A friend of mine got a job in midtown. He doesn’t make much and wants to find a place with easy commute (no car needed) to midtown. I don’t know much about NYC surrounding area, could you please help out? Criteria: 1. less expensive than NYC 2. easy short daily commute to midtown 3. nice, single friendly community, 4. walking disctance to grocery store, restaurants etc
Hoboken, NJ? Williamsburg, Brooklyn? Astoria, Queens? Just some thoughts. In Manhattan, you could try Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, Inwood, or even some parts of Harlem.
What about jersey city – it seems quite cheap there?
Stamford, CT? Long Island/Staten Island, NY?
I’m deliberately staying silent on this topic because I want to see how silly these suggestions get.
Hoboken is expensive and Stamford CT is a hike.
JohnThain, Could you please give sensible suggestions?
MFE22 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Criteria: > > 1. less expensive than NYC > 2. easy short daily commute to midtown > 3. nice, single friendly community, > 4. walking disctance to grocery store, restaurants > etc Hoboken, NJ exactly matches all of these criteria.
MFE22 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > JohnThain, > > Could you please give sensible suggestions? Not yet, I’m waiting for more of the “Hoboken, NJ exactly matches all of these criteria” comments to flow in.
I love it when a clueless crusty old new yorker who’s locked into their sweet rent controlled apartment gives equally clueless advice to a new york newbie on where to live for X amount of dollars.
In all seriousness, you can reread previous threads where it’s been proven time and time again that the NYC-metropolitan area real estate market is too efficiently priced to find the type of “deal” you’re looking for. A cheap apartment is almost guaranteed to come with a catch that violates one of the four criteria, be it in Manhattan, Hoboken, Montauk, New Haven, etc. Someone tells you their commute from Midtown to Hoboken is quick, ask them to try that commute again at 1am on a Saturday night and see how quick it is then, or how much it will cost them in bribes when they finally find a taxi that is willing to go to New Jersey on the weekends. If your friend’s only criteria are those 4 and he doesn’t need to emphasize space or privacy, then you can always find a comparatively cheap sublet in Midtown or a walking-distance neighborhood that will rival any price you find in the boondocks. For example, I have a friend who sublet a room from a 70-something year old single woman in a 2-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. Not an ideal living situation since they shared a bathroom and the apartment wasn’t very large, but he was paying $600/month for two years straight. His door-to-door commute to his office was under 15 minutes.
JohnThainsLimoDriver Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Someone tells you their commute from Midtown to > Hoboken is quick, ask them to try that commute > again at 1am on a Saturday night and see how quick > it is then, or how much it will cost them in > bribes when they finally find a taxi that is > willing to go to New Jersey on the weekends. I think the commute he was talking about was the daily commute to work, not at 1am in the morning on a Saturday night. Notice how his third criterion was a single friendly community, probably implying that he’d like to stick around his neighborhood instead of venturing out to the city during the weekend. So the point stands, Hoboken NJ does exactly match those four criteria you laid out, assuming the daily commute you were talking about was to go to work and back.
Hoboken sucks! Just say no.
Whats wrong with Hoboken? Obviously its an as ideal as living in Manhattan but its not a bad alternative…
When you have to qualify your point as “easy short daily commute to Midtown only if you intend to travel solely between the weekday hours of 8am and 7pm” then it does not fit the criteria as specified.
harari (zimbabwe) - for about 10 bucks you can buy a whole villlage and a dozen wives - but the commute is a bummer…
null&nuller Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > harari (zimbabwe) - for about 10 bucks you can buy > a whole villlage and a dozen wives - but the > commute is a bummer… “Harare”.
you’re quite right - just don’t ask me to spell “Tsvangirai” I’m getting cross-eyed with all the zeros on the currency. I’ve just discovered an old bottle of chartreuse (green) in the cellar - this stuff is 70% proof!
MFE22 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > A friend of mine got a job in midtown. He doesn’t > make much and wants to find a place with easy > commute (no car needed) to midtown. I don’t know > much about NYC surrounding area, could you please > help out? > > Criteria: > > 1. less expensive than NYC > 2. easy short daily commute to midtown > 3. nice, single friendly community, > 4. walking disctance to grocery store, restaurants > etc Most everywhere is going to have a grocery store within walking distance, unless for some reason, you chose to live in the suburbs. There are three basic areas. 1.) What I call the “Greater Park Slope area” which is all of park slope, boerum hill, south slope, cobble hill, and Carroll Gardens. This certainly fits all four criteria. I personally prefer to live here than the city, and as a bonus it is very close to Prospect Park. This commute can range from 25-45 minutes depending on where you are at and where in midtown you are going. 2.) Across Flatbush Ave is the Ft. Green area - I’m less familiar with this area. 20-40 min commute. 3.) Astoria and Long Island City. I don’t think these areas are as singles friendly, but I certainly know quite a few artists who live in Astoria and I dated a fashion designer in the 30/30ish area not to long ago. The restaurant situation isn’t as good as Park Slope though, but it’s there. I work on 34th street, and I would leave her house and be at work in twenty minutes flat.
KJH Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hoboken sucks! Just say no. Hoboken is a gateway drug to New Jersey. Living there is only one short conversation away from your girlfriend saying to you that she would like more space ten more minutes out on the NJRR with a nice picket fence.