even more quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a new rolling new york times thread

i mean yea, i understand why people live there, especially rich people or young people without kids. i'm just kind of being a dick. just saying for me personally it just has little appeal. it doesn't strike me as a livable city. there's no space. it's crazy expensive. it's hard to get around. the subway is gross as hell -- every ime i go i spend so much time underground and it's filthy and stinks so bad. it strikes me as a hellhole to live if you have a family. there is virtually no place to live that has a yard or even a porch unless you have shitloads of money. there is a lot to do but it costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to get to it unless you live close it (e.g. have money to live in a good part of nyc.) wilderness and outdoors seem like another planet when you're there. so much concrete.

'there is virtually no place w/ a yard' is a feature not a bug

I was more into the idea of apartment living with kids before I had a downstairs neighbor who bangs on the ceiling at every noise

Also my daughter loves being outside but hates playgrounds for some reason. Granted we can take her to Forest Park, which even has little hiking trails and a pond and shit.

i have never been a fan of brooklyn but i have discovered that large swaths of it are still undiscovered unhipsterized portions. so of course i'm helping gentrify them now.

― Look at this joke I've recognised, do you recognise it as well? (forksclovetofu), Monday, June 2, 2014 11:41 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I live in a not-fully hipsterized part of Bushwick/Bed-stuy and pay $575/month including utilities. But I allow that this is rare and that the food delivery options aren't great. Commute's OK. We have a yard but the landlord covered it with concrete at some point, to my unending bafflement and frustration. Went to a party yesterday at a place with a treehouse. Sigh.

Cleveland is also pretty cool though, based on everybody I've ever met from there. I lived in Columbus for years, maybe not as good but a pretty groovy scene and oh do I miss a couple of my apartments there. I had this one-bedroom that was the full depth of this duplex, vast sunny living space (shaded by the leafiest of leafy trees), two minutes from the woody riverside greenway to campus. $475 a month and I felt I was being pretty damned indulgent on my Ohio grad-student income. I will always rep for Athens GA in this sense also, though college-town math works a little different and is less appealing to me at this stage in my life.

marcos neatly sums up my feelings about nyc w/family

london is also famously expensive but has good-to-great public schools, a clean, efficient public transportation system and parks a 5-10 minute walk from wherever you live. plus yards (aka "gardens") are standard issue if you buy a house. (yes, a house)

nyc has: astonishing live music from all over the globe that either starts here or comes here to strut its stuff; ditto theater, ditto dance, ditto museum shows, ditto movies, ditto comedy, ditto any performative or plastic art. astonishing cultural diversity within the populace and accompanying variety of lives, belief systems, creative and spiritual energy. spectacular architecture and public park system. near comprehensive (if aging and problematic) mass transit system allows for a life without a car. mind boggling diversity and quality of cuisine.

london is also not yet part of america

The "I couldn't live anywhere other than NYC" mentality feels more like a failure of imagination than anything else.

No yard=not good if you have lots of dogs.

it strikes me as a hellhole to live if you have a family.

this is otm that's why you live there before you have a family or if you decide not to have a family. i loved my time there and i don't regret leaving at all. we ate outside in our yard last night. it was lovely and the most suburban i've ever felt in my life.

My dream right now is to eventually own one of those little rowhouses on the south side of Queens Blvd. -- never have to cross the Blvd., kids could probably safely ride bikes to forest park when they're a little older, have at least a small patch of backyard. It's like quasi-suburban living with a subway and a commercial district in walking distance, which I guess is my ideal.

There are cities in America where it's much easier to live with a family. My friends in Denver have a reasonably priced detached house with a backyard about two blocks from a happening commercial street

I live here because I don't drive, and am probably unemployable outside of an industry that exists only in NYC in the eastern US.

lol i feel that morbs

driving is not such a big deal. i didn't drive until i left NY and it was a PITA to learn and pass the test but now i'm a pro so

yeah you can be barely literate and drive, most of america managers to drive, but if you actually don't want to drive and don't want to be a second class citizen, nyc is really your only option in america

manages to drive*

i didn't drive until i moved to marthas vineyard. it sucked. i hate driving.

note to self: Mordy is driving, look both ways even with the light

I haven't owned a car in 9 years. I don't live in NYC.

^ 15+, and just now i'm remembering the surprising amt of advice i got when visiting nyc not to take certain trains at night, to call a car service, not to walk through certain neighborhoods, etc. sounds like a super snap to get around, sure!

don't worry morbz if i see u i'll ride up on the sidewalks if necessary jk <3 ;)

another point of contrast: i got mugged @ gunpoint in front of the A train station in waheights at 1AM. i've never been mugged on the mainline but of course i lived in NY longer so give me a couple more years.

j that advice is probably dated, you almost have to go out of your way to find a dangerous neighborhood in ny today

Another metric on which Chicago is superior. You can accidentally get off the train one stop early and be in some trouble.

also anecdotes aside philly is statistically much more dangerous than ny

I got mugged on Park Ave and 51st street once, the night before Thanksgiving at about 10pm

lol iatee do you work for the tourism bureau or something

I am actually Rudy Giuliani

but if you actually don't want to drive and don't want to be a second class citizen, nyc is really your only option in america

― iatee, Monday, June 2, 2014 12:45 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really?

san fran
seattle
boston
portland

...etc?

i definitely had scary moments in philly over the years. but it's probably different there now too.

idk why you all let iatee troll you in every transit/nyc thread he actually works for a property developer and lives in las vegas

i had a store in a basement with no windows in philly and almost EVERY store around me was getting robbed at gunpoint for weeks and weeks and every night i sat in my basement store waiting to get robbed...it was weird. the nerve-wracking thing about philly back then is you could be out on the street in center city at like 11 p.m. and be the ONLY person outside! such a strange town.

slocki all those cities have okay-to-good public transit by American standards but they're not anywhere comparable to ny or most European cities

maine is kinda the new hip spot for people i know. portland.

I have several friends seriously thinking about leaving the city right now and I'm wondering if it's more a function of NYC's increasing unaffordability or just "I'm at that age where people start leaving the city."

"Hudsonia" is being considered by a couple of them. I met lots of youngish recent NYC escapees when I hung out in Kingston NY recently.

dont people always seriously think about leaving nyc? isnt that a cliche going back to woody allen and beforE?

yeah someone usually links to that didion essay by now. I think the answer is yes, but I also think the city is in a uniquely unaffordable stage now.

my brother has a nice thing going in hudson. people are definitely moving there. he hangs out with frank serpico and the dude from lungfish. and meshelle and melissa from hole.

yeah people who left in the 60s/70s/80s were more aspirational, now it's less about not getting shot

i know some mtlers who have fled to hudson who def overlap with some of scott's ppl

i like hanging out on that street in hudson where my brother has his store but i wouldn't really want to live there. i like the hudson river valley though. pretty.

if you live in nyc you should DEFINITELY take that train ride to hudson for like the day or something some weekend. best train ride. so beautiful.

yeah my ex-exotic-dancer friend lives up there

"Hudsonia"?

We've talked (mostly with my prompting) about moving up to the Hudson valley at some point. The question for me is whether to just try to find a smallish place in cheaper Westchester suburb and be commuters or to really leave the city behind, become a country lawyer or something.

http://movieboozer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/LincolnLawyer_m.jpg

otm moving to la is the best form of moving to the countryside

I was in Athens, GA over the weekend and there are like 4-bedroom houses for rent there for $500/mo.