What's Middle Class in Manhattan?

It's not often but I agree with you 100 percent. Great post.

 

Exactly.

There are still places in the city proper to find "bargains" - we haven't mentioned Staten Island yet, for example - but the subway (or ferry) rides to work get longer and longer and longer as the rents and prices go down.

It's a bargain to ride the 6 train down from City Island to Union Square at $2.25, for sure, but it takes a good deal more than an hour to do it.

I understand that we all go where the work is, but the Commuter's Choice to suffer the worst of all worlds - effortful daily travel, and a life neither truly city nor country - still puzzles me sometimes.

 

You should go to San Francisco, Drip. You'd love it. It's fab-u-lous!

 

I was going to comment on that post, as well. I am not as well-traveled as many of you, but I have found plenty that's different across the big cities here in the U.S. I don't know how anyone could say that, say, New Orleans, is just another city. Ditto for Boston or Baltimore (or Chicago, for that matter). Heck, in my neck of the woods Dallas and Fort Worth are very, very different in color/character. Never been to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, but I suspect those places have plenty of idiosyncracies. LA and NY are the only unique places? Nah, I don't see that.

 

My first apartment was in the Belmont/Arthur Avenue/Little Italy section of the Bronx (187th St. & Crescent Ave.). This was around 1989, and I paid $562.50 for a two bedroom, fourth floor walk-up. It was an older building, and their were literally no closets.

The neighborhood was great, but the subway was not close. First I drove to 180th St, where you could catch the 5 or the 2. Then after my car died, I walked to the D train at Fordham Rd. The commute to the World Trade Center was well over an hour door to door.

One of the things that amazed me when I moved to Houston was the convenience. First of all, everyone worked fewer hours than the folks in NYC, but you could go home after work, change your clothes, unwind a little bit, and then go out and meet friends.

That would never happen in NYC. We worked to late, and all lived way to far away to think about going home after work and then tying to meet up later. It would be impossible.

 

I used to live in the Bayarea. I know how expensive it is to live in SF. I also know that many make their loot in San Francisco but live across the bay and commute. I love BART. I still stand by my post. It's just my observation.

 

Junction City.



Oh wait, wrong Manhattan.

 

Not everywhere has a Broad Street where you can get your ass kicked.

 

You are correct. However, you can get your ass kicked by any of the locals and it doesn't have to happen on Broad St.

 

New Yorkers preach only peace and non-violent solutions to human struggle. Solutions like the egg cream and the bagel.

 

As an example, I have roughly a half-hour commute. My monthly Metro-North ticket is $229 and it's $792 annually to park at the train station.

 

Then you were trying to go out too early or were working ridiculous hours. Back when I lived there, there were quite a few Friday nights where I had plenty of time to go back up to Wash Heights and get some dinner and take it easy for a little before heading back down to the Lower East Side or wherever for drinks at like 11. Same for my friends who lived in Harlem and obviously those who lived in the LES or Brooklyn had an easy time of it.

Now, there were definitely nights where we preferred to just meet up after work, but it wasn't impossible to go home first.