I’m so glad you showed up. I was biting my tongue until I thought it would fall off. I don’t know WHAT the fascination people have with making Manhattan out to be some kind of dwelling for only the very rich and powerful. I have never lived there, but I go there very often and know plenty of people who live there, and they are not rich.
I have been considering moving there and when I mention this to people, they honestly act as if I said I’m going to move into the White House.
I live on the Upper East Side on a quiet dead-end street, I own a car and work in NJ. I’ve been in this rent stabilized apartment for 20 years, so I could move across the street from my job in NJ and still wouldn’t be saving any money. I’d be saving alot of time, of course.
There’s a big park (Carl Schurz) the next block over, that my girls know like the backs of their hands. Huge playground, rocks to climb around on, a walkway by the East River, Gracie Mansion, a couple places to go sledding. We go ice skating at Lasker rink in the north end of Central Park or Chelsea Piers or Bryant Park in midtown for free if we’re in the mood for just drifting around the rink with the multitude. We go bike riding in Central Park or over to Randall’s and Ward’s Island. So there’s plenty for the kids to do, but it’s not like the country where they can just open the door and run off and do their thing while we lounge around the house and do our thing.
The other day I dropped one girl off at school for rehearsal and took the other to Metropolitan Museum of Art for a few hours. I’d like her to have her favorite places there. Sometimes we’ll go to the Central Park zoo, which is ok. There’s a Best Buy and Barnes and Noble nearby where we can get our big box store jollies. There are maybe five or six grocery stores we frequent, depending on what we need to get. We usually don’t go to the theater unless there’s some kind of deal or someone has tickets that they can’t use. Now that the girls are a little older we might try something.
My wife doesn’t really drive so it’s easiest for her to be in the city. She grew up in Bed-Stuy and this is where she’s most comfortable. I’m fine. I usually don’t have too much of a problem parking but sometimes it can really suck. Of course when I finally find a place and exit my car I’m a happy New Yorker again.
I could go on, but I have to get my five hours if I’m lucky of shut-eye and head back out to NJ in the morning.
I lived in Manhattan a couple of years, way back when, and loved every minute of it!
Yes, it can be pricey, but when you live there and only have so much money, you do learn where you can eat well and for cheap, and you can find lots to keep you busy and happy without having to spend a fortune…really. Granted, saving money was no easy feat, but existing on what you earn is not that hard.
Regarding housing - there are places to be found. I have a “trick” that has worked well over the years in many instances. Go to a local bar in the afternoon. Order a drink. Be nice to bartender. Let them know you are new to town and does he know of any apartments for rent? Who else but a local bartender knows every clown who is moving or subletting or is a landlord in the area?!
When I first moved to NYC, I was staying with a friend and told her I was going apartment hunting. Went to local bar about five blocks away. Had a beer. Talked to bartender and asked if he knew of any apartments for rent in the area. He went to the other end of bar and then came back and told me, “Go see Alan down there.” I went to speak with Alan - he was janitor at a building and an apartment had just come on the market that very day. Not listed nor a single sign put up yet. He told me the address and name of the manager of the building. I walked over to the building, looked at the place, and rented it on the spot.
About three hours later I went back to see my friend and said, “Got an apartment and am moving in tomorrow.” She was more than a bit surprised. When she later saw it was a better and cheaper apartment than she had, she was also a bit pissed - but in a nice way.
Will this always work? Probably not. But I have had great success and found it to be a quick and easy way to get to meet the locals - and if you are looking for housing or a job, who better to get to know quickly than those who live and work there?
/holds up hands in surrender/
I yield to your superior Manhattan savvy, folks. 
Remember, I’ve never actually lived there. I was looking at housing online, when it looked like I’d be getting a job there - the figure I mentioned was around the average of what I was seeing for no-fee apartments. Hopefully, I’d have found a cheaper place if I’d ended up in the city - seems likely I’d still have ended up paying a broker fee, though.
I live in Manhattan, but in one of the “quainter” sections in Washington Heights. My apartment is expensive by non-New York standards, but downright cheap here. It’s a one-bedroom, smallish but comfortable for two people. I pay about $1300. My neighborhood is nice, with places to eat and hang out. It could use a bookstore, though. My area is filled with people with babies and young kids (but I don’t have any), and there are a lot of community activities for families. I’m just a few blocks south of a beautiful park.
I order my groceries online and have them delivered. Grocery shopping is awful in Manhattan, one of the few things I HATE about the city.
I take the bus to work – it’s a 45 minute ride, but I always get a seat and it’s quiet time to read. I take the subway every where else. Late at night, I’ll get lazy and take cabs, but otherwise it’s not necessary. I don’t drive, never learned even though I’m not a native NYCer.
I have a lot of different types of friends and don’t find it difficult to make friends here. In fact, I have deeper relationships with the people I’ve met here than at any other time in my life.
I used to live up where mack is, 89th and 1st, Upper East Side, or Yorkville, if you prefer.
What struck me was the tighter community feel that I had in contrast to my prior suburban living. You walk to the store, you walk to the restaurant, you walk pretty much wherever you need to go. You walk… you don’t go past a decent store to get to the slightly “better” store 2 blocks away. Heck, you may not ever go to the store 2 blocks away. I did an amazing amount of my shopping in a very small area, generally defined by the quickest route to the subway. Within a 10 minute walk I had every kind of store you need, and more restaurants than you could eat from in a month.
Because everything was right there, it felt like MY bagel shop, MY sushi place, MY empanada shop.
You also get used to living in a shoebox, it helps if you’re not trying to move a whole house full of crap into your tiny new digs.
I did have a car, parked on the street for a while, then found a relatively cheap lot within acceptable walking distance. Since we only used the car on weekends, to get out of the city, a 15-20min walk wasn’t unreasonable.
I live in west Harlem with two roommates and it’s very affordable ($650 including utilities). It’s a decent sized apartment and I rarely see my roommates since we’re on different schedules so it’s not bad at all.
I use a laundry service since I’m too lazy to take my laundry a few blocks to the laundromat, but I do my grocery shopping at a really awesome grocery store about two blocks away that has a lot of affordable vegetarian/vegan options (Fairway for those who are familiar with the area). I don’t need to use a cart- I buy stuff every week and usually it all fits into one giant reusable bag that I have.
I’m two blocks away from Harlem Piers Park and the bike trail which goes all the way up and down the west side of Manhattan. I manage two stores on the west side (one on the Upper West Side, one in the West Village) so normally I bike to work on the bike trail. Biking to work is much nicer than taking the train.
I just love that there’s so much around here to do and that mostly everything I need is within walking distance. If it’s not within walking distance of work or my apartment I enjoy exploring a new neighborhood.
I grew up outside DC so moving to the city wasn’t a big culture shock to me. I’m glad to be free of needing a car though and not having to worry about the train shutting down early. I didn’t feel homesick at all when I moved to New York but I do miss New York a lot when I go somewhere else.
Just a quick comment as to how fast things have changed - when I lived in Manhattan in the late 70’s, anything north of about 88th street on the West Side was considered “iffy” and kind of a ghetto/crime/drug area. However, due to gentrification, it seemed like those street numbers jumped by one or two streets every month. In short order, it went from 88th street to 92nd street and then 96th street…
Still, I would have found it hard to believe that anyone would have wanted to live in Harlem - they used to have obnoxious bus tours for foreign visitors that would take people on bus rides through the ghettos of Harlem to take pictures (really!).
I know today that at least parts of Harlem are now really desirable areas and quite pricey, but the idea of renting an apartment in Harlem would have been a joke back in the day.
However, back then I sort of saw this coming and always wondered what would happen to the people who were slowly getting priced out of their own neighborhoods - I guess they have all moved to the boroughs now?
I have been reading this thread since it started, and I even dreamed about it last night. I want to live in NY so bad.
That’s so tacky. I do see a lot of European tourists on 125th but now they’re there to see landmarks like the Apollo Theatre and maybe even for the shopping- there’s an H&M and American Apparel on 125th and street vendors sell a lot of kitschy New York and Harlem themed merchandise (as well as a ton of Obama stuff).
East Harlem is the last truly “bad” part of Manhattan as far as I’m aware, but gentrification is moving that way too. I see ads for luxury apartments in the east 110s, 120s all the time and a big shopping center with a Target just opened over there.
A lot of people don’t live in Manhattan; it’s 20% of the boroughs and has maybe 10% of the population. It’s where a lot of the stuff tourists go to is but it’s not where a lot of the people live.
That’s not a dig at tourists, just the reality of the difference between being a visitor and a resident.
I’ve lived in Brooklyn most of my life compared to just about six months in Manhattan, but it’s all living in NYC (my parents’ house is four blocks from a subway station, the farthest from one I’ve ever lived unless you count college).
Once Staten Island secedes, it’ll be 25% !!!
What do you mean, “used to”? They definitely still have those bus tours. I see them every time I am around 125th st. To be fair, though, there are lots of historic things to see, like the Apollo. Nevertheless, I’m not stupid. I’m sure people are getting their ghetto-gawking atop those buses.
I live a 10 minute drive from The Apollo Theater. Aside from that one site, please tell me 10 other famous locales that a tour bus would want to drive tourists past.
I drive through both West and East Harlem now and again and not just on 125th Street. It isn’t the South Bronx of 1979, but it isn’t The West Village either. There are addresses of significant note in terms of events that occurred within their walls. But things a bus can show tourists? Please educate us.
Seems those tour buses are likely showing the poor black folk to the tourists.
Crass.
There may not be 10 specific places to see and they may not all be as visually awesome as the Statue of Liberty or Madison Square Garden but there are a lot of things to see and do in Harlem.
-The Apollo
-Sylvia’s
-The Cotton Club
-The Studio Museum
-The Adam Clayton Powell Building (Bill Clinton has offices there and there is a statue of Adam Clayton Powell outside)
You also see a lot of cool stuff that isn’t a single place, like street vendors selling African-themed clothes and jewelry and incredibly beautiful brownstones.
I must admit of the locales you listed, the random very classic and beautiful brownstones may well be the best reason to do a bus tour.
If you’re at The Cotton Club and you’re taking that bus tour, then you’re about to roll past Prentis Hall. Not only was research on The Manhattan Project performed in this building, but this link outlines IBM’s use of the building in developing the earliest computers.
And, tough to take a bus to the Statue of Liberty…
I lived in or around NYC for a couple of years in the mid-60s, and then again for 25 years, 1970-1995. I paid as little as $150 for a furnished room on Riverside Drive, and as much as $2500 for a spacious 1-bedroom in Chelsea. But what people forget is that over a period of years your income increases as well (supposedly).
In retrospect, I think New York is a great place to live . . . but only if you’re young or rich. Young people can live 4-to-a-room, and somehow they survive. Rich people can live just about anyplace they want. But if you’re aging and on fixed income, the bloom is pretty much off the rose. For a while I lived in SOHO and the East Village, and there were elderly people living in 6th-floor walk-ups, who only left the apartment with great difficulty once a week to do shopping, but they couldn’t afford to move, since their apartment was rent-controlled. I didn’t want to wind up like them.
But I miss the excitement. I miss having so much within walking distance. I wish being able to share my interests with a seemingly infinite number of people. I miss Christmas time in Midtown. I miss walking to Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center or MoMA or the Met. I miss the Staten Island Ferry. I miss walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, and the view at night from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. I miss the huge Pride parades.
But I’m no longer young and definitely not rich; and there’s no way I could move from a 3-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom apartment. So NYC remains in my past.
From time to time I’ll come downtown off the Harlem River Drive using Lenox Ave/Malcolm X. An always astonishing sight is the steeple of the Ephesus Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
You hit the nail on the head, panache45!
New York is for the young and [del]stupid[/del] adventurous, or the old and rich. I can’t think of any place worse to live if you are poor and old(er). I always say that if I had a job that paid at least $250,000 a year, I could probably squeak by in Manhattan today. Otherwise, too old - been there, done that.
However, I strongly encourage my students at the college to go for it - we have had quite a few people from here in Las Vegas go to NYC to intern - and get a great job, good apartment and start their careers. They are also mostly in their early 20’s now - perfect age for newbies in NYC.
You can live cheaply in NYC, but it ain’t easy and you have to put up with a lot. At a certain age, it really becomes more of a chore than an adventure. My guess is that if I had stayed there and not moved to Berlin, I would be quite happy in NYC and living OK - but I didn’t and don’t see it happening. I still have good friends my age who live there - and all of them have bought really nice condos (for cheap back then, and worth a fortune today) and have jobs that pay very nicely. Still - love to visit and blow a ton of money while I am there - but just don’t see me moving there unless I win Powerball sometime soon.
My husband and I were in NYC last night (West Village) and were musing on how awesome it would be to live there.
But for now, Long Island is close enough. Maybe one day.