<p>My daughter’s boyfriend is in Bed-Stuy sharing a 4 bedroom flat with 3 other young adults he met through a broker. He’s been there since May and is happy there. He has a lot more space there than he would for the same price in Manhattan.</p>
<p>G stands for “Ghost”, my bro in Williamsburg says :)</p>
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<p>In my case Cobble Hill, but ditto - it’s nuts!</p>
<p>Unfortunately the G is undergoing Sandy-related repairs right now but it is definitely better than it used to be.</p>
<p>Cobrat, I am surprised to see you refer to the 4-5-6 as the green line. In my daughter’s and my experience that tags you as a tourist or newcomer to the city.</p>
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<p>That was @jazzcatastrophe. I thought he/she was referring to the G line and humoring the use of “green line”. </p>
<p>Thank You, Thank you for great responses- D2 has been reading the info and it helped alot to look at the places they did and narrow them down. Keep you posted…</p>
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<p>One thing to keep in mind regarding residential quiet neighborhoods dominated by young families versus more vibrant ones full of college/young professionals like Williamsburg or the LES is how much noise there likely to be from the music venues and bars associated with young vibrant nightlife or more importantly, the lack thereof along with police responsiveness/sympathy/reaction if you are perceived as make too much noise in your apartment. </p>
<p>In the residential quiet neighborhoods, police in practice are far more likely to be called and to take the side of the young family or if applicable, senior citizen and enforce the rules more strictly on the young college student/young professional than if you were in neighborhoods full of music venues & bars where some level of loud noise is expected as a natural order of things. </p>
<p>It’s a factor in why friends who are musicians moved out of or avoid moving into the residential quiet neighborhoods in the first place. Even those who don’t practice with amplification or are otherwise respectful of the 10 pm - 7am NYC quiet hours. </p>
<p>Rockymtnhigh, feel free to PM me as necessary. I live in Bed Stuy and especially now that I moved my baby to college, I am happy to help.</p>
<p>I find Cobrat’s continued focus on noise issues rather puzzling. I can see why it is an issue for his musician friends who ant to rehearse… but I don’t think that most young people with day jobs in midtown or downtown Manhattan have that concern.</p>
<p>My daughter lives a block away from a very busy, lively street. She’s right by the intersection of several of the major surface artery streets- so a walk around the corner and one block away, it’s noisy and definitely not “residential.” But her apartment is very quiet – much, much quieter than anything I’ve ever experienced in Manhattan. (No constant buzz of traffic and wail of sirens). Definitely a much less “urban” sense than the housing she was provided as a Barnard student. She is in a 3-story detached building, with a large front porch and an actual tree in front of it. It does tend to get noisier on weekends as she is quite near an open gathering place where there may be music playing on a friday night or weekend afternoon. </p>
<p>I’ve walked around the area a lot and there are very distinct, different neighborhood characters from one block to the next. It’s kind of cool.</p>
<p>But from a renters perspective… it means you really can’t generalize unless you know the area very well. I mean, two blocks away in any direction might put my daughter in neighborhoods that have a very different mix of residents, may or may not be mixed residential/business use, and obviously somewhat different characters. I enjoy walking around there because it’s interesting to look at the different styles of housing . </p>
<p>Of course that probably also means that you might find a significant variance in rents being charged and the type of units available for rent from one block to the next as well.</p>
<p>But my point is that I wouldn’t want to make broad generalization as to neighborhood characteristics, especially with the rapid changes going on in the area. Transportation is different: you can easily look at a map and see where the metro stations are and which subway lines they serve. </p>
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<p>Phrased it that way under the assumption that OP wasn’t familiar with specific subway lines because the NYC subway line names are confusing (it’s how I explain it to my non-city friendly mom when she comes to visit)</p>
<p>Also OP, I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but Gypsy Housing on facebook is really great for finding sublets or roommates all over the city. It’s technically supposed to be for people in the performing arts only, but many other people use it as well</p>
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<p>Depending on the fresh graduate, one common issue with some who attended colleges where loud dorm noise was tolerated to a greater extent was finding what was acceptable in those environments wasn’t going to be acceptable after graduation in the more quiet residential neighborhoods and thus, found a need to find neighborhoods more amenable to continuing that preferred lifestyle. </p>
<p>On the flipside, if one preferred a quiet neighborhood, the neighborhoods filled with musical venues/bars and/or elevated subway tracks* with its associated noise may not be the best bet. </p>
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<li>Spent one year living in a neighborhood half a block away from the elevated tracks during my later HS years. Never going to do that again if I can avoid it.<br></li>
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<p>Incidentally, many of the musicians playing in bands also have day jobs in the city…including mid/downtown Manhattan. The professions include electronic music instrument designers, a tenured community college Prof, and even a few paralegals/attorneys*. </p>
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<li>Working in smaller firms or solo practitioners.<br></li>
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<p>Yes Cobrat, but somehow I missed seeing the part where the OP said she was looking for place in Brooklyn where her kid would be able to practice. </p>
<p>I’m sorry that you have some friends who have run into problems with some neighborhoods due to a mismatch between their hobbies and the neighborhood ambiance.</p>
<p>I just don’t get how that is at all relevant to the question that the OP asked. </p>
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30 or 35 years ago?</p>
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<p>OP didn’t ask and yet, noise and lifestyle preference issues are an important factor for anyone when assessing which neighborhoods one would prefer moving into…especially fresh college graduates. </p>
<p>One common issue I’ve seen with many fresh college grads is not thinking about or fully considering those factors when they had the discretionary choice was them finding out the neighborhood was either too quiet/full of neighbors who didn’t care for their continuing their noisy college dorm lifestyle or the reverse, finding the neighborhood’s too noisy due to it being a center for nightlife and/or other sources of great noise like elevated subway tracks. </p>
<p>This could also impact how one selects roommates. For instance, some mutual friends would make horrid roommates for each other/myself due to conflicting needs over preferred lifestyle/noise. </p>
<p>One such friend who requires extreme quiet in the apartment after 7-8 pm due to a medical condition has found it problematic to find similarly aged roommates (20something) or even much older because none of them are willing to severely cramp their own lifestyle preferences by figuratively walking on eggshells in being superquiet at such an early hour. </p>
<p>Guess what, he ended up needing to move back with his parents in the extremely quiet 'burbs because no one wanted to be roommates with him under such conditions and he can’t afford to rent an apartment on his own. </p>
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<p>What’s more ironic was how the harassment from young family/retiree neighbors some of those musicians experienced was solely due to assumptions they’ll be noisy because they were spotted carrying musical instruments(electric guitar/bass) to/from their apartments when don’t even practice with amplification in their apartments due to lack of space and due to them being mindful of potential noise issues. </p>
<p>And if one practices without amplification, the noise is such the unamplified instruments could hardly be heard a few feet away, much less across the apartment or moreso, neighboring apartments. </p>
<p>Playing a classical/acoustic guitar in the apartment would be much louder in comparison. </p>
<p>It was more an issue with jerky young families/retirees finding issue merely because they were musicians and “could become potential noisemakers”. </p>
<p>My eldest moved into his house in Ditmas Park because it was a great living situation with friends, at a very reasonable cost. He neglected to realize that the Q ran, literally, through the backyard. For the first two weeks he thought he would have to move out, the noise was that intrusive. He tried white noise, earplugs, everything. Now, almost a year later, he doesn’t even hear it. The OP’s grad will have to decide what factors are most important. For my kids, without a doubt, after cost/roommates, the accessibility to easy transport to work was the primary consideration. </p>
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<p>Your son is hardier than I am. </p>
<p>I’ll never live close to elevated subway tracks…especially half-a block from them if I can help it. Couldn’t stand it even after a year of it. Was ecstatic when my family and I moved out of that apartment around a year before senior year of HS. </p>
<p>The Q/B tracks are not elevated. They are in a trench below street level.</p>
<p>I know people who live with the Q/B tracks in their back yard and it’s not noisy at all, and houses across the street have no sound at all. I think it just depends.</p>
<p>My bedroom is on the third floor of a brownstone (the floor over the parlor) in the front of the house. It’s not a very noisy street but when I open the window it sounds like the cars are driving past my bed. On the other hand, there are new windows available that make living alongside the Brooklyn, Williamsburg or Manhattan bridges totally silent inside.</p>
<p>Absolutely, all I’m suggesting is that the factors that are important to one person may be less important to another, and the value of taking everything into account when making a decision. I know when we bought a house in the suburbs we went to see it at all times of day and over the weekend to see what the noise/traffic situation was at different times. Whether my S hears the Q or not is not the point, it’s that he chose to deal with what might have been to others a deal-breaking situation. The greatest thing about NYC (well, one of them) is that there are so many options regarding where to live, and possibly the best public transportation options of any city in which my kids or I have lived. I think the OP can glean the factors many of us or our kids have considered when making a decision as to where to target an apartment search. Really, for every work location in Manhattan there are many viable places to look for living opportunities. What works best for one person will not work for others. In my opinion, if OP’s grad creates a prioritized wishlist of the factors most important to him/her, the focus of the search will become obvious! </p>
<p>Dowisetrepla is the up and coming neighborhood.</p>
<p>It is possible to find something not terribly expensive, if you are willing to have a third roommate. In a good sized two bedroom apartment, they will install an additional wall to make a third bedroom. Apparently it isn’t uncommon in NYC to do this. The negative is that the living room is smaller, and the wall is not built all the way up to the ceiling, it’s about a foot from the top. A problem if you have noisy roommates, otherwise not a big deal.</p>
<p>My son lives in a beautiful apartment in the financial district, with a nice view. They each pay about $1600 a month. Sounds expensive to me, but I think that’s a really good deal for the location and what they get.</p>
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<p>Depends on the landlord and/or co-op/condo association. Sometimes, even if the landlord is willing, the co-op/condo association will bar him/her from doing so to avoid issues such as large numbers of college students/young professionals sharing a small 2 bedroom with their perceived issues. </p>
<p>This needs to be researched by landlord/building. </p>
<p>Also, while having 3 or even 4 roommates as I had in the past can be great*, it can also aggravate potential complications in case one or more roommates has conflicts with each other or has issues/decides to stop paying their share of the rent/utilities. </p>
<p>Just recently, I helped one counsel one younger friend through extricating himself from a sticky situation between him and one roommate on one side, a third roommate who decided to stop paying rent halfway through the lease period on another, and an antsy landlord who was threatening to take my friend and the roommate on his side to court to enforce the “jointly responsible part” of the “jointly and separately responsible” clause of meeting the full monthly rent in their lease. </p>
<p>Thankfully, that jerky third roommate was prevailed upon to pay up most of his share and my friend and the other roommate only lost that jerky roommate’s share of the last month’s deposit and having to pick up the slack in cleaning out the apartment when they all moved out. However, it illustrates how having more roommates can also add complications to potential housing/roommate issues. Something to think about. </p>
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<li>Having two who were medical interns/residents meant they were hardly there at times I was home and the rent/utility checks were always on time. :)</li>
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