What's it like to live in Manhattan?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The biggest and most dense urban area I’ve ever lived is where I am now, in Arlington right outside of DC. And I (we) love it here. When I think about it and compare it to other places I’ve lived (generally suburban parts of Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, and Connecticut), I find that the things I like most about where I live now are the more “city” things- good public transportation (I absolutely love not having to drive to work- I take the subway), a lot of restaurants, bars, and shopping within walking distance (coupled with safe and easy walks and walking areas), easy access to lots and lots of stuff to do.

I’ve visited NYC a number of times, and I always have a great time- but I wonder how that would compare to living there. What’s the day-to-day life like in NYC? I’m interested in things like getting to work, shopping for groceries, finding clubs/organizations, just walking around town, going out to eat/ordering in, etc. Are there any aspects of day-to-day experience that are significantly different than life in most of the rest of the US?

2

I suspect there’s a lot of variation - from the Upper West Side to Hell’s Kitchen to the Village to Harlem to Chinatown.

3

Telemark is on the mark. There are a few fundamentals, but neighborhoods have wildly varied lifestyles and paces.

In Manhattan, you can be in Inwood and have a quiet tree lined street with duplexes and apartment buildings or be at 28th and Lexington, surrounded by nothing but bricks. Food shopping means carrying or using small “granny carts”, the folding metal mesh carts with small hard rubber wheels. Entertainment is where you find it. Some folks try hard to socialize in their area and save travel/ cost/ hassle, others consider the 5 boros to be their playground and use the MTA as they wish to get wherever.

It’s noisy. It’s pushy. People are generally operating at, shall we say, a very high CPU clockspeed. There is beauty, there is kindness. Where you find it.

Ordering food in and eating out is becoming outrageously pricey. I live in Astoria, Queens. Most restaurants are now “a treat”, not the place to drop by for dinner. Skyrocketing costs are making doing anything but cooking at home harsh. And- not for nothing- food shopping is quite pricey. Less so than in Topeka Kansas, say. I was there a month ago. Things are less expensive but not by a lot.

4

How many people own cars?

5

Obligatory comment that it’s like living in a broom closet that costs $2000 a month to rent.

6

If you have little or no tolerance towards eccentric and strange behaviors, it can be mentally painful. I’m telling your from my experience.

7

46% of New York City households own at least one car. In Manhattan, the number drops to under 25%.

Manhattan is expensive. Prepare for serious sticker shock, not just on rents. Even movie tickets are outrageously pricey.

Brooklyn and Queens are more affordable and just as accessible via public transit. Also, Brooklyn is awesome.

8

I live in DC, and I’ve spent a lot of time visiting NYC. My level of knowledge certainly can’t compare to that of a resident, but I generally compare the two cities (and metro areas) thusly:

Anything you can get in NYC, you can find in DC. The chief difference is that you’ll have to find it in DC, whereas fun stuff just happens in NYC. For example - last summer, when I was there, a random Shakespearean troupe took over my subway car. And staged the last scene of Macbeth. Why? No reason. Things like that don’t happen in DC, though - we don’t have quite the density of creative, artsy sorts for that to happen. So we’ve got world-class art - but it lives in galleries and museums and theaters, and tends to stay off the street. (With some exceptions, of course).

Cost of living, as mentioned above, is staggering. I live in a big studio on DC’s Southwest Waterfront - balcony, floor-to-ceiling windows, three minutes walk from the Metro station. (This puts me less than ten minutes from downtown, maybe fifteen minutes at most from almost anyplace in DC I’d normally visit.) I love it, and I pay a bit over $1600/month for the privilege.

When I was looking at moving to New York, I found that the $2000/broom closet joke was actually right. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better deal than a 300-square-foot studio for two grand. Further, you’ll likely need to pay a broker fee on top of moving fees and deposit - and that broker fee will be 15% of your first year’s rent. (Or, for that $2,000 apartment, $3600 - payable up-front). There are no-broker apartments, but they move unsurprisingly fast.

The crowds can be unbelievable. So can the stench, compared to DC - the subway frequently smells appalling, and garbage bags on the curb at dawn can be rank beyond description. But there’s amazing fun to be had, too - and unlike DC, the subway runs all night. (NYC is the city that never sleeps - DC wants to be in bed by 11 so it can catch John Stewart).

9

-sniff- Astoria is awesome…

10

Lived for 4 years at the bottom of Upper East Side (62nd and Lex) and worked just down the Lex on 55th and I was making decent money.

Morning Central Park run with easily 5 thousand others in the morning, walk to the work that includes coffee and B&W cookie, hard work, hard party afterwards, gym, sleep. Rinse & repeat. Occasional visits to MoMa, NYC Library and Guggenheim. Funny thing, I only went out to Brooklyn to see some bands perform.

One time some of us from the office ended up upstairs at some bar on 3rd Ave and then suddenly it got filled up to capacity by a bunch of girls from a nearby nurse college. Needless to say best party I attended. Manhattan - the best!

11

My cousin, and someone I went to school with live in Brooklyn.

12

Pretty much half of the eastern seaboard could say the same thing :slight_smile:

13

Now I know why it’s awesome.

14

Wow really? Gee tell us more.

15

Was his name Bob? Because I know that guy.

16

Astoria is indeed awesome. I moved from Astoria to Brooklyn Heights. I miss Astoria every single day. It’s my favorite neighborhood in all of NYC.

And I’d live in Sunnyside, or Woodside, or Maspeth, or Jackson Heights, in a heartbeat. I like Queens better than Brooklyn.

17

Coincidentally, the building my wife and I live in is called “The Astoria”.

18

EWW! I’m wet! Got Eyebrow’s sarcasm all over me! :stuck_out_tongue:

19

Sigh. I get really tired of this nonsense. That $1600 studio you have in DC sounds outrageously pricey to me and I live in Manhattan. My 2 bedroom apartment is $1600 a month and this is the most we’ve ever paid for an apartment here. We were actually a little appalled by the price but we needed a place to live fast so we took it. I am less than 1 block from the C train and 2 blocks from the 1 train and I can be in Times Square in 15 minutes. NYC is not as pricey as movies and TV make it seem. You can spend $2,500 on a tiny studio apartment if you insist on living in the richest possible neighborhoods in the city but by and large it is affordable to live here.

20

Astoria is awesome. I lived there for four years.

So do 2.5 million other people.

BTW, I forgot to include the link for where I found the car-owning stats. Link.