Living in NYC - do you get used to living in such tiny apartments?

Younger folks seem happy in Brooklyn, but I'd still rather be in Manhattan. I don't find it so bad living in a small apartment. It's certainly big enough for me and a girlfriend and for having small groups of people over.

But it is true that many New Yorkers are just never home. I'm home more often than most, because I work on this computer, and if I look out in the evening, I may not see a single light on in the apartments across the street.

What do I really need to do in an apartment anyway? Make food. Eat food. Sleep. Maybe read, watch some tv, or do some work from the office. How much space does any of this require? I'm not a child who needs space to run around in the living room. If I want to run around, I'll go outside.

I'm also considering moving to NYC soon (possibly working in Manhattan after graduation). I'm not too worried about the apartment size. I personally would much rather have a smaller place than a larger place w/ roommates. I would definitely consider Brooklyn myself, though. There are some cool neighborhoods there. It may not be "in the center of it all" like midtown, but I like the old brownstone neighborhoods (though you can get this in Manhattan as well in a number of neighborhoods).

B&T

Do you get used to it? Yes. Do you sometimes wish you had a walk in closet or a guest bedroom? Yes. You will give up some "stuff" to live in NYC, but not much and nothing essential. What you'll get is access to anything and everything 24x7. Always wanted to try ethopian food, you got it. Always wanted to see an opera, easy. Jazz club at 2 am, just get in a cab. 4 star brunch on Sunday, no problem. A place to run with a great sense of community, ahhhh central park. Whatever you want to do, you can do here. And a lot of it you can walk to. Not having to get in a car is incredibly freeing.

I've been here 5 years, going on 6. I never thought I wanted to live in the city before I moved here. It took awhile to get used to the noise and the crowds, but now I can't imagine living anywhere else.

And if you look really hard, you can get a great apartment. Oh and DO NOT live in midtown, it's not a neighborhood. Check out different neighborhoods to see what you like.

www.streeteasy.com

is a great site for apartment hunting.

NYLover is right. Do not live in Midtown. I live in the West 70s, near Central Park. I basically consider it the country, with the advantage being that I don't need a car and everything is open later. Manhattan is actually a far easier place to run than the suburbs. My running improved when I loved here.

thanks for the link. I realize the trade-offs of living in the city. Since I would probably be living alone, without any family or friends in the area, I probably won't be going to alot of shows or restaurants by myself. So I'll probably be spending a majority of my free time running in central park and in my apartment.

I live in Midtown right by the park (57 & 7th ave) and I love it...the real midtown to avoid is Hell's Kitchen, broadly south of 55, west of broadway. If you can try to stay by most subway lines, as all pointed out doing everything on foot is great.

Without CP I'd be miserable...this is a heaven for runners. Whenever I travel I can never find the same energy anywhere else. And we have NYRR which is a great organization.

For a runner I'd recommend living north of 50th, south of 110th, west of broadway, east of park ave. That's a big area.

#1 I'd say upper west side for me

#2 Colombus circle and central park south for convenience

#3 Upper East where you can find more younger folks

I would like to push back on some of the assumptions here:

1. What are the facts around Manhattan people not beting at home most of the time? Where are they? Manhattan people do the same things everyone else does: work, sleep, eat, workout, eat out, entertainment, travel...like everyone else.

2. Many Manhattan apartments are small, cramped, closet less spaces for the simple fact that they are old. I don't know the percentage, but much of NYC apartments were built before WW2, much of it in the 20's or earlier. People did not have family rooms, walk-in closets and sit around in their kitchens. They did on the other hand have high ceilings, fireplaces and beautiful touches, so in the more gracious buildings even studios and 1BRs can be quite nice. I had a 3 BR duplex outside Manhattan years back, with the tiniest kitchen, but a maids room off the back of the kitchen, pretty cool.

3. Not all Manhattan apartments are small.

I think you will not miss the space, but you will miss the storage and some conveniences. Go Manhattan and go small. Consider putting $100 a month towards a storage facility for Rubbermaid tubs of clothing and crap which is not part of your daily, weekly or monthly life. You probably have 400 squre feet of crap that you don't need day to day which you can stack away somewhere in the Bronx and summon a few times a year. Get organized, if you can, you will be impressed at how liberating getting rid of rooms of books, tapes, clothing and crap that you just don't need. You do much better on a 4th or 5th floor walk up; suck it up, you're a runner, and go for the top floor and you will not have to put up with chicks banging their heels walking around above you.

Living in a tiny apartment is better than living with roommates.

I just moved to NYC today(2-20) after accepting a position with the NYRR. I'm going to spend Sunday and Monday looking at apartments in Manhattan if you'd like to team up. Shoot me an email if you're interested.

Are you looking for a 1bdr or willing to live with roommates? How old are you? IF you're fairly young and willing to have a 25-50min commute I wouldn't count out some of the outer boroughs.

Either way, I live in a very large 4bdr apt. in Brooklyn, pay 575 for my large bedroom with tons of exposed brick, if you're into that. Yea, i'm in crown heights, which may seem dangerous to most people, but I'm less than two miles away from prospect park. The park is a bit smaller than CP but the upside it has about a trillion less tourists and overall less cyclists as well. I can walk or ride my bike to all the "cool" stuff all over BK and I'm just a 25 min subway ride away from all the "cool" stuff in manhattan.

The point is, it's hard for most new people to stray away from choosing manhattan to move to but if you're tastes don't include sports bars and paying 7 dollars for a bottles of heineken, then brooklyn and some parts of queens are a great option.

I grew up in NYC so maybe this is a jaded personal opinion but midtown is for n00bs. Brooklyn is cheaper, more relaxed and the people who chose to live here generally have a different and better vibe than all the transplants that seem to flock to manhattan.

H8ER OUT

If you want a creative neighborhood, move to east village. Midtown is an easy place to live, it's just not very interesting. For your first apartment, though, it's not a terrible place to live as you will be in the middle of everything.

Blizzardo wrote:

I would like to push back on some of the assumptions here:

1. What are the facts around Manhattan people not beting at home most of the time? Where are they? Manhattan people do the same things everyone else does: work, sleep, eat, workout, eat out, entertainment, travel...like everyone else.

I think that to the extent that this assumption does hold true, the causation is probably opposite of what might have been implied on this thread, ie it's not that people are okay with living in small apartments because they don't spend much time at home anyway, it is that people spend less time at home because they have small apartments. Few Manhattanites can set up an elliptical in their living room or shoot hoops in the driveway, so they end up going somewhere else to do things that people elsewhere would do at home.

I lived in Astoria for 5 years in a tiny 600 square foot apt that I shared with a roommate for 2 years - the size didn't bother me until I finally decided that I was sick of living in nyc. THEN it bothered me.

I would definitely recommend living in Brooklyn or Astoria over the city. I worked in midtown and my commute was shorter than my friends who lived in Soho. I also paid half the rent they did. Plus, Astoria has some amazing little restaurants and clubs.

the small apple wrote:

So I'll probably be spending a majority of my free time running in central park and in my apartment.

If you are planning on running in your apartment, I'd recommend getting a bigger place further out.

Bear of Bad News wrote:

I think that to the extent that this assumption does hold true, the causation is probably opposite of what might have been implied on this thread, ie it's not that people are okay with living in small apartments because they don't spend much time at home anyway, it is that people spend less time at home because they have small apartments. Few Manhattanites can set up an elliptical in their living room or shoot hoops in the driveway, so they end up going somewhere else to do things that people elsewhere would do at home.

I grew up in NYC, in a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment (we switched more than once), and never felt like we lacked space.

If you live in the suburbs, would you really use an elliptical in your living room? Or shoot hoops in the driveway, on your own? For those things in NYC you go to the gym or the local park. I know people in NYC with treadmills and ellipticals, but they rarely use them. My mom uses her treadmill as a place to stack boxes.

My dad's apartment building has a gym with a basketball court, swimming pool, ellipticals, weights, etc all inside the building.

Instead of playing in the yard, we played in Central Park. True, we needed a grownup to go with us when we were little. What are the other virtues of owning a large house?

Dude, from experience,

You don't need a garden (CP is fantastic), you don't need a kitchen (cheaper to eat out), you need a TV for when you're not our with friends and a bed for when you're not in someone elses :)

Live in Bk, Qns, or Bronx with no car? why sit on a train for 20 minutes to 1 hour to get to work, when you can walk or cab to work in Manhattan? Shoot why move to nyc is you HAVE to be on the train to get to work? Subway sucks here.

As for bars, over 50% of bars all over the world are sports or fake irish bars. So all hoods will have good and bad ones. But if you are going to party you are probably going to go below 14th street in manhattan anyway. As much as I like the UWS for its convenience and buildings it has become the d-bag, sports bar, starbucks, baby carriage, and chain store mecca of Manhattan. It is a suburban mall. It is for people who say they want to live in the city but then complain about anything city related. West side from mid 50's to central park is probably the last real manhattan hood that still has laundry mats and hardware stores instead of banks and starbucks on every corner.... although that is starting to happen as well.

If you are Ivy or financial, ues is a good spot to live. You will have like minded folk and a huge population of closeted frat boys.

Brooklyn bars have recently been facing angry parents who are upset that they can't bring their babies into the bars, or when they can the honestly complain about adults swearing in front of the kids.... what? Basically a place for trust funders who are artistic without risk or missing a student loan payment.

Astoria is not bad, but it is hard to tell the difference from any urban area in the entire USA. And having people from Greece does mean it is diverse, if anything it has 2 groups, whites and greeks. Greeks rent to whites, and only sell to greeks.

anyway you will find your area, but what i said is de truf.

Never lived in NYC but lived in DC for a long time. My wife and I had a pretty tiny one-bedroom place for 10 years that we loved. Had our first child there. A great place.

Now I live in a 5,000 square foot house and guess what? Both of us miss that one-bedroom apartment. A lot.

There is a simplicity that comes with a small living space. You begin to learn what is necessary and what is not. It is freeing.