Well, we had our first real NYC apartment hunting experience this weekend. On Friday night, Eric and I were sitting around watching a movie, and he was looking up apartment buildings on his computer. He found one that had a one-bedroom apartment opening up in August that looked interesting, so we debated for a while about hopping on a bus early Saturday morning to go to NYC for the day. By the time we really got around to discussing the plan seriously, it was already 1:00 a.m. so we decided to put the trip off until Sunday. We developed more of a plan of attack, which included visiting four different buildings: two on the Upper West side, and two in Long Island City.
So, Sunday morning arrived and we left our apartment at 6:00a.m. by cab to catch a bus in Chinatown at 6:45. Amazingly, we made it to NYC in 4 hours, which is record time. I think because it was a Sunday morning, there was virtually no traffic heading into Lincoln Tunnel, which is usually the part of the trip that slows things down. So we exited the bus on to the streets of NYC (Broadway, to be exact) a little before 11:00.
Below is a map of Manhattan, with the locations of each of the buildings we visited, designated by the colored markers. I'll describe each in the order in which we visited them.
Our first stop was Archstone 101 West End, which is the green marker on the map. We had seen online that they had a 1-bedroom opening up in August in our price range, with what looked like very large closets (a definite plus!). The building and apartment ended up being alright. It had a nice gym, apartments were nice, etc. However, in order to get there from the subway, we had to walk through a pretty questionable area, which I would not want to do at night by myself. Plus, this building was so far West that it felt pretty removed from everything. There really weren't many shops, restaurants, etc. nearby, which is definitely not what we're looking for. We also didn't get the best impression from the leasing agent we spoke to, who seemed to not really know what he was talking about and was pretty unprofessional (he kept talking about how hungover he was). So, pass!
From there we walked down to our next stop, Archstone West 54th, the blue marker on the map. This was the building Eric had seen on Friday that really got us interested. On our walk, we actually passed by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (pictured left), which is where I am planning to apply to a PhD program! It is literally about 2 blocks from this apartment building, which is a major plus on my end. Actually, I really enjoyed the whole neighborhood. When we last visited John Jay about 5 years ago, it was in a pretty sketchy area known as "Hell's Kitchen." Well apparently, since then, they have cleaned up the area and renamed it "Clinton." Now, things seem much cleaner and safer. There were lots of shops, restaurants for every type of food you can imagine, plus a grocery store, Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins on the ground floor of the apartment building. Now THAT is something I could live with! There is also a small park, including a dog park, just a few blocks away. How great! It also is walking distance from the Theater District (Broadway show, anyone?), Times Square, and Central Park (read: if you want to visit NYC, you'd love to stay with us here!).
We had to wait a while to get a tour of the West 54th building, but when we did, we were pretty pleased. This leasing agent was very friendly, very knowledgeable, and very helpful. The building was great - it also had a nice fitness center, two on-site laundry facilities, a sun deck, and a courtyard. The apartments were nice, decent sized, with good closet space. The building requires no security deposit with approved credit, has no pet deposit or monthly pet fee (yay!), and even has complimentary bike storage. So, lots of pluses for this building! The only downside is that the only 1-bedroom that is available (as of right now) for August is just a little out of our price range. We're going to have to crunch some numbers to see how it could work. But, we were very pleased with this building, and they do have less expensive 1-bedrooms, so we might hope something else opens up in that price range.
After that building, we walked over to Times Square and grabbed a slice of pizza and lemonade for lunch. Then we caught the subway out to Long Island City for the next two buildings. We had heard good things about LIC, which is actually in Queens. From the looks of things, we would be able to get a larger apartment with amazing amenities (such as rooftop pools with views of the Manhattan skyline) for the same or less money than in Manhattan. Eric's commute would actually even be shorter from LIC than from the places we looked at in Manhattan (it's only one subway stop from Grand Central Station, which is where he would go). So we thought it was worth a look. We looked at a 1-bedroom in the East Coast Long Island City building (the red marker on the map) and also at the Avalon Riverview North (the yellow marker, and pictured left).
Our general consensus about both buildings was the same: they were great, but we just weren't sure LIC was for us. Both apartments were really nice, and the amenities were really fantastic. The East Coast building apartment even had a great view of the Manhattan skyline, which was beautiful. But, the city itself had a very small-town feel to it, and really didn't have much around it, as far as restaurants and shops. It didn't even have a local grocery store, with the exception of a deli that happens to sell a few groceries and a Costco that is 2 miles away (no good if you don't have a car!). We felt that the area would probably end up being very up-and-coming, and soon enough there will be everything you could possibly want in the area, but for now it was just too bare for us. We figured we would spend most of our time in Manhattan if we lived there, so we may as well just live in Manhattan. So unless some sort of outrageously amazing apartment opens up in LIC, we can probably cross it off our list of possibilities.
After that, we had about an hour until our bus home, but we were absolutely exhausted. We stopped and got something to drink and just sat in the air-conditioned shop for a while to pass the time. The weather was so unbelievably hot this weekend! Then we caught our bus at 5:30pm, and finally made it back to our apartment at 11:00pm. What a long day! But, I think it was very productive - even though we didn't actually get an apartment, we got a much better idea of what we're looking for and got a few more ideas of things to look into. We'll probably do another day trip next weekend to keep looking. So, wish us luck!
And just for good measure, I thought I would share a couple of NYC-esque pictures in addition to the "all-business" apartment pictures above:
Saw this on the side of the street - somebody had quite a night! They finished a bottle of Jaegermeister and lost their pants.
Perhaps this belongs to our hungover leasing agent from the first building?
Eric taking care of business on the streets of NYC
Typical New York scene: so much to look at!
Me in Herald Square
