, by foot, to the residential neighborhood of Park Slope, with good shopping and dining, and, ultimately, Prospect Park. The R train is nearby. It's just a little more desolate at night. The neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill are walkable, at least by day, through a mixed industrial and construction zone, with some retail.
Note that some hotels in Gowanus, and in Sunset Park (not listed here) and Long Island City in Queens (ditto), have been converted, at least temporarily to shelters. So the Holiday Inn Express in Gowanus is not at this moment accepting guests.
Williamsburg is Brooklyn's hipster zone, with a cluster of hotels in the north, near McCarren Park and a nightlife zone, a few hotels near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (check reviews for noise), and one new hotel (the Moxy), along Bedford Avenue in the Southside.
Williamsburg, along with adjacent neighborhood Greenpoint, offer lots of things to do/see/eat, and Williamsburg, thanks to the L train, offers good access to neighborhoods in Manhattan along 14th Street (Union Square, East Village, West Village).
Note the hotels I've marked in gray. The two close to Flushing Avenue are far from hipster Williamsburg but close to the Hasidic (Orthodox Jewish) section. The one on Broadway is not as remote, but still a long walk to most places visitors might want to see.
Further afield
Also note three Greenpoint hotels in yellow. Greenpoint's a great neighborhood where I enjoy leading tours, but it's at the northern tip of Brooklyn. If you're focused on Greenpoint, fine, but the two main hotels (not the Franklin Guesthouse) are a good walk from the subway and somewhat far from the prime shopping and restaurants (though that zone is expanding). Greenpoint even gives you access to nearby Long Island City in Queens.
Also note three Bedford-Stuyvesant hotels in the center of the map. Two, marked in gray, are along busy, noisy Atlantic Avenue, and are less expensive hotels. Bed-Stuy shopping, restaurants and tree-lined streets are within walking distance, but not immediately nearby. The Akwaaba Mansion, on the other hand, is a lovely real bed-and-breakfast on a prime block, so a good location for visitors focused on Bed-Stuy.
I've marked, in black, two hotels worth a cautious assessment. I'm not saying they're bad hotels, but their location is remote, so they're best for people who have reasons to be nearby.
Of course, different budgets mean different choices. The Holiday Inn in Downtown Brooklyn will be more expensive, and offer more amenities, than the Holiday Inn Express in Gowanus (labeled, confusingly, New York-Brooklyn) or the Holiday Inn Express in Sunset Park. The Gowanus location, if/when it's no longer serving as a shelter, is a far better location than Sunset Park.
A note on AirBnB: there are fewer such locations available, but, beyond obvious questions about price and quality, they come with the same significant questions about location, including proximity to transit and shopping, as well as--unlike with most hotels--sometimes issues of safety. See my advice here.