I don’t know New-York either, but there’s a similar thing in Paris, and IMO, it was the brightest idea city planners came out with in a long while. It’s one of my prefered spot in the city for a stroll. Let the buses in the crowed streets and enjoy a long walk amongst bushes and flower’s scents…
How do you people afford living in New York, that’s what I want to know.
See my location? Lots of bridge n’ tunnel people on this board, I’m sure.
It really helped to network. My studio belonged to a newlywed couple who were expecting a baby. In order to avoid the whole showing to various people and fees thing, they knocked off five grand from the price. I picked it up in 2001 for under 40 grand. Yes, it’s on the ground floor, yes it’s near the garage, no view, boring if safe neighborhood, etc. But I can pay off the mortgage in a few years and this building and the Bronx are now so popular that there’s a three-page waiting list for the building. Every moving van that pulls up is followed by people poking in and asking the super what’s opened up.
Afford it? Some of us are skilled in the art of enticing vendors of goods and services into offering bargains.
That, and it’s amazing what you can afford when you don’t have to spent thousands on a car, gas and insurance.
Yes.
From cities I’ve visited or lived in, Chicago (IL), Berkeley (CA), Istanbul (Turkey), Oaxaca (Mexico), Galway (Ireland), Paris (France), and Halifax (Canada) all would be great places to live. But New York is all these put together, and then some.
Comparing New York City to friggin’ HALIFAX is like comparing a porterhouse steak to a hot dog. A great city must be compared only to other great cities. I like Halifax and all but it’s not even comparable to Brooklyn.
The only fair comparisons to New York are places like Paris, London, Tokyo, Rome, places like that. Maybe Chicago, Toronto, Sydney, and the like, but I don’t think they’re quite on the same scale.
Love 'em, or hate 'em, we have the New York Yankees and you don’t. 
How true! My husband (a 3rd generation native New Yorker) has, since moving to the boondocks 7 years ago, learned that New Yorkers are maddeningly provincial. We have no shortage of wtf? moments with friends and family who seem completely unaware of the history, art and culture living outside the fringe of the Big Apple. One notable mention: Upon hearing that I was filling an order to cater a bat mitzvah, our (reasonably sophisticated and well-educated) friend asked, "You mean…there are Jews who live up there? I wrestle with the minor insult implied whenever someone from the City is ‘blown away’ by the quality of art/music ("This is the sort of thing I’d expect to see in NY!! Not HERE!), but Farmman, who works remotely for a NYC office, gets bombarded on a pretty regular basis and is getting annoyed at the narrow perceptions of a population which prides itself on being so cosmo.
To answer the OP, I thought it was – when I lived there for 12 years. In retrospect, I think I could have made any urban experience just as enjoyable, and tend to believe that there is no objective ‘greatest’ city, but I have obviously chosen a different life now, so I don’t have the neon flowing through my veins like some die hard city folk.
Last night, on a drive home from Saratoga Springs I tuned in some AM radio for company and heard the traffic report from NYC. Traffic backed up for 40 minutes on the GWB.
It was 1:40 am and I hadn’t seen anything brighter than the oblong moon for nearly an hour. I don’t miss most things at all.
Oh yeah, the Yankees, now THERE’S something to hang your hat on :rolleyes: now the CUBS, now THERE is a, er…eh…nevermind.
Personally, and this is just my experience, I’ve been to NYC a lot, and every person I came into face-to-face contact with was a stereotypical jerkoff. Standoffish, sarcastic and rude. I’m sure there are folks from NYC who aren’t that way, I just have yet to meet one. I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life, and have never been treated this way once by a fellow Chicagoan who wasn’t wearing three pairs of pants and two parkas in August (i.e. crazy). I’m a veteran fire investigator, with 15 years on an Engine Company and even the FDNY brothers (pre 9/11) I talked to at IAFF conferences and such, were loudmouthed chest-thumpers and talked to me as if I was shite on their brogans.
The city may be world class, but the people need some work.
We live in the rent stabilized apartment I’ve been in since 1992 (I think). It was $415 a month when I got it, $715 now. Big studio, eat-in kitchen, doorman building, upper east side, one block from a nice little park & the east river esplanade, dead end street (no traffic). We’re bustin’ out of it but can’t give it up!