knowledgeboy

Hi all

My missus has been offered a transfer to the US arm of her UK company which will involve moving to New York. We will be visiting NYC next weekend for a few days to get a feel for the place and check out possible neighborhoods to live.

I would welcome any suggestions from people who live/have lived there.

For comparison, we currently live in leafy SE London/ NW Kent, and would be bringing a couple of cats, but no children, with us.
We would prefer a place with a sensible commute to Union Square. Rent up to $2500 p/m.
Not too bothered about a vibrant nightlife (a bit past that sort of thing).

Thanks for all the good stuff on here, I'm finding it so informative.

All help much appreciated
Thanks.

Nutmegger

Do you want to actually live in the city, or would you consider New Jersey, Westchester County (NYS adjacent to the city), or Fairfield County, Connecticut? Forest Hills, Queens, or Park Slope, Brooklyn, might be other options. $2,500 will go a lot further outside of the city.

johnnybrown532

You won't get much for 2500 a month in manhattan. Might get something decent in brooklyn or queens though.

Hotscot

How long have you lived there to gain such insight?

Jerseygirl

As far as I know he hasn't...but he's going to be disembarking a cruise ship in Brooklyn.

Hotscot

He needs a disclaimer stating he doesn't live in the US and has never lived there.

retzie

Do you want to stay on the subway system, or would the various commuter rails do? Are you planning on getting a car (not for the commute, but for buying groceries, etc.)? Do you care about non-nightlife things like parks, cafes, etc.?

Oh, and be warned that $2,500/month won't go especially far in the nice bits of Brooklyn. You may have more luck in Queens (try Astoria, Sunnyside, Forest Hills).

knowledgeboy

Thanks for your suggestions. Will do some more research on these.

We're happy to use commuter rails. I expect that we will live far enough out to need a car, we're not obsessed by city living per se, and would hope to have a quality of life similar to that which we enjoy now.

retzie

Way outside my area of expertise, then - I'm happiest in the city grime!

Plenty of others around here should be able to help, though.

Hotscot

Just avoid JohnnyBrown though....

johnnybrown532

My daughter was there for 12 months mounbatten she told me it is was ridiculously expensive for housing and rents. Mountbatten provided housing across the river in jersey but other sponsor agencies didn't. What hell were they supposed to do?. I looked at prices on craigslist and a few other room renting sites just for the fun of it. 3k for a little place that was in 06. I doubt the prices have come down. She told me about a bar she used to hang out at called keybar. Little tiny place you went down the stairs into a little tiny room ten paces your at the bar a couch at the back seats around in a square space in the centre to mingle toliet at the back. The owners pay 17k a month for that apparently. And our living room is bigger I saw the pics online.

And if they really do want to live in Manhattan the UWS is the safest place in the city the 20th precent has the least crime according to the nypd stats. Not much work for nikki heat then

johnnybrown532

Check this out one in Union Square 1760 a month. No pic though another good one in soho looks nice. Most of the listings are 3500 a month for manhattan. There are always plenty of listings I am sure.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/mnh/aap

Nutmegger

The trains from Westchester and CT come into Grand Central Terminal (look for towns along the Harlem, Hudson, and New Haven lines) and into Penn Station from NJ. But in the suburbs, you might find yourself needing two cars if you aren't both coming into the city -- a "station car" and one for the person staying in the home town all day. I'd suggest that your wife might find it interesting to canvass her new colleagues to find out where they live/commute from.

rpjs

We live on the Hudson line and where we are (Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown) there's plenty of accommodation walkable to the Metro-North stations, and I'd say the same is true of places like Ossining, Irvington, Dobbs Ferry and Hastings, so we get by with one car, and indeed lived here for several years without one, although the local taxi firms did go into mourning when we finally bought one.

You'll probably find more bang for your buck in the 'burbs - we rented a roomy 2/3-bed apartment in Tarrytown for $2,100 pcm between 2011 and 2013 - but you may find your choice of rentals constrained by having cats (plus you'll have to pay a heftier deposit) but we had a cat and it didn't stop us. Commuting is more expensive but offset by not paying city income tax.

From GCT you'd need to take the subway to Union Square - one stop on the 4 & 5 express train. Penn would require a walk to Herald Square or a change of subway. Union Square is pretty well served by the subway (L, N, Q, R, 4, 5, 6) so it might be worth staying in the city and looking for somewhere along one of those lines if a one-seat ride is attractive.

retzie

QFT

You never know, OP may have a relative in Nigerian royalty as well

In case any innocent third parties see this: Craigslist is notories for apartment scams and spam, particularly in NYC. It still has its uses, but you need to 'get your eye in' to recognise the ~70% that is garbage.

I just want to point out that a one-seat ride really is very nice. While connections are often decent in peak times, your risk of complications grows exponentially with each one (not to mention the diminishing likelihood of getting a seat). OP may want to look at the southern sections of the N and the Q (Bayridge, Ditmas Park, etc.) if they are entertaining this as a factor.