New book offers guide to the Brooklyn of HBO’s ‘Girls’
Brooklyn BookBeat
Crucial to HBO’s hit series “Girls” is its Brooklyn landscape. Perhaps this is no surprise; 27-year-old Lena Dunham, who created and stars in the show, was raised in Brooklyn and attended St. Ann’s School, where she met Jemima Kirke, another prominent actress in the show. Dunham, who moved back to Brooklyn after attending Oberlin College, takes her characters all across New York City — but Brooklyn figures most prominently in the setting and plot of “Girls.” And now, just in time for the Jan. 12 premiere of Season 3 (which will air on HBO at 10 p.m., E.S.T.), there is a new book that pays homage to the show’s urban backdrop — Judy Gelman’s and Peter Zheutlin’s “The Unofficial ‘Girls’ Guide to New York” (Smart Pop/BenBella Books, Inc.), which offers the scoop on the neighborhoods, bars and other New York haunts portrayed in “Girls.”
Hannah, the main character in “Girls” who is played by Dunham, moves to Greenpoint after she graduates from college and her parents quickly withdraw their financial support. “The Unofficial ‘Girls’ Guide to New York” begins just there; Gelman and Zheutlin explain, “Located north of Williamsburg and across the East River from the Gramercy Park and Murray Hill neighborhoods of Manhattan, Greenpoint was, until several years ago, a tight-knit community of predominantly Polish immigrants, some here for generations and others newly arrived.”