The Hottest Club in Brooklyn is Filled With Dads
Three days after my grandpa died, I spent four hours with 50 dads and their babies.
While Williamsburg's early twenty-somethings were still fast asleep, the neighborhood's most exclusive gathering — more than three dozen dads with babies in tow — had already taken over McCarren Park. The Brooklyn Stroll Club, founded by creative producer Joe Gonzales, has become the hottest club in town for New York dads as they navigate parenthood.
The crew was impressive. Benjamin Velez arrived post-night shift with caffeine in hand. Victor Ayala turned heads with a Japanese-imported luxury stroller, and Calvin Eng, chef and owner of Williamsburg hot spot Bonnie’s, joined the group. Within minutes, the strangers bonded over sleep schedules and baby gear.
In the colder months, the dads had to get creative and gather indoors, but with an indoor space came limited capacity. Joe shares the events on a Discord channel he created with more than 1,300 members, and when the 50 tickets are released at noon, there’s a mad dash to snatch them up. (Perhaps that’s why dad and content creator Colin Rocker said it feels like a sneaker drop.)
“When Joe releases an event, it’s like a sneaker drop.”
The community is growing rapidly, but its mission stays the same. “Fatherhood was a very isolating experience at first,” Rene Jimenez, assistant dean of students at the Dalton School, said. But the group has provided him with an amazing group of friends “To be in a community with other men who are trying to figure out how to be really good dads and break cycles that have been repeated for years — it’s really important,” he said.