I had a studio in this neighborhood for 3 years. Just take your camera and spend a couple hours walking around admiring the colors and people and odd shops. 

One of my favorite things to do on weekends is to head to Grand Central Market for brunch, grab a few glasses of wine at the Oyster bar and then roam around downtown collecting pigeons. Over the past few years the market has been modernized and has become a really trendy spot, but it still retains aspects of what it was like decades ago. Some of my favorite stands are The Oyster Gourmet, Sarita's Pupuseria and the Belcampo Meat Co.

Built on Carroll Avenue in the late 1880s, this is a short walk to look at these old houses. There is the Thriller house from Michael Jackson clip on the 1345 Carroll Av

Did you ever see the movie “Chinatown” with Jack Nicholson? IT'S JUST LIKE THAT but with good food, good art, and less incest.

It's a cemetery, but the view from up here is stunning and you can see one of the most large scale epic paintings ever made by a human: The Crucifixion painting, by Polish artist Jan Styka. It's a must see.