A Day in Downtown Brooklyn with Hilton Dresden

The Travel Agency partnered with writer and actress Hilton Dresden (she/her) to experience the best of Brooklyn through her point of view. Enjoy Hilton’s travels, which we hope impart some inspiration for some of your own. Follow Hilton on Instagram.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting The Travel Agency in Downtown Brooklyn, an oft-overlooked part of New York City that actually contains some of the borough’s best gems, everything from lush parks to fruitful vintage shopping to cavernous mall spaces a girl can easily get blissfully lost in while mellowed out on an edible. Or you could just sit at my favorite wine bar and nibble on a cheese platter.

Hilton’s Brooklyn roots

But first, the basics: who am I, and why am I qualified to tell you, lovely reader, about how to spend an afternoon in and around Downtown Brooklyn?

For one, I’m a New Yorker — I’ve lived in Brooklyn for the last 10 years of my life, ever since graduating college (no need to do an age calculation, visually I’m a fresh-faced 22-year-old). I’m a writer — my bona fides include The Hollywood Reporter, Out, PAPER, and Interview. And, above all, I’m a stoner — I love weed, I love walking around listening to music while pleasantly stoned, I enjoy a burger or a book or a lay in the park to complement my cannabis. I enjoy a sunny stroll through Downtown Brooklyn while puffing on a joint.

So, armed with Travel Agency-supplied pre-rolls, vapes, and edibles, let me tell you how best to spend an afternoon in the Downtown Brooklyn area.

Stop 1: Thrifting at Life Boutique paired with The Bettering Company edibles

After picking up my supplies at The Travel Agency, I nibble on a Blackberry Lemonade gummy of the “Laugh” variety, a product from The Bettering Company. These edibles are designed to be consumed while laughing with friends, which (spoiler alert) is exactly what I’m about to do. I only take half, since each gummy is 10 mg, and find my dosage to be divine, kicking in quite quickly. I stroll out onto Flatbush Ave. My first priority is some vintage shopping, which leads me to:

Life Boutique Thrift

515 5th Ave., Park Slope

A great spot to pick up some kitschy home goods, I spot a large mirrored tray with ornate metal feet that I’m tempted to blow 20 bucks on. Since it doesn’t fit inside my little red Coach bag I regretfully must decline. I’m biking after this — a glass tray under one arm is hardly practical.

Slope Vintage

71 Fifth Ave., Downtown Brooklyn

Here, my friend and I (a fellow stoner who’s joined me for the noble cause of walking around Brooklyn for an afternoon on an edible) discover some amazing old cheerleading uniforms and little leather lederhosen shorts. Slope Vintage is a great spot for true vintage pieces that may need a little fixing up but could become wardrobe staples.

Out of the Closet

475 Atlantic Ave., Downtown Brooklyn

There’s a pouffy soft pink sweater here that I come inches from buying, except it ends up making me look a bit lumpy, so I decline. Still, an affordable spot that often boasts a wide variety of items in a consistent rotation. They also offer free HIV testing, and 96 percent of their profits go toward AIDS research. What’s not to love?

From there, my friend and I are buzzing with the elation of the Laugh gummies and find ourselves wanting to escape into a massive environment — sometimes a girl just needs to be in a large room with vaulted ceilings, you know? — and that leads us back to City Point BKLYN.

Stop 2: City Point BKLYN

This massive mall boasts all the essentials for a successful day in the neighborhood.

McNally Jackson Bookstore

There are winding wooden staircases in here with bookshelves built into them — staff picks, literature from around the globe, queer books, philosophy, poetry, travel, cooking, you name it, they’ve got it. For a stoned person, it’s nirvana — the glossy magazine covers and the Patti Smith memoirs go down the gullet like minty lemonade.

Target

OK, don’t drag me, but while an edible reaches its crescendo, being lost in the aisles of a Target can emerge as total bliss. The five-dollar T-shirts, the DVD section, the office supplies and the vacuums and the lava lamps and the shag rugs and the bathrobes can all equally be heaven to behold.

Alamo Drafthouse and House of Wax Bar

There’s truly nothing better than sitting in a dark movie theater and feeling the lights dim as the film begins — except when you know you have a boozy chocolate milkshake and a baked pretzel with queso on the way. That’s what I recommend ordering, by the way, as you soak in the curated pre-show footage Alamo is known for. I totally recommend getting to the cinema early so you can see their programming — it’s all vintage clips relating to the film at hand. For instance, before Poor Things, they screened SNL sketches Emma Stone had appeared in as well as vintage Frankenstein scenes in black and white.

Downstairs there’s a cocktail bar, no movie ticket required (although I’m pretty sure you get a discount if you show your stub) filled with wax heads, some of them shrunken, like the ones in Harry Potter. It’s a fabulously creepy vibe complete with dark mood lighting and soft couches. Highly recommend it for a date night with a horror enthusiast.

Trader Joe’s

It’s also important to mention that for the practically-minded there is indeed a Trader Joe’s in the basement of this establishment. Ride the escalators down after your movie and pick up the week’s groceries, stopping for a moment in the impressive food market next door to have some dumplings.

Step 3: The great outdoors with FLAMER pre-rolls

My friend and I are compelled to head over to…

Fort Greene Park

This is one of the most beautiful and least mentioned (at least by tourists) outdoor spaces in the city. My friend and I plop down on the hill overlooking the massive stretch of lawn where the marketing assistants gather with their rosé and their patterned blankets and we laugh, blissed out on the drags we took off the sidewalk from the FLAMER P.N.C. pre-roll, a hybrid joint intended to promote mental and physical relaxation, which it delivers on tenfold. We giggle uncontrollably and I look at the new Elena Ferrante novella I purchased back at McNally Jackson and we talk about boys and life feels divine.

After that, we use the public restrooms at the center of the park (it’s important to know where you can go pee on a day out in New York City) before making our way along Willoughby toward my favorite wine bar.

Rhodora Wine Bar

197 Adelphi St., Fort Greene

Outdoor tables are sprawling along one of the most beautiful, ivy-tressed intersections the city has to offer. We order glasses of chilled red and a cheese plate with oily olives and speckled meats and we gossip and laugh and enjoy the beauty of life.

Ending the perfect Brooklyn day with Edie Parker vapes

On the way home, I walk through Fort Greene and then Clinton Hill and finally toward my apartment in Bed-Stuy, puffing from the adorable Good Night Lavender Vanilla Edie Parker Vaporizer, an indica-forward hybrid vape that packs a silly punch.

I’m reflecting on the abundant goodness and joy available all around us if we only reach out and let it into our systems. I think about how few things compare to an idyllic day in Brooklyn and an elated THC buzz and I enter my apartment and fire up my projector and watch Jane Campion’s The Piano and I overflow with gratitude.

About Hilton Dresden

Hilton Dresden is an actor, writer, illustrator, and comedian based in Brooklyn, perhaps best known for their Out Magazine web series 5 Things With Hilton Dresden. Hilton recently appeared on HBO’s Search Party, and before that designed a collection of t-shirts for Nicola Formichetti’s brand Nicopanda. Hilton’s performed at improv comedy festivals around the country, and once accidentally swallowed their sister’s tooth while eating a Chili’s corn dog.