Hey! I’m postin’ here!
You’ll need a favorite bar to hang out in. The good news is Manhattan has all kinds of bars for nearly every age and demographic. That’s not to say you need to drink your face off every night (although New Yorkers do drink a lot). But it’s nice to have a place to hang out and socialize in that isn’t your appartment.
Are you planning staying in NYC for the rest of your life?
How much are you willing to change your lifestyle?
If you are only going to live here 5 to 10 years, maybe you should just rent, save/invest the rest. Will you sell you car and go with mass transit? Have no yard at all. You’ll have to walk your dogs and clean up after them. Or hire a professional dog walker. Yes, a professional dog walker.
Are you coming to stay or just for an extended stay?
There’s those pesky terrorists sweet on this place tho.’ Other than that feel free to PM me your email address. I have a few references around here. I just need to go to bed.
Or take the E/F subway and save a ton of money. I live just off the south end of Forest Park, and it is quite nice, though the raccoons have been venturing further out over the past year. You’ll get more of the surburban feel you are used to in the Forest Hills/Kew Gardens area.
My reason for suggesting the LIRR is twofold:
- the areas where apartment buildings are located, is more around Metropolitan Ave, which is closer to the LIRR station and is a fair walk to the E/F at Union Turnpike. The LIRR is closer, faster, and more comfortable, and the OP is not economizing to the point where the $100/mo difference between a subway monthly and a LIRR monthly is significant. I used to live at 118th & Metropolitan. 10 uphill blocks might be a bit much for middle aged transplanted suburbanites… at least at first.
- The E is a pile of shit. A crowded pile of shit. You’ll never get a seat at Union Turnpike during anything like normal commuting hours. The F is hit or miss for seats. Most likely you’ll stand the whole way in. Again, not recommending a 40 minute, standing commute to the poor chillun from Atlanta. Not I. Not when there is a far more comfortable option well within their budget.
BTW, Do you mean the south end of the Forest Park Annex? Or the south end of Forest Park? Do you really take the E/F? Because from Park Lane South & Myrtle, to Union Turnpike Station, it’s a 1.3 mile walk. That’s twice as far as I used to walk, and it got old, fast, in the winter or any day it rained.
I grew up in Brooklyn and currently live in NJ. If your job is near 42nd street you might be near the Port Authority bus terminal. Many NJ buses go right there. The problem with living in NJ is that property taxes can be sky high. I pay about 5k a year and that’s on the low side.
Even better–I take a train to Hoboken and the PATH (subway) to 34th Street. *Muuuuuch *nicer than lovely Port Authority (the Hoboken train station is actually an architectural gem, a mini-Grand Central).
If you doubt me, by the way, stand back and be amazed:
https://www.google.com/search?q=hoboken+train+station&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=2vTHT4iKEIKZ6AH9v_3MDw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CGUQ_AUoAQ&biw=928&bih=699
Live in Hoboken. You will be literally minutes away from NYC with 24/7 access and pick a nice building like the Shipyard
http://www.sovereignhobokenapartments.com/sovereign/floorplans.aspx
That’s exactly where I mean. Bus to the train (or walk in spring and fall, but usually home as that’s mostly downhill). I spend more time downtown, and am often the best dressed person on the J train. At least I usually get a seat.
I agree with your assessment of the E and F, but the ‘comfort’ of the LIRR, and fewer trains, and a two bus trip from KG station, mean the E/F is better, faster, and more convenient. The only time I go LIRR is if I’m Amtrak-ing somewhere. While my wife would fight a geriatric nun for a seat, I’ve no issues standing for the commutes unless I’m breaking in new shoes.
There are apartments along Park Lane around Metropolitan, and along Union Tpk approaching Queens Blvd, both which are more convenient to the E/F using bus to train, but getting on the Q37 at Metropolitan can be hit or miss during the morning rush.
*I sent a link to this thread to my friend Dan, a non-Doper who’s lived in Brooklyn for years. He replied:
*
I reviewed the current comments and thought that I might add something of utility, so here is the attempt for consideration.
Perhaps an analogy to consider is one someone made to me when I asked if Japan was as expensive as I had heard. The reply was that it was expensive to live in Japan as a Westerner – eating beef, drinking coffee, and expecting a yard, but that living like those born there was not expensive (noodles, tea, and a bansai tree).
Seeking to replicate a 2,000 square foot house in the Atlanta area in the New York Metropolitan Area would be quite expensive unless one were willing to engage in a very extended commute. From the time I’ve spent in Atlanta, spending long commutes in frustrating traffic jams during rush hour is not unusual, so perhaps a long enough commute to make buying a house financially feasible might be an option, but I would suggest that the best option would be to consider living like a New Yorker instead. In other words, consider whether you and your pets could live in an apartment half the size if you were located near a subway that would get you to work easily and a park where you could walk the dogs regularly, and sell the car and rent one when you need it.
I suggest that one way to start is to consider rental apartments in New York City and check the prices (and acceptance of pets), and then check mass transit to chart the commute.
http://tripplanner.mta.info/MyTrip/ui_web/customplanner/tripplanner.aspx
You had mentioned that your place of work would be on 42nd Street – in the West, near Times Square (many subway lines and the Port Authority for easy commute from NJ) or the East (near Grand Central Station and easy commute from Westchester County)?
Given the ease of access to working on 42nd Street in Manhattan, I suggest that you may wish to sit down with your wife and look at her potential commute. There are several teaching hospitals and even more microbiology laboratories, and so she may be able to increase her salary as well. Of course, many hospitals are on the east side of Manhattan, and so she may not have as many transportation routes as you would on 42nd Street, so something to consider.
I’d suggest that the Upper East Side is probably not a good bang for your buck, that Harlem is too expensive for homeownership and not many rental options (huge generalizations of mine that may be well out of date), and that you should look for rental housing that would be near a park where you could walk your dogs in a set-aside dog run (not just a patch of grass that really isn’t set aside for dogs). For example, while the suggestion for Central Park Slope in Brooklyn was certainly reasonable, I would suggest that the premium of housing costs for that neighborhood is primarily worth it for those with kids attending local public schools. Instead, Prospect Heights is on the other side of Flatbush Avenue and provides similar access to Prospect Park for your dogs, the Public Library for you, the Botanic Gardens, Brooklyn Museum, many restaurants, and not the least important, easy walking distance to taking the 2 or 3 subway train to Times Square. The only caveat is that there is still construction going on at the Atlantic Center (the basketball arena+), so I would stay away from the immediate vicinity of the intersection of Flatbush and 4th Avenues. I also wouldn’t live in any of the neighborhood from the Center to the East River in Brooklyn because there will be so many commuters on the subway lines that you’ll find that your commute is much longer than apparent – all that time standing, watching packed train after train go by.
The downside is that Atlanta has had a tremendous decline in the housing market, with too much overbuilt inventory in the suburbs for quite a long time, given the local unemployment. While I am a zealous New Yorker and think that renting in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or the Bronx would be a good place for you to start, with the option of moving out of the City to live in either NJ, Westchester, or Long Island, I think that you should weigh how much you’d lose by selling your house now.
This is a good point. If you want to live like a suburbanite, you can pretty much do that everyone in the country that isn’t New York.
Years ago when I was living in the East Village, I was visiting a friend and his wife who lived out in Middle America, USA. I think at the time he hadn’t finished his degree, was making about $45,000 a year, had a nice oversized suburban house with some SUVs, big home entertainment systems and all the other trappings of suburban life.
They asked how much it cost to live in NYC and I told them I payed about $1800 in rent (2001 dollars). His wife was shocked and asked me how many rooms I had (since that was more than their mortgage and probably most of their other expenses).
“Well..it’s a studio…so it would be just the one room.”
Suburb folk have a difficult time wrapping their brain around NYC (and by extension, Hoboken/JC) living because their living environment is completely self contained in their 2000 square foot house on a 1/4 acre yard in the middle of a sea of similar 2000 sq ft houses on similar 1/4 acre yards.
Urban living is probably more similar to living on a college campus. You sleep and watch tv in your appartment, but you also spend a lot more time out of your appartment dining out, shopping, hanging out in your local coffee shop or bar, walking around whatever parks you live near, whatever. There is less of a need to turn your living space into a completely self contained environment because there are a lot more activities in close proximity to where you live.
Oh, I see where we differ. I don’t ride the bus. Ever. And certainly would never consider a commute that required a subway to bus transfer acceptable. Some people don’t mind putting up with that, I guess. 
I’m talking about living where you’re walking distance to the subway or the LIRR. Like in the Mowbray, acorss the street from KG station, or any of those buildings. Honestly, the OP can live like a drug lord in the KG on his budget. $2k will get you a large pre-war 2 bedroom, recently renovated. Example (this one is in Forest Hills, which is actually more expensive than KG)
Anyweay, we’re splitting hairs here. The point is, you can get a lot more for your money in the outer boroughs, and the more outer your borough is, the cheaper it will be.
Definitely agree there. Also, if you are not sure about apartment living, there are plenty of private homes. You’re close to your neighbors, but you still can have your own 4 walls and a little separation. Sometimes (ok, most times) I wish there was more separation, but it’s the price I pay for the convenience (and Queens/Brooklyn property taxes pale in comparison to Long Island/New Jersey).
Looks like I’m late to the party but will post my 2 cents anyway.
A 36% raise is not enough to uproot you and your wife who has a job, IMO.
Unless…
You don’t like where you live.
and/or
Your wife hates her job.
and/or
You hate your job.
and/or
The new position has a much greater possibility of increasing in salary in the near future.
36% increase and a move from Atlanta to NY probably means your standard of living will not be any higher…and may even be lower.
I’ll give you a funny aspect to living in NYC. For me, it actually had more of a small town feel than living in the 'burbs. I lived on 89th and 1st, and “my town” was an area from 91st to 86th between York and Lexington. I walked everywhere, pretty much, so you go to places right near where you live. Why spend a half hour going to the West Side to have dinner, when you’ll be going past 100 great restaurants on the way there and back.
I felt a much closer connection to my local businesses than I ever did living in the suburbs.
That is assuming your measure standard of living by how large your house is and how much stuff you can accumulate in it. There is a benefit to living in NYC which makes straight standard of living comparisons difficult.
I would love, by the way, to move out of my spacious suburban NJ apartment and into a small one-bedroom in Manhattan or even Hoboken–but I would have to double my salary to do so.
A couple with no kids making ~$200k should be just fine living in Manhattan and will be able to get a nice apartment. I grew up in a NJ suburb and moved to NYC from Colorado 20 or so years ago and still love living here (I just turned 50). We don’t even do much of the typical NY nightlife stuff anymore (shows, restaurants, clubbing, concerts). We live on the upper east side and just enjoy being able to walk out the door and being a short hop from stores, museums, swimming, ice skating, parks, whatever. And getting food delivered. Plus when I walk through the neighborhood I get a charge from the people even though I’m not a particularly social person. It’s not something I anticipated when I moved here. The big question marks are would the dogs be happy and would you be happy as dog owners in Manhattan (walking the dogs, picking up poop, having to venture to a park for a dog run, etc.). Of course lots of people do it.
Well the place I was going to suggest is about to go condo with insider prices and all that.
Pity. OP could’ve picked up maybe 200K. Dang, and I didn’t even want a commish. 