Built in 1901 after the construction of Prospect Park (crowning achievement of the great landscape architects Olmstead and Vaux), the Sofia Inn is located on one of Brooklyn’s leafiest and quietest blocks. And it is a 20-minute subway ride from Manhattan, and steps from many of the borough’s great spots: Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and all the shopping anyone would want (outside of Manhattan).

Just some of the reasons why, since 1998, the Sofia Inn has been hosting people from all over America and the world. Starting with a single room, it now has four rooms and two apartments, each lovingly designed. All rooms have gorgeous, hand-picked furniture, comfortable beds with firm mattresses, cable TV, and air-conditioning.

A traveler myself, I am eager to share with guests my knowledge of the city. And as a Brooklyn resident for 28 years, a cab-driver for eight of those years, I know the city like a map. I have also taught public school, worked as a photo-retoucher (before Photoshop obliterated that career), and written for the Village Voice, the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Daily News, and other publications. In 1997, I began teaching English at Baruch College.

Throughout all these changes, it has been my good fortune to live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn’s most beautiful, most exciting neighborhood (that’s not a contradiction). Once owned mainly by Jews and Italians (you can still find homemade wine presses in many basements), its brownstones are rapidly being renovated by upwardly-mobile whites, blacks, and Asians from all over the world. The Sofia Inn sits smack in the middle of this excitement; comfortable, yet close to the action.

Sincerely,

Billy Tashman, Owner