Our daughter has just graduated and will be teaching in Harlem. We want to help her find an apartment in a safe, reasonable area where the subway or bus commute is not onerous.
I would appreciate suggestions or being directed to helpful resources. Thank you.
Harlem is totally safe and fine to live in. Lots of people who could live elsewhere live there, particularly just north of Columbia on the west side and just north of 96th Street on the East Side. I’d live in Harlem with no problem if I worked there.
See if her college has a Facebook group along the lines of X Collegians in New York. She might have good luck finding a potential roommate that way – or leads on an apartment friend of a friend sort of thing.
The Bronx may be cheaper to live in than Harlem, and there are plenty of safe neighborhoods there, especially in the North Bronx. Inwood, at the top of Manhattan, used to be affordable but has probably gotten a lot more expensive.
I read a couple of articles on Inwood and gentrification, but they basically said it hadn’t fully happened yet. North of Columbia on the West and above 96th on the East sounds right. Some people really do use Craigslist.
Is she planning on living alone? That would be unusual for a young person starting out!
My D taught in Harlem. Is your D going to be in East or West Harlem? My D lived in Astoria, Queens that year. There were several routes she took to school. One of her favorites was a bus that went from Astoria to E. 125th Street in Harlem. She then switched to a bus that went down either Park or 5th Avenue and which let her off a block or two from the school. She roomed with another teacher at her school and a third woman who taught in Washington Heights. There were also subway routes and, occasionally, she and her roommate shared an Uber home after open school night and the like where they had to stay late.
With he regentrification of Harlem, it is now really expensive to live there (D had a beautiful one bedroom apt 2 blocks from the subway but the rent was $2500/month three years ago). Depending on where she works, it can be easily accessible from other boroughs by public transportation. I worked in Harlem for a few years and it was not unusual to have people in the Builiding commuting from long Island and the other boroughs, because there are many express trains that all stop at 125th street with buses running up and down town across all of the avenues.As @techmom99 the M60 (from LGA) bus runs from queens , along 125th street (crosstown)
If she’s a new teacher, chances are she’s going to need roommates, unless you’re subsidizing her rent. A nice, but small, one bedroom is likely going to be ~$2500-3000/month and that’s probably a walk-up. One thing to know about renting in NY is that you almost always need to provide financial information guaranteeing that you’ll be able to pay your rent and you also need to act fast if you find one that you like. If you aren’t able to commit immediately, chances are good that it will be gone.
My son has been in Manhatten for two years
He found his two roommates on a site called SYMBI I believe
The three all had just graduated and were looking for roommates
They texted Skyped etc and decided to live together
Nice to share expenses plus socially even if just occasionally
Good luck
Anyplace in Manhattan is going to be prohibitively expensive and the Bronx is a little dicey. Try looking north of the city in White Plains. There is regular service to 125th Street (which is on the east side of Harlem) on Metro North and an express train is only a 30 minute ride.
Or find roommates! I have no idea what a teacher will be making, but apartments, even in White Plains, are not inexpensive. Add to that a monthly Metro North ticket that costs over $300, and I;m not sure you’re saving much money. My S’s GF lives in Astoria and if she’s in East Harlem, that may be a viable alternative. She says the rents are still lower than comparable places in Manhattan, but a 1 BR, anywhere reasonably commutable and safe will likely run at least $2400/month.
I agree
Roommate/roommates are necessary on a teachers salary
Once you find another to share rent, what many are doing is converting a large open space like a living room into a small bedroom and a living room
Companies will come in and build a wall with built in shelves and closets for a reasonable fee which will include take down when moving. My sons last apartment that is what they did. So the common space is made smaller
One bedroom becomes two
Makes cost more manageable
There’s no need to go to White Plains. Washington Heights (north of 181st) is a great community in Manhattan. You can easily get a clean, spacious room from $700-$1000 if you have roommates.
FYI
When you are looking at the Ads for apts
Certain ones will say flex 2 bedroom
That means one bedroom that you convert/add a second bedroom as previously mentioned
My S and his wife have been living in East Harlem on a teacher’s salary for the last 2 years… They’ve just had a baby and can’t afford to live there any longer. S teaches in the Bronx and has an easy commute since the 102nd St station is 1/2 block away and takes him within a block of his school. They are searching right now, probably in Inwood. Will let you know how it shakes out.
They currently live across the street from a police station, so the neighborhood feels pretty safe.We’ve stayed at an AirBnB across the street from them a couple of times, so we are pretty familiar with the feel of the area. Groceries, cafes, laundries, etc are close by. This is around Lexington and 102nd. I think their rent is a little over 2000 for the tiniest 1 bedroom 5th floor walk-up.
It will really depend where in Harlem she is teaching for proximity to subway or bus. I have a cousin who is a doctor who works at a clinic in Harlem and they are living in a two bedroom on upper 5th Avenue and previously lived in Inwood. she has a 2 year old and her husband is now driving to his position at a hospital in NJ. Younger d has a friend who just got married last summer and they live close to Metro North as she has a clerkship with a judge in CT and has a reverse commute. Her husband is working on his Phd from Duke remotely from NYC. Both my daughters have friends who live in Washington Heights, Inwood and Hudson Heights. Another cousin has a second year teaching job at a school on the Lower East Side but has a long commute from where she lives on the Upper West Side. She has had previous teaching jobs on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side.
Starting salary for a NYC teacher is $45K. Quite possible to live on that in a decent neighborhood if you have roommates and economize on other expenses.
For single people in NYC the rule is live as close to your job as is reasonably possible, but still in a decent neighborhood. That said, commuting from White Plains on Metro North to Harlem isn’t so bad as commuter trains go. But then you’d need a car in White Plains.
For living in Manhattan, may I recommend Normandie Court (96th & 2nd Ave.), comparable buildings on the UES, or their peers on the UWS if your daughter’s teaching on the west side of Harlem. Normandie is a no-fee doorman building full of young people and highly popular with their parents once they’ve seen the LES hipster haunts DD/DS really wants to live in. Rent is about $5300 for a 3-bedroom these days. Somebody’s parents will probably need to co-sign the lease. I lived in Normandie for 15 years. Really nice place if you don’t mind waiting for the elevator a lot. There are many other similar high-rises but Normandie is perhaps the best known, and certainly convenient to a Harlem job, being just across the neighborhood’s southern border of 96th St.
LOL, when I started in NYC a white person could hardly walk down the street in Harlem without getting mugged; now it’s uber-gentrified so that middle class people can’t even afford it and must settle for the lower-cost UES. Same story with the Meatpacking District.
I appreciate everyone’s input. Thank you!
Actually, starting salary is about 56k for a NYC teacher, and that’s without a Masters, which it’s very likely OP’s daughter has! Off topic, but I really recommend that if she has a masters, she get her +30 credits as soon as possible. I did it by taking CLEP tests in the city (they’re super cheap and easy) and it comes with a significant salary increase.
I would really not recommend living somewhere that will cost $1800 a month, that is a very high-cost room and insane on a starting teacher salary. You would be left with only about a thousand dollars a month after paying rent for all other expenses and savings.
I just wanted to say to the OP - thanks for raising a kid who is devoted to the noble profession of teaching, particularly in a high needs area. Best of luck to her!