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

i live in an awesome 3BR w/ tons of windows in a lovely, tree-lined neighborhood in boston for $1600, nyc is absurd.

feel weird typing that knowing that my relatives in cleveland are looking at the $1600 price tag thinking it's also fucking absurd

all ppl living in cheaper, nicer accommodations than me are otm

that seems way under market for boston

xxxp Can they have Indian food delivered at midnight? That's my not-entirely-serious standard for life.

xp yea you're right, it is

no one outside ny can have indian food delivered at midnight. stuff closes earlier in the diaspora.

xp so my shot is not entirely fair

nyc rents are absurd yes. there's a lotta culture (and jobs to support that culture) that are more accessible and pay better than in most other cities tho. And my areas of expertise, such as they are, may not travel that well.

like boston is roughly as expensive as the outer boroughs and does not have the benefit of being nyc so if anything boston rent is harder to justify than ny

Tbf our rent for what is arguably a 2.5-BR is like $600 under market rate too. It has serious drawbacks tho that we are just willing to live with for the space and the neighborhood. Like maintenance, which is nonexistent.

boston is 100x more attractive than outer boroughs though. outer boroughs are ugly as shit

The outer--what? Are you even talking about?

apparently has only seen Times Square

elderly female tenant was standing outside my bldg this weekend, shouting at a friend "I PAY $1350 AND THEY WON'T FIX ANYTHING!"

I PAY $1350 AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE

rent for my store + mortgage on my huge house is roughly the same as that one bedroom in harlem. western mass, bitches!!

location, location, location

that's why they say it 3 times

like i said, 75% of the time i don't understand why anyone lives in NY. i'd move to western mass in a second though

it's really not that mysterious why people live in ny

The thing about Brooklyn is that the cheap easy commutes to Manhattan are pretty much exhausted, but you'll probably also see more and more people working in Brooklyn.

I don't understand why I live in NYC either. I mean I do, but it's not because I like NYC.

benefits to living in NY: things are always open, good live entertainment every night, get all the movies, jobs in niche aspirational creative industries, lots of ppl, cultural cache of telling ppl you live in ny when you visit yr parents
downsides to living in NY: too expensive, it smells during the summer, lots of ppl, no good breweries, no good gaming shops

benefits to living in ny - has the only half decent public transit system in the country

*meekly waves Chicago flag*

new york is awesome. i would totally live there. if i were rich.

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.