Thirty years ago Williamsburg was an abandoned industrial area, unwelcoming at best. Then artists and independent shops took root, it became trendy, and the neighborhood exploded.
The quintessential Brooklyn lifestyle was further cemented when TV-show “Girls” creator Lena Dunham popularized the adjacent Greenpoint neighborhood, and now there is no going back.
So locals are the best trendsetters, the city’s tourism experts concluded, and this is a model that could be applied to other neighborhoods.
On Wednesday, NYC & Company, the city’s private and nonprofit marketing-tourism partner, launched a campaign to try to get New Yorkers to travel within their own five boroughs.
Making Staten Island Aspirational
Tasked with capturing the attention of and enticing notoriously provincial New Yorkers to travel, Emily Lessard drew inspiration from vintage travel posters and passport stamps.
Lessard, the creative director of NYC & Company, set out to rebrand and reframe 10 NYC neighborhoods as foreign, idealized, and aspirational.
Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx is “the city’s country club.” Long Island City is “where art goes for fresh air.”
“Our goal was to create inspiration to convince New Yorkers to explore their own backyards,” Lessard stated in a press release.
There are over 250 neighborhoods in New York City. About 800 languages are spoken. Despite the well-known high-rises, bridges, and shop-filled avenues, there is more to see, and the campaign centers around the fact that these new worlds are just a subway stop away.
