rpjs

Westchester FTW! But I'd say the river towns are much nicer than WP!

Sarah

Lived in Queens for just over 5 years now. Husband works for the city and their HQ is next to the US Open in Flushing. I've worked downtown on and off, sometimes work from home now. I'm married, 1 child, and 37 so I'm over the excitement of living in a big city.

I'm looking forward to leaving.

Pulaski

The first job I got after I graduated, in London, had a door-to-door commute of 1 hour. Every job I have had since then has had a dtd commute of 1-1¼ hours, apart from about four years a few years ago when the commute was about 50 minutes. The commute in New York was the best bit*, everything else sucked.

* In London and New York I used to read on the train. Two hours a day of reading is about the only thing I miss about life in a big city. At least I found a bus to ride a few years ago, which gets me about one hour a day of reading. It also saves me the cost of parking; the price of the tickets is more or less a wash with the gas saved.

nonthaburi

you should try Manila if you think New York is crowded!

unique_boy

What area of work are you in? I spent 4 years in London after graduating but for the most part I lived a walkable distance to my work locations. Though for a year I had a 45 min commute the amount of reading I could get done was great. I miss that.

I am just looking forward to getting settled in our apartment from Saturday so that I can start exploring the city a bit more. I have been living out of a bag & crashing at friends and hotels for the last month after having to leave my initial sublet due to some unwanted critters! It seems long gone are the days of huge corporate relocations and corporate apartments (in my industry anyway!) or maybe I'm just not valued enough

Pulaski

Are you equating my job with commuting?

Like many people I work in an office, which pretty much necessitates being in a city, but I find noise disturbing and city living claustrophobic. I lived in a couple of suburban apartment buildings in London, and another in New York, but they were cramped and I didn't like either the transmitted noise from other units or the traffic noise from outside. In NY the trains blasting on their horns through much of the night just about made me lose my mind, though it was just one facet of the nightmare of living in NY; job stress and a boss who was an @$$höle (British, but an @$$höle ) was another.

Commuting is the means of getting between my employer's office and a place where I can enjoy living. Subject to cost and time constraints, I want my home to be as far from my office as possible. My personal time limit would be to not buy a home more than 90 minutes travel time from work; as I said above, mostly I have managed to keep my commute down to about an hour.

unique_boy

No not at all, I was just wondering. I see my work as a means to an end, whilst I am young I like living close to work as it has generally tied in well with my social life i.e. close to work is also close to nightlife and also close to friends. I found it easier especially when not being from London to live right in the middle (relatively speaking). Unfortuneately what I saw in London over the last few years it is becoming increasingly harder to find somewhere you want to live long term at a reasonable price without an absurd commute.

So I willl be happy in Manhattan to begin with but ask me in another 6 months you might get another answer. Having said that my new apartment is almost double the size of the shoebox I rented in London (a slightly larger shoebox now).

PeppaPigA113

i'll try that

Geezer123

I'm in Greenwich CT. I like it here but it obviously has it downsides as well. I would like to move into the city potentially but don't seem to be that interested as well.

H Bomb

We got here mid July. Have to say in general we are enjoying it and preferring it over London - but that may be due to the fact we were living in Barking!
The six weeks of finding somewhere to live and buying furniture was hard work but once that was done you start to relax and settle in.
We were wanting to live in Manhattan, but just couldn't find what we wanted with the limitations of no credit history so ended up just over the 59th St Bridge in Long Island City. My wife has a 15-20 min commute to Times Sq, so probably shorter than most places we could have ended up in Manhattan anyway - but with a lot more space for our money! We will give it a year then evaluate where we are - maybe move to Manhattan, possibly out to New Jersey (although think that will happen later in our NYC life) or even stay where we are for another year.

Pros for me are purely entertainment at the moment. I am still awaiting my EAD to come through so have a lot of time to myself.
- I am loving the craft beer and bar scene here. Some of the breweries around Queens and Brooklyn are great. Also loving the dive bars around Lower East Side.
- Eating out has been hit and miss - if you eat around tourist areas (with a few exceptions) it is overpriced and not as great as you would have hoped for. We have found some great restaurants and bars off the beaten track though.
- Eating in has also been hit and miss, but we are getting better. At the start when in corporate accommodation we relied on Seamless.com due to virtually no cooking facilities - but now we are in our own place we are using Peapod for food (seems better value than FreshDirect for what we buy). Also discovered a Stop and Shop a few stops on the subway from us - so have been up there and got a taxi back - it's no Tesco but pretty close and price is OK.
- Sports are great here. I have always been a US sports fan so loving it. We have Jets season tickets, been to see the Mets play and I went to the US Open too. Week after next we are going to some preseason ice hockey, and basketball isn't far away either. Stubhub makes everything accessible!

No real cons so far. From my point of view not being able to work is slowly driving me mad - but hopefully that wont be for much longer. When I can work, I think I will have more opportunities here than I had at home.
We found rent a lot more than home - but we owned a house there and as I said it was out in Barking - so we had a lot of space for not too much money. Hadn't rented in London for 7 years and not kept track of rents - so I am sure it is more at home than I remember.
Subways are annoying - they run all night and are cheap but if you time it wrong you can be waiting a long time and with no arrival boards you don't know how long you will be waiting.
Tax is complicated - going to take some getting used to. Many things seem hugely overcomplicated here for no reason.

You say you are engaged, is your fiance back in the UK and will she be joining you when you are married?

If you fancy a beer sometime send me a PM. Would be good to share experiences so far.

unique_boy

I was renting in London for the last 4 years so used to it, I think it is on par with London. I am paying more here but the flat is a lot bigger and given it is manhattan I would say it is roughly the same as London rent wise. Still both are bloody expensive!

I haven't quite got into the american sports yet but joined a rugby team based in manhattan.

loving the craft beer as well, everywhere seems to offer some form of it! Found a good bar on 55th between 2nd and 3rd called draught 55, they have 42 craft beers on tap.

My fiance got here last week, we got really lucky in that my job offered me an opportunity out here and her company were then able to do the same.

A beer sounds good, drop me a pm sure.