10 ms·

> In 2011, while primarily working on pandas, I was paying $2000 per month for a ground-level "1 bedroom" apartment in the East Village. It was less than 500 sq

> In 2011, while primarily working on pandas, I was paying $2000 per month for a ground-level "1 bedroom" apartment in the East Village. It was less than 500 square feet and had none of the above amenities. You know, you can always tell when a non-native New Yorker lives in New York, because they all choose one of five neighborhoods to live in, and then complain about their poor living conditions. My guy, you can live in one of the other boroughs, have an average commute to work, and have good living conditions that satisfy at least half of your list of requirements there for $2000 in 2011. Like other commentators here have said, people of a certain class (and age) want to have their cake and eat it too.

actualdc1 8y ago
The issue for me is the "average commute to work". I need to be on the 6 (or 4/5). Anywhere outside of Manhattan makes my commute ~1 hour instead of ~35 min. I don't currently live in the EV, but I'd entertain doing so if I could get a bit more for the money. Any advice on where else I should be looking?
- mancerayder 8y ago
  If you don't mind a bit of grungy asthetics, the areas near the JMZ trains just on the other side of Manhattan in Williamsburg and the Bed Stuy/Bushwick border have a relatively fast commute - much faster than far more expensive neighborhoods in Brooklyn. For example, it's like 10m from Marcy Ave to Essex St. in the LES. The J goes downtown in the Wall St. area while the M takes much of the same path as the F along 6th Ave, and both of those trains follow the same lines up until Myrtle-Broadway. In fact, it's literally two stops from Essex St. during rush hour as the J runs express (sometimes it sees itself as a Z).
  - notyourday 8y ago
    JMZ will be impossible to get into above Mytrle-Broadway come April. Maybe even above Gates.
    - mancerayder 8y ago
      That's potentially very true. That said, numerous lines are going to get squeezed as well, the A and C in particular.
- wgerard 8y ago
  Are you commuting into midtown? If so, there's a reason Astoria is exceptionally popular.
- jonathanjaeger 8y ago
  Crown Heights close to Nostrand to Grand Central should take you 30-45min, and you can have a semi-luxury building or renovated apartment for the same price as the author of the article posted. There are other similar neighborhoods in BK. UES or East Harlem could work too.
- jtr_47 8y ago
  Queens Village - a little further from the city. Flushing Fresh Meadows Rego Park Maspeth Middle village Kew Gardens Take a look at the NYC subway map. Follow trains heading East of Manhattan: E,F,7,L etc...
- rmah 8y ago
  For many years, I lived in Westchester, took metro-north to grand central (30 minutes on an express train), then the 4/5/6 to work (10 minutes. 15 when things were slow).
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    I looked at this before leaving NYC and the problem is that once you add the time to get to the metro-north station, time to switch from metro north to subway, time from subway to office, and time waiting for trains, elevators, etc, you can easily have a 75-90 minute commute. And that's when things go right on two different transit systems, which seems far too rare these days.
  - mancerayder 8y ago
    Lately, Grand Central Station has become an overcrowded tourist nightmare where you have to do breathing exercises to stay calm getting from the station to the subway. I cannot believe they put an Apple store in there. It should be a crime to choose profits over efficiency.
- ameister14 8y ago
  I live in Brooklyn, east of Prospect Park, and am on the 5. I can also take the Q/B which are express to Manhattan and switch to the 6 or 5 at 14th. My commute is to Midtown, and it takes about 35 minutes.
pc86 8y ago
What are the good neighborhoods to move into if you're a non-native New Yorker moving there for a tech job?
- anthonybsd 8y ago
  Brooklyn (non-Williamsburg) while getting pricier is still afordable. Without kids I'd recommend Clinton Hill area (schools suck there). If with kids, South Slope is a recently gentrified version of pricey Park Slope (where the Mayor lives) which hasn't quite caught up with Park Slope prices yet. There's also a bunch of commuter towns all around NYC in NJ that can guarantee sub-1hour commutes to Midtown where 1 bedroom can be had for 1200 or so with all of the aforementioned amenities.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    > There's also a bunch of commuter towns all around NYC in NJ that can guarantee sub-1-hour commutes to Midtown On days when NJTransit wakes up on the right side of the bed...
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      Yeah, if you're not living next to a PATH train stop or the Secaucus train station, I would assume +30min of travel time to any day's commute. That kind of variance basically means your weekdays are spent going to work, coming home, eating, and going to sleep. Terrible. And you get to pay ever increasing NJ Transit fares and property taxes for it.
      - anthonybsd 8y ago
        I take a private bus that costs the same as NJT buses so there's no +30. They are very consistent.
    - anthonybsd 8y ago
      So obviously everyone's situation is different. I agree that NJT is a cluster$#% of epic proportions. In my case I'm in Montclair, around 12 minutes from an NJT station but around 1 minute from Decamp Buses which is what I take every day. I take the downtown Wall Street bus a block from my house at 6:50 AM and it drops me off near the bull at 7:50. The bus takes around 25-30 minutes to get to Port Authority and around around 20-30 minutes to traverse to downtown (people request stops). This year it's only been late (i.e. 8:10-8:20) to Downtown twice. One of those times was when major roads in TriBeCa were closed because of mailbomnbs. That's how rare of an occasion that is. Of course that's an early bus, later ones are subject to traffic variations.
pradn 8y ago
Yes! This person was living in East Village, which is probably the most happening/hip neighborhood in Manhattan. Tons of bars, restaurants, theaters, other young people. Neighborhoods in upper Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Jersey City have easy access to the city (30-45 min train rides) and cost less. I don't think it makes sense to live in New York unless there is something you can only get here. There's only one MoMA, one City Ballet, one Film Forum. (Not to mention the business and professional opportunities - the city is a business city first and foremost.)
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  The difference between 45 minutes (+60 mins/-5 mins) on the unreliable subway and a 15 minute walk / bike ride / UberPool / etc cannot be overstated. That's 250 hours per year, not to mention the stress and hassles of being reliant on the ever-spiraling subway.
  - nickdandakis 8y ago
    Definitely. As with anything else, there are compromises to be made, and NYC has a unique set of them. If you really think this way, go ahead and live in a densely populated neighborhood with the compromises that come along with it. For what it's worth, I commute before/after on-peak hours to avoid delays. The subway is very efficient at 7am-7:30am, and is a shitshow at 9am when everyone is trying to get to their 10am start job. Then everyone complains about the delays, as if they can't make changes to their schedule when they _know_ it's a shitshow at certain times.
  - asdff 8y ago
    You can get things done on a train that you can't if you need to focus on walking or biking. By the time I arrive at work I've gotten through my emails and read the days headlines.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - 8y ago
wgerard 8y ago
I also hope the author was joking about being part of the underclass--which I'm willing to give them a charitable interpretation because of the quotes. The mere fact that they can afford to live in a 1-bedroom in the EV is, well, evidence against that fact. You're not even part of the underclass in Manhattan if you can do that.
- francisofascii 8y ago
  Very true, but understandable if you are constantly surrounded by immense wealth.
  - wgerard 8y ago
    But that's exactly what I take issue with - you're not! Someone's delivering your food, someone's working at the bodega you go to. You won't encounter nearly the same level of homelessness as you do in SF, but you will encounter homeless people regularly nonetheless. You run into the actual underclass far more often than you encounter the extremely wealthy. If you call yourself part of the underclass, either you're: Forgetting that they exist, or you're pretending that your economic situation is somehow roughly equivalent. I don't think you need to keep that on your mind every single second of the day, but at least be honest about it.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - reno9111 8y ago
      You are much closer to your deliveryman than to fat cats making multi-million dollar salaries on Wall Street. That's the comparison the Author was making.
      - wgerard 8y ago
        I'm also much closer in age to high school students than I am to senior citizens. I wouldn't say I fit in particularly well with either group, though.
voidbip 8y ago
This. NYC is more than just Manhattan. My two children, my wife and I live in a 3 BR apt, with backyard access and laundry in the basement, in Ridgewood, Queens for 1750 a month. Its 30 minutes to Union Sq. by subway and 40 minutes by bicycle. I am amazed when new college grads at my job tell me they are renting a room in Manhattan for how much I am paying for a full floor apartment in Queens.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Some things never change. The absolute amount would be different but otherwise you could cut and paste the exact same comment to Usenet in the mid 1980s and it wouldn't look at all out of place.
- contrahax 8y ago
  Shh, don't spoil Ridgewood! When people find out they can get a whole house with a yard for the price they pay for a room in Williamsburg we'll get overrun.
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    No one paying for a room in Williamsburg (or most of the other high costs neighborhoods) wants a "full house and a yard". I really don't understand the American obsession with huge living spaces. Just increases the amount you have to clean, and the amount of junk you're liable to fill it with. The best argument is for kids, but for me and many (most) of my peers at least, that's the last thing we want. I'd also argue that raising children in the South/MidWest does them a great disservice in terms of cut potential in education and career prospects but that's neither here nor there.
    - itchyouch 8y ago
      The space is more about supporting a variety of hobbies that require space and/or the space is available at minimal cost likely both in time & money. With my tech friends, they seem to be able to live ridiculously minimally as their life outside of the essentials fits into a laptop/desktop. My non-tech friends are less so. Some activities that like having more space are as follows. Sure, most on this list are available via affordable to semi-luxurious subscriptions and/or coops or definitely can be done in a small space, yet having a personal version of it or additional space offers a decent QoL improvement in the form of time saved, or simply not having to share space/equipment with family/strangers. - Gym Equipments (powerrack, barbells, etc) - Sauna - Gardening - Music (neighbors don't complain about your noise) - Crafts - Wood/Metal working - Cooking/Baking - Pets - Art Studio (ceramics, painting, drawing, etc) - Automotive A bunch of these tend to also be activities/skills that some people derive a large part of their identity & happiness from, thus giving that up for living in a small space sounds like a preposterous suggestion to them.
cribbles 8y ago
I guess you could get a slightly larger apartment in Sunset Park or Jackson Heights or somewhere but you would still be paying a preposterous $2000 (realistically $2500+ in 2018) for that, and now you've added NYC's cramped, unpleasant, "state of emergency" transportation infrastructure to your daily grind. For all that you get housing that is _still_ laughably austere in comparison to what you'd get nearly anywhere else in the country. For what it's worth, I lived 7 or 8 places in about two years when I lived in NYC, in pretty much every Brooklyn neighborhood within a 20-40 minute radius from where I worked. Saved lots of money too - never lived alone, did social stuff in my neighborhood, took full advantage of the City to the best of my ability. After all that, I came to the following verdict: NYC is stupidly overpriced and has a substantial quality of life problem. I am admittedly a non-native, so perhaps some of the finer charms of the City will always be lost on me. But I don't know - I'm living in Berlin right now, which isn't _too_ drastically different, and can't say I find myself missing NYC at all.
- JBReefer 8y ago
  I paid $1450 for a 1 bed that was >1000 sq feet in Jackson Heights and it was _beautiful_. It's just not the Village.
- nickdandakis 8y ago
  Disagree about your $2k take on a Sunset Park or Jackson Heights apartment. I've lived in the latter, and that's not the case. Your "daily grind" doesn't have to happen at the same time as everyone else's. If the cramped subway bothers you, commute before (almost everyone can do this) or after (maybe not everyone can do this one though) the on-peak hours. NYC is an expensive and densely populated city to live in. Your quality of life hinges on the set of compromises you make, which are unique to the city and have a higher impact on your day-to-day. Some people don't like to make compromises and decisions that affect their everyday lives to this degree, and that's fine. But to pretend that options don't exist is ridiculous.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    I live in Hell's Kitchen but I had a reverse commute to Sunset Park for 2 years, ending earlier this year. My commute time ranged anywhere from 50 minutes to 2 and a half hours, each way, every day...more often towards the latter end of that spectrum. The situation of riding the yellow line to/from Brooklyn is atrocious and not something that I plan to subject myself to again.
beamatronic 8y ago
From a Bay Area perspective that seems like a fantastic deal. You only live once, living in Manhattan seems like an amazing opportunity.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Manhattan is pretty much a unique urban environment in the US. (Chicago probably comes closest.) There are a lot of things to like about it but it really is a city on steroids. Crowds, noise, etc. all take getting used to and, for a lot of people (including myself) more than a week or so of it really gets to be too much.
enobrev 8y ago
The single place I've lived the longest in my life was a little apartment in "East Williamsburg" (read: Bed-Stuy / Bushwick). I was five stops away from the LES on the JMZ and the L and my rent barely notched up annually. Back when I worked around Wall Street, it was 30-minutes door-to-door, and if hanging out in Manhattan during the summer I'd sometimes walk home from anywhere below 23rd street. When I first got that apartment in 2001, my rent was $900 and when I finally left after 11 years, my rent was $1,350. I loved that little apartment, the neighborhood - which has barely changed since, and my neighbors. I was truly sad to leave it. I've been trying to convince other friends who moved to NYC to stop complaining about rent and join the common folk in the other boroughs, some of whom never left Manhattan except to head to and from the airport. I can't imagine what NYC looks like from that perspective, but I'm positive it's a lesser view.
- syndacks 8y ago
  This is the first comment I've read in this thread from someone who actually "figured it out". It's not rocket science: move out of Manhattan, ride a bike, learn to cook, enjoy the finer parts of NYC.
yuy910616 8y ago
this is wes mckinney. have some respect...
reno9111 8y ago
So you just ignore the list of things that generally people don't get in Manhattan? -A dishwasher -A in-unit washer and dryer. For many NYC-dwellers, having one's own washer and dryer gives the feeling of having "made it". -A spare bedroom for hosting out-of-town visitors -Central heating, ventilation, and air conditioning -Enough space to have people over or host dinner parties -A kitchen area that can fit more than one person -A comfortable and separate area to work at home Things that people in almost every "second tier" city get standard for much less than $2000 a month?
- nickdandakis 8y ago
  Like I said in my comment ("[...] that satisfy at least half of your list of requirements[...]"), I have everything in that list apart from the spare bedroom. I rent a 2BR/2BA and my share of rent is $1750. My roommate pays $1450. If I were to live by myself, I'd get half of the amenities in that list at $2k. If I were to venture an extra 15mins (by subway) out, I can find a similar place to my current one for $2k/mo that's a 1BR. Funny how people are tiering up cities. NYC rent should be compared against NYC salaries. Cost of living is still high in NYC, but so are your chances of landing a salary that can let you afford a comfortable lifestyle. Especially in our profession. I'm ignoring Manhattan, and so should most people that expect suburban comforts, unless if you're living (north of) Harlem.
bdcravens 8y ago
You can also live in most cities in the US and get the entire list filled for $1000/month.
- nickdandakis 8y ago
  I also expect to make half my income in most cities in the US.
mlevental 8y ago
>Like other commentators here have said, people of a certain class (and age) want to have their cake and eat it too. a particular shade of cake at that. i lived in bedstuy a couple of years and everything was ridiculously affordable. what's the catch? you have to live around working class people (read: black/hispanic).

actualdc1 8y ago

The issue for me is the "average commute to work". I need to be on the 6 (or 4/5). Anywhere outside of Manhattan makes my commute ~1 hour instead of ~35 min. I don't currently live in the EV, but I'd entertain doing so if I could get a bit more for the money. Any advice on where else I should be looking?

mancerayder 8y ago
If you don't mind a bit of grungy asthetics, the areas near the JMZ trains just on the other side of Manhattan in Williamsburg and the Bed Stuy/Bushwick border have a relatively fast commute - much faster than far more expensive neighborhoods in Brooklyn. For example, it's like 10m from Marcy Ave to Essex St. in the LES. The J goes downtown in the Wall St. area while the M takes much of the same path as the F along 6th Ave, and both of those trains follow the same lines up until Myrtle-Broadway. In fact, it's literally two stops from Essex St. during rush hour as the J runs express (sometimes it sees itself as a Z).
- notyourday 8y ago
  JMZ will be impossible to get into above Mytrle-Broadway come April. Maybe even above Gates.
  - mancerayder 8y ago
    That's potentially very true. That said, numerous lines are going to get squeezed as well, the A and C in particular.
wgerard 8y ago
Are you commuting into midtown? If so, there's a reason Astoria is exceptionally popular.
jonathanjaeger 8y ago
Crown Heights close to Nostrand to Grand Central should take you 30-45min, and you can have a semi-luxury building or renovated apartment for the same price as the author of the article posted. There are other similar neighborhoods in BK. UES or East Harlem could work too.
jtr_47 8y ago
Queens Village - a little further from the city. Flushing Fresh Meadows Rego Park Maspeth Middle village Kew Gardens Take a look at the NYC subway map. Follow trains heading East of Manhattan: E,F,7,L etc...
rmah 8y ago
For many years, I lived in Westchester, took metro-north to grand central (30 minutes on an express train), then the 4/5/6 to work (10 minutes. 15 when things were slow).
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  I looked at this before leaving NYC and the problem is that once you add the time to get to the metro-north station, time to switch from metro north to subway, time from subway to office, and time waiting for trains, elevators, etc, you can easily have a 75-90 minute commute. And that's when things go right on two different transit systems, which seems far too rare these days.
- mancerayder 8y ago
  Lately, Grand Central Station has become an overcrowded tourist nightmare where you have to do breathing exercises to stay calm getting from the station to the subway. I cannot believe they put an Apple store in there. It should be a crime to choose profits over efficiency.
ameister14 8y ago
I live in Brooklyn, east of Prospect Park, and am on the 5. I can also take the Q/B which are express to Manhattan and switch to the 6 or 5 at 14th. My commute is to Midtown, and it takes about 35 minutes.

pc86 8y ago

What are the good neighborhoods to move into if you're a non-native New Yorker moving there for a tech job?

anthonybsd 8y ago
Brooklyn (non-Williamsburg) while getting pricier is still afordable. Without kids I'd recommend Clinton Hill area (schools suck there). If with kids, South Slope is a recently gentrified version of pricey Park Slope (where the Mayor lives) which hasn't quite caught up with Park Slope prices yet. There's also a bunch of commuter towns all around NYC in NJ that can guarantee sub-1hour commutes to Midtown where 1 bedroom can be had for 1200 or so with all of the aforementioned amenities.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  > There's also a bunch of commuter towns all around NYC in NJ that can guarantee sub-1-hour commutes to Midtown On days when NJTransit wakes up on the right side of the bed...
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Yeah, if you're not living next to a PATH train stop or the Secaucus train station, I would assume +30min of travel time to any day's commute. That kind of variance basically means your weekdays are spent going to work, coming home, eating, and going to sleep. Terrible. And you get to pay ever increasing NJ Transit fares and property taxes for it.
    - anthonybsd 8y ago
      I take a private bus that costs the same as NJT buses so there's no +30. They are very consistent.
  - anthonybsd 8y ago
    So obviously everyone's situation is different. I agree that NJT is a cluster$#% of epic proportions. In my case I'm in Montclair, around 12 minutes from an NJT station but around 1 minute from Decamp Buses which is what I take every day. I take the downtown Wall Street bus a block from my house at 6:50 AM and it drops me off near the bull at 7:50. The bus takes around 25-30 minutes to get to Port Authority and around around 20-30 minutes to traverse to downtown (people request stops). This year it's only been late (i.e. 8:10-8:20) to Downtown twice. One of those times was when major roads in TriBeCa were closed because of mailbomnbs. That's how rare of an occasion that is. Of course that's an early bus, later ones are subject to traffic variations.

pradn 8y ago

Yes! This person was living in East Village, which is probably the most happening/hip neighborhood in Manhattan. Tons of bars, restaurants, theaters, other young people. Neighborhoods in upper Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Jersey City have easy access to the city (30-45 min train rides) and cost less. I don't think it makes sense to live in New York unless there is something you can only get here. There's only one MoMA, one City Ballet, one Film Forum. (Not to mention the business and professional opportunities - the city is a business city first and foremost.)

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
The difference between 45 minutes (+60 mins/-5 mins) on the unreliable subway and a 15 minute walk / bike ride / UberPool / etc cannot be overstated. That's 250 hours per year, not to mention the stress and hassles of being reliant on the ever-spiraling subway.
- nickdandakis 8y ago
  Definitely. As with anything else, there are compromises to be made, and NYC has a unique set of them. If you really think this way, go ahead and live in a densely populated neighborhood with the compromises that come along with it. For what it's worth, I commute before/after on-peak hours to avoid delays. The subway is very efficient at 7am-7:30am, and is a shitshow at 9am when everyone is trying to get to their 10am start job. Then everyone complains about the delays, as if they can't make changes to their schedule when they _know_ it's a shitshow at certain times.
- asdff 8y ago
  You can get things done on a train that you can't if you need to focus on walking or biking. By the time I arrive at work I've gotten through my emails and read the days headlines.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - 8y ago

wgerard 8y ago

I also hope the author was joking about being part of the underclass--which I'm willing to give them a charitable interpretation because of the quotes. The mere fact that they can afford to live in a 1-bedroom in the EV is, well, evidence against that fact. You're not even part of the underclass in Manhattan if you can do that.

francisofascii 8y ago
Very true, but understandable if you are constantly surrounded by immense wealth.
- wgerard 8y ago
  But that's exactly what I take issue with - you're not! Someone's delivering your food, someone's working at the bodega you go to. You won't encounter nearly the same level of homelessness as you do in SF, but you will encounter homeless people regularly nonetheless. You run into the actual underclass far more often than you encounter the extremely wealthy. If you call yourself part of the underclass, either you're: Forgetting that they exist, or you're pretending that your economic situation is somehow roughly equivalent. I don't think you need to keep that on your mind every single second of the day, but at least be honest about it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - reno9111 8y ago
    You are much closer to your deliveryman than to fat cats making multi-million dollar salaries on Wall Street. That's the comparison the Author was making.
    - wgerard 8y ago
      I'm also much closer in age to high school students than I am to senior citizens. I wouldn't say I fit in particularly well with either group, though.

voidbip 8y ago

This. NYC is more than just Manhattan. My two children, my wife and I live in a 3 BR apt, with backyard access and laundry in the basement, in Ridgewood, Queens for 1750 a month. Its 30 minutes to Union Sq. by subway and 40 minutes by bicycle. I am amazed when new college grads at my job tell me they are renting a room in Manhattan for how much I am paying for a full floor apartment in Queens.

ghaff 8y ago
Some things never change. The absolute amount would be different but otherwise you could cut and paste the exact same comment to Usenet in the mid 1980s and it wouldn't look at all out of place.
contrahax 8y ago
Shh, don't spoil Ridgewood! When people find out they can get a whole house with a yard for the price they pay for a room in Williamsburg we'll get overrun.
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  No one paying for a room in Williamsburg (or most of the other high costs neighborhoods) wants a "full house and a yard". I really don't understand the American obsession with huge living spaces. Just increases the amount you have to clean, and the amount of junk you're liable to fill it with. The best argument is for kids, but for me and many (most) of my peers at least, that's the last thing we want. I'd also argue that raising children in the South/MidWest does them a great disservice in terms of cut potential in education and career prospects but that's neither here nor there.
  - itchyouch 8y ago
    The space is more about supporting a variety of hobbies that require space and/or the space is available at minimal cost likely both in time & money. With my tech friends, they seem to be able to live ridiculously minimally as their life outside of the essentials fits into a laptop/desktop. My non-tech friends are less so. Some activities that like having more space are as follows. Sure, most on this list are available via affordable to semi-luxurious subscriptions and/or coops or definitely can be done in a small space, yet having a personal version of it or additional space offers a decent QoL improvement in the form of time saved, or simply not having to share space/equipment with family/strangers. - Gym Equipments (powerrack, barbells, etc) - Sauna - Gardening - Music (neighbors don't complain about your noise) - Crafts - Wood/Metal working - Cooking/Baking - Pets - Art Studio (ceramics, painting, drawing, etc) - Automotive A bunch of these tend to also be activities/skills that some people derive a large part of their identity & happiness from, thus giving that up for living in a small space sounds like a preposterous suggestion to them.

cribbles 8y ago

I guess you could get a slightly larger apartment in Sunset Park or Jackson Heights or somewhere but you would still be paying a preposterous $2000 (realistically $2500+ in 2018) for that, and now you've added NYC's cramped, unpleasant, "state of emergency" transportation infrastructure to your daily grind. For all that you get housing that is _still_ laughably austere in comparison to what you'd get nearly anywhere else in the country. For what it's worth, I lived 7 or 8 places in about two years when I lived in NYC, in pretty much every Brooklyn neighborhood within a 20-40 minute radius from where I worked. Saved lots of money too - never lived alone, did social stuff in my neighborhood, took full advantage of the City to the best of my ability. After all that, I came to the following verdict: NYC is stupidly overpriced and has a substantial quality of life problem. I am admittedly a non-native, so perhaps some of the finer charms of the City will always be lost on me. But I don't know - I'm living in Berlin right now, which isn't _too_ drastically different, and can't say I find myself missing NYC at all.

JBReefer 8y ago
I paid $1450 for a 1 bed that was >1000 sq feet in Jackson Heights and it was _beautiful_. It's just not the Village.
nickdandakis 8y ago
Disagree about your $2k take on a Sunset Park or Jackson Heights apartment. I've lived in the latter, and that's not the case. Your "daily grind" doesn't have to happen at the same time as everyone else's. If the cramped subway bothers you, commute before (almost everyone can do this) or after (maybe not everyone can do this one though) the on-peak hours. NYC is an expensive and densely populated city to live in. Your quality of life hinges on the set of compromises you make, which are unique to the city and have a higher impact on your day-to-day. Some people don't like to make compromises and decisions that affect their everyday lives to this degree, and that's fine. But to pretend that options don't exist is ridiculous.
- busterarm 8y ago
  I live in Hell's Kitchen but I had a reverse commute to Sunset Park for 2 years, ending earlier this year. My commute time ranged anywhere from 50 minutes to 2 and a half hours, each way, every day...more often towards the latter end of that spectrum. The situation of riding the yellow line to/from Brooklyn is atrocious and not something that I plan to subject myself to again.

beamatronic 8y ago

From a Bay Area perspective that seems like a fantastic deal. You only live once, living in Manhattan seems like an amazing opportunity.

ghaff 8y ago
Manhattan is pretty much a unique urban environment in the US. (Chicago probably comes closest.) There are a lot of things to like about it but it really is a city on steroids. Crowds, noise, etc. all take getting used to and, for a lot of people (including myself) more than a week or so of it really gets to be too much.

enobrev 8y ago

The single place I've lived the longest in my life was a little apartment in "East Williamsburg" (read: Bed-Stuy / Bushwick). I was five stops away from the LES on the JMZ and the L and my rent barely notched up annually. Back when I worked around Wall Street, it was 30-minutes door-to-door, and if hanging out in Manhattan during the summer I'd sometimes walk home from anywhere below 23rd street. When I first got that apartment in 2001, my rent was $900 and when I finally left after 11 years, my rent was $1,350. I loved that little apartment, the neighborhood - which has barely changed since, and my neighbors. I was truly sad to leave it. I've been trying to convince other friends who moved to NYC to stop complaining about rent and join the common folk in the other boroughs, some of whom never left Manhattan except to head to and from the airport. I can't imagine what NYC looks like from that perspective, but I'm positive it's a lesser view.

syndacks 8y ago
This is the first comment I've read in this thread from someone who actually "figured it out". It's not rocket science: move out of Manhattan, ride a bike, learn to cook, enjoy the finer parts of NYC.

yuy910616 8y ago

this is wes mckinney. have some respect...

reno9111 8y ago

So you just ignore the list of things that generally people don't get in Manhattan? -A dishwasher -A in-unit washer and dryer. For many NYC-dwellers, having one's own washer and dryer gives the feeling of having "made it". -A spare bedroom for hosting out-of-town visitors -Central heating, ventilation, and air conditioning -Enough space to have people over or host dinner parties -A kitchen area that can fit more than one person -A comfortable and separate area to work at home Things that people in almost every "second tier" city get standard for much less than $2000 a month?

nickdandakis 8y ago
Like I said in my comment ("[...] that satisfy at least half of your list of requirements[...]"), I have everything in that list apart from the spare bedroom. I rent a 2BR/2BA and my share of rent is $1750. My roommate pays $1450. If I were to live by myself, I'd get half of the amenities in that list at $2k. If I were to venture an extra 15mins (by subway) out, I can find a similar place to my current one for $2k/mo that's a 1BR. Funny how people are tiering up cities. NYC rent should be compared against NYC salaries. Cost of living is still high in NYC, but so are your chances of landing a salary that can let you afford a comfortable lifestyle. Especially in our profession. I'm ignoring Manhattan, and so should most people that expect suburban comforts, unless if you're living (north of) Harlem.

bdcravens 8y ago

You can also live in most cities in the US and get the entire list filled for $1000/month.

nickdandakis 8y ago
I also expect to make half my income in most cities in the US.

mlevental 8y ago

>Like other commentators here have said, people of a certain class (and age) want to have their cake and eat it too. a particular shade of cake at that. i lived in bedstuy a couple of years and everything was ridiculously affordable. what's the catch? you have to live around working class people (read: black/hispanic).