hilarybk

Alright, so living on Roosevelt Island doesn’t seem like a great idea. It’s a dingy place full of ugly, depressed looking buildings. You know in that movie “Dark Water” with Jennifer Connelly, when they live in this haunted building on Roosevelt Island? Well, don’t feel bad, because most people didn’t see it. The point of the story is that the film crew didn’t have to add dark and shabby to give Roosevelt Island ambiance.

So don’t live there. Visit! It’s actually fun to visit if you take a bit of initiative. And by “initiative” I mean trudged down to the southern tip of the island, shimmy through the fence, and explore the old smallpox hospital. It’s really cool! It’s like ruins that are somehow, magically, part of New York City. And yeah, it has all the city charm of candy wrappers and beer bottles, but it’s still amazing and delightfully eerie.

The tram is fun and way more interesting than taking the subway. And it takes MetroCard! It’s also great to see Manhattan from the island. Seeing the city from outside the city is a great experience. But don’t limit yourself to the shores. History has left its mark here in the oddest places imaginable. There are old brick churches nudged between high residential structures. Then there’s the lighthouse, which just seems odd. Explore a little bit and you’ll come up with a million oddities.

Though living there might not be for everyone, it’s absolutely worth a day trip.

The Flatiron District is a nice little slice of land surrounded by other nice little strips of land. Though not quite as nice as nearby Gramercy, it’s a great neighborhood to live in. The area is safe and clean with a young atmosphere. There are some nice examples of older New York architecture, including the Flatiron Building itself.

There are some great apartments in the Flatiron District, though the nicer ones are pretty pricey. Nearby NYU lends the neighborhood a number of young people strolling about during the day. There are many people drawn to the area for the huge farmer’s market in Union Square. The area also has many business workers in during the day, especially on the northern end surrounding Madison Square Park.

But the main reason to visit this area (besides exchanging your cable box at Time Warner) is the shopping. There are all the big box stores you’d find in a suburban setting, including the Gap, Banana Republic, H&M, Pier One, Esprit, Victoria’s Secret, Sephora, Bath and Body Works and the list…goes…on. It’s great shopping for the middle-budget person who doesn’t want to trudge all over the city to find what they need. And during the holiday shopping season, it’s also a wonderful alternative to the busier, tourist-clogged shopping district just up 5th Ave.

The only reason most people go to Inwood is to visit the Cloisters. This is a mistake. Inwood is moving from a sleepy low-income neighborhood to a vibrant one full of young people.

Though Inwood is really far from many of the main centers of Manhattan, it’s easy to get to and from by train. Either the 1 or the A train will get you almost anywhere you want to go. And on weekdays, the A runs express for a huge portion of upper Manhattan, bypassing a lot of little stops and bringing you right to where you need to be. Really, a trip on the A from the Cloisters to Times Square only takes about 15 minutes. And the 181st Transit Center is close by, which can get you out of the city in a flash.

With the influx of younger residents drawn uptown by the cheap rents, the neighborhood is changing but still has some of its character. You can get a $1.15 café con leche and a $5 latte from Starbucks on the same block. The amazing hills that used to characterize Manhattan can still be seen on the streets and the parks of the area. It’s a gorgeous section of Manhattan and well worth a look.

Though it’s not as cheap as it used to be, Inwood is still a great bargain for a lovely neighborhood.

One of the most striking features of Washington Heights is its, you know, heights. Along with Inwood, Washington Heights is one of the very few neighborhoods that maintains a lot of the natural topography of Manhattan. For being the “Island of Hills,” most of the city is flat as a pancake. It’s extremely refreshing, if exhausting, to traverse Washington Heights. Some of the sidewalks have steps.

The residential areas around the river by the George Washington Bridge can be really beautiful. There are huge expanses of green and trees with nice living places and good views of life outside the city. Though the mansions of the area are gone, some of the lovely architecture and the urban planning remain.

The neighborhood is very lively, filled with young families and single twentysomethings lured north by the promise of cheaper housing. Some of the food is great. There are wonderful stalls on the streets selling fresh, delicious produce perfect for cooking Dominican food.

Crime rates are much lower than they used to be and the neighborhood in general is cleaner. It’s a little shady at night, but nothing too scary. It’s still really noisy, with people out and about at all hours. There is loud music most of the time. You can get annoyed by it, or you can decide it’s great energy and decide to like it.

The geographic limits of Hamilton Heights actually contain many different little places. Along the river, there are lovely residences shaded by leafy trees. It’s really surprisingly charming compared to nearby neighborhoods. A little farther east is City College, which means staff and faculty from the school as well as students. The farther north, toward Washington Heights, you go, that more Hispanic the neighborhood becomes. Farther south and east means closer to Black Harlem.

This part of town is slightly nicer than Harlem proper, with more renovated units and therefore more of the young people moving uptown for cheaper living. The chain establishments of 145th St (like Bank of America, Starbucks, Duane Reade) are fewer but easily accessed.

One of my favorite places in Hamilton Heights is St Nicholas Park. It’s a long park stretching many blocks long. But there is a huge hill in the park, leaving one long side about a million feet lower than the other long side. It’s a hike to get to the top but worth it for the views of Harlem. And then right there is the relocated Hamilton Grange, where Alexander Hamilton lived for a while. It’s not spectacular in and of itself, but it’s just so extremely odd to see it perched there that I cannot help but be delighted.

As a person who has lived in Harlem for almost five years, I can tell you what it’s like to live there as someone whose family is not from there.

Realize, first, that not all parts of Harlem are the same. The areas by Central Park are gentrified and are very similar to residences on the Upper West Side. Places farther north are less nice, but there are Starbucks as far north as 145th St.

The best part of Harlem is the people. I love love love how everyone lounges outside the moment the weather gets over 40 degrees. People sit around and watch their kids play and talk and play music and illegally grill things on the street. It’s extremely loud music, though. So if you are bothered by loud neighborhoods, Harlem is not for you. People are also willing to talk to you like they know you, which is odd for New York. There’s also a great sense of family and neighborhoody-ness here. People ARE Harlem.

With all those wonderful things, there are things that I don’t love. Some people (a very, very small minority) are resistant to outsiders and let their feelings be known. I know there’s a lot of resistance to gentrification and I understand the reason for those feelings, but I need an affordable place to live as much as everyone else. Second, for some reason, littering is acceptable here. There are chicken bones and candy wrappers and broken bottles everywhere on the streets in the morning.

But the pros of Harlem far outweigh the cons. In Harlem, you can find nice, affordable housing in a fun neighborhood.

Morningside Heights is dominated by Columbia University. There are other institutions of higher learning, such as Barnard College and the Manhattan School of Music, but Columbia is the big fish here. The university owns much of the land in Morningside Heights, and therefore has control of much of the area.

Whatever you think about the implications of that for the surrounding neighborhood and its population, you have to agree that the neighborhood has changed since Columbia started exerting its will. Crime has dropped dramatically in the last few decades. While drugs are still a problem (it’s a college, after all) there are far fewer drug-related incidents than any time in recent memory. Housing prices have risen dramatically.

But this is absolutely a trend for this area of Manhattan. The Upper West Side is bleeding its prosperity into nearby northern neighborhoods, like Manhattan Valley, southern Harlem, and Morningside Heights. Gentrification is moving along at a whipping pace. This brings chi-chi grocery stores, an American Apparel location, and other establishments of that ilk. There are newer places for the college students to hang out, but it is, overall, a relatively quiet neighborhood.

While some might regret the loss of the old neighborhood and the rapid increase in housing prices, the increase in safety and well-being of the residents must bring peace to some.

I’m mostly puzzled by people who think of Manhattan Valley as an “up and coming” neighborhood. Really, it’s pretty much all the way up. If you were to stroll through the neighborhood, it would be hard to imagine that twenty-five years ago the entire area was dusted with tainted crack and dented by the heals of transsexual prostitutes.

It’s nice now. While not quite up to the level of the rest of the Upper West Side, there is little in this neighborhood to distinguish it from its neighbor. There is, perhaps, a bit more wear on the buildings and a slightly less well off population than a few blocks south, but Manhattan Valley is a pretty nice place.

The gentrification has gone so far as to include a new shopping center with a Michael’s Crafts and a Whole Foods that caters to the affluent crowds from Columbia and the denizens of the Upper West Side. Much of the beautiful architecture (like the old Cancer Hospital) remain intact. It’s proximity to the lovely Central Park guarantee expensive housing along Central Park West and give all residents easy access to greenery.

Manhattan Valley is becoming more and more expensive to live in but right now is a nice alternative to living in the Upper West side without losing out on many of the benefits.

The Upper West Side one of my favorite places in the city. I worked there for years and loved the neighborhood every day. I used to take breaks in Riverside Park which, in the springtime, is more beautiful than any park in Manhattan, including Central Park.

The UWS is home to many writers and artists and doctors. This lends the neighborhood a really artistic feel. While it’s not readily apparent in terms of public art or the number of museums (though there are a few excellent galleries), the spirit of it prevails. This neighborhood is artistic without being ultra hip. This is because of the tremendous cerebral culture reigning over the neighborhood. There’s a huge Barnes and Noble, small independent and used bookstores, and tables and tables of books sold right on the street. Many residents are highly educated professionals and intellectuals.

The neighborhood is very Jewish, but not as much as many people believe. Things close earlier on Fridays, yes, but some things are hopping on the weekend. For instance, blocks and blocks of Amsterdam are crowded with bars, some suitable for young people but some the more subdued establishments favored by a more mature demographic.

The neighborhood has wonderful schools and is great for families. Strollers can be seen all day parading up and down the streets. There are tons of playgrounds, including wonderful places in Riverside Park. The Upper West Side is great for almost anyone.

There are many parts of Central Park that are unpleasant. Yes, I’m thinking about the southern parts with the clomping horses giving rides to tired tourists. It just smells awful and it’s not at all a relaxing experience for me.

But other parts of the part are truly wonderful. I think the northern section of the park, right by Harlem, is one of the least appreciated areas of the entire city. Much of the natural rock remains in this section of the park. It’s also less busy than other sections. In the autumn the trees change and fall on all the paths. It just more beautiful than I can say. And it’s so unexpected to look out the bus window at building after building after building and then, all of a sudden, see this gorgeous area of trees and grass.

The exercise trails are great for runner or joggers or walkers. Or Rollerbladers or cyclists. There are miles to walk in paths that, unlike the rest of the city, are not straight. The public statues are fun and informative, if you’re in the mood for that.

But the thing I love most about Central Park is that if you get far enough inside, you can barely hear the city anymore. It’s amazing how a few layers of trees can really dampen noise from subway cars and buses and electric fans and people and everything else. It’s a wonderful retreat.

The Lincoln Square area is known for, of course, Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center provides the city with some of its best musical culture including the Metropolitan Opera and the Julliard School. Lincoln Square is also home to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. There are public, free outdoor concerts from people involved in these programs. There are public showings of operas for people unable to afford tickets (or unwilling to sit through an entire opera). And now that Fashion Week is held there instead of Bryant Park, there is even more culture than before.

But even if you aren’t a lover of the musical arts, there are thing to enjoy. Like the beautiful Ansonia building (and the delicious café located on the first floor, around the corner off of Broadway). There are also many practical reasons to love Lincoln Square. It’s very clean and safe. It’s great for families. There are many wonderful, smaller shops like little chemists along with big, practical stores, like Best Buy and Bed Bath and Beyond. There’s also a small but lovely farmer’s market right across from Lincoln Center.

Central Park is nearby. Columbus Circle is on the southern edge of the neighborhood. While the Time Warner Center is essential a big mall, it has its uses. Lincoln Square is close to the conveniences of Midtown but with much less tourist traffic. It’s a nice, comfortable community to live in.

To understand East Harlem it’s important to understand that it isn’t a homogenous neighborhood. The price and quality of housing differs drastically depending on the area. Generally, the farther south and the closer to Central Park North you look, the more expensive the area is. That’s purely a generalization, mind you.

Unlike much of the eastern side of Manhattan, Spanish Harlem maintains its ethnic sensibilities. There are still working class Hispanic families, from the Caribbean (especially Puerto Rico) and Central and South America, living and working in this neighborhood. There are fewer immigrants than in past decades, which means the culture of the Upper East Side has begun to eat away at the southern section of the neighborhood and the up-and-coming portions of southern Harlem are pushing into its western border. The most readily apparent evidence of this is the Target/Costco structure on 118th by the river. But make no mistake, Spanish Harlem is still going strong.

It’s one of he best places in the city to get great food. It’s also fantastic for finding bargains on all manner of things. There are knock-off purses and amazing empanadas sold on the same corner. There are stands selling the best street meat you’ll ever eat.

Crime has dropped significantly in the last decade or so. Gentrification has brought in condos and nicer apartment buildings, which most of the current residents cannot afford to live in. It’s a neighborhood in transition. But right now it can be an affordable and convenient place to live.

It’s difficult to find bad things about Carnegie Hill. It really is lovely, with old buildings beautifully preserved. You could spend the entire day just looking up at decorative tone carvings on the buildings. There are trees on the streets. Old, established trees that creep up toward fourth floor windows and change brilliant colors with the seasons. And it’s right next to Central Park. It’s a nice part of Central Park, even, with room to move around without being quite so hounded by lost tourists.

The museums are nice and the neighborhood is home to some of the most iconic buildings in New York postcard history. Some of the finest schools in the city are located in Carnegie Hill, which makes it ideal for families. It’s much quieter than Lenox Hill, with fewer visitors tromping through the residential sections. It’s a low-key, subdued sort of neighborhood. It’s definitely not ideal for clubbers or the nocturnal among us.

There is the ever-present problem of having to rely on the green line for subway transport, which is absolutely bursting with people, even outside of rush hours. Fifth Avenue is bustling with cars all day long. But residences away from the busy avenues enjoy quiet hours most of the day.

The most important thing to know about Battery Park City is that is NOT the same thing as Battery Park. Battery Park is worth a visit, for sure. A short visit. Walk to the water, look at the Statue of Liberty, take a picture with your cell phone, fight your way back through the crowd, buy an “I Heart NY” shirt for your dog, and then get the heck out of there.

Actual Battery Park City stretches up the west side of the island, and a little bit into Tribeca. Like the adjacent Financial District, there are a lot of people coming in during the day to work in the area. There are also quite a few tourists, though many do not venture from the exciting sights of Battery Park and the lure of free rides on the Staten Island Ferry. And also like the Financial District, many businesses cater to the day crowd. There are many more lunch places than dinner places and many drug and grocery stores close earlier than in other parts of Manhattan.

Much of BCP is meant to be affordable housing, though it is still pricey to live there. But you can get some great views. And the there is a cobbled walk that runs down the side of the river (I think they’re grandly calling it an esplanade) with truly lovely views, especially at the quieter time around sunset.

Yorkville both is and is not part of the Upper East Side. While it has the same safe sidewalks and mostly quiet evening, Yorkville has a younger feel than the rest of the Upper East Side.

I don’t mean younger like the architecture is younger. Really many of the buildings lack the clean polished found in nearby areas. Some of the buildings look weirdly European, like you suddenly stumbled into Bavaria. But for the most part, it’s a well-maintained, normal-looking Manhattan neighborhood. What I mean by younger is that many of the residents are younger. Many are students from Hunter or Columbia or even Julliard or AMDA across the park. Rents are lower here than in the rest of the UES, but still pricey for the amount of space you get.

But with the younger people come more bars and a few clubs and pizza places that are open all night. It’s definitely a more relaxed feel. And there are way fewer children than you’ll see toddling around than if you were to go a little farther west.

Yorkville has mostly lost all its ethnic edge. Little remnants of the German occupation remain, but they are few and far between. It’s mostly residential and mostly quiet. There are long, odd blocks containing residences with no retail locations on street level. It’s very strange for New York and can seem almost desolate at night. But, it’s a reasonably affordable neighborhood with nice residents and definitely worth looking into.

Lenox Hill is a case of paying a whole lot for a so-so neighborhood. Yes, the residences are amazing, this I know first hand. They are also extremely expensive, this is know as well. Some of them have really fantastic views of Central Park and the rest of the city. I’m not so practical that I think that sort of thing isn’t worth paying for. But, if we’re really talking amazing views, consider someplace remarkably cheaper, like Long Island City in Queens, that has great views of Manhattan from the mid-80’s all the way to the southern tip of the island. All I’m saying is that there are better views for much less money.

So what makes Lenox Hill so great? There’s the fact that the interiors are amazing, there are good views, etc etc. But what really makes Lenox Hill desirable is that it’s Lenox Hill. The neighborhood is swarming with tourists, which is unpleasant. This portion of Central Park is always busy and the shops are always crowded. Besides the little dip the orange line down the road a bit, many commuters would have to rely on the swamped green line, which is several avenues away. And those avenues are long walks indeed when it’s freezing cold. But I suppose if you live here you could afford a cab. Or, wonder of wonders, you might own a car. Then, of course, you would have to deal with the constant traffic inching down Fifth Avenue.

So it is a fine neighborhood. It’s just not extraordinary enough to justify spending such an amount of money unless you’re really going for the prestige factor.

Yes, yes, yes, the Upper East Side. It’s very expensive. VERY expensive. It’s also lovely, with huge mansions and amazing views. It’s a safe place to live, with amazing schools and great childcare. There are more nannies than mommies pushing strollers around.

So if you live there, it’s wonderful. The most annoying part is how crowded the green line subway gets carrying everyone, from Manhattan and the Bronx, that needs to traverse the east side of the city. But when the 2nd Avenue line is finished, things should ease up a bit.

For a renter like myself, I was surprised to find that while studios and one bedrooms aren’t exactly cheap, they are much more reasonable than I had expected. Keep in mind that these are TINY units, though. Really small. Like a kitchen and a bed. But, if you’re willing to pay for the neighborhood, they aren’t a bad idea. Plus you are almost guaranteed to get a super who is wiling to fix a leaky ceiling or a jammed window, which isn’t always the case in New York.

There is decent shopping here, if you have the money. The museums are wonderful and a great way to spend a weekday. Or to get out of the summer heat when you realize you can’t afford your overpriced rent and air conditioning at the same time.

I mean, what can you even say about this tiny chunk of Manhattan?

If you could afford to live here, you probably wouldn’t be reading this review. You would be on a yacht somewhere off the Seychelles sipping champagne and eating Pop Rocks (well…I would because Pop Rocks are delicious). If you are reading this review, you are probably reading as someone who is considering visiting Sutton Place. As I have done.

It’s a nice neighborhood, very clean of course, with doormen peering at you suspiciously from behind wrought iron gates taller than a giraffe. Unless you are thinking of going to one of the no doubt fabulous restaurants, there is little to do in Sutton Place. I’ll warn you, though, that the restaurants are significantly more expensive than Pop Rocks.

But, if you’re anything like me, than you might just go to enjoy the little parks. And if, like me, you get really lucky, you can steel wireless Internet from one of the nearby residences. I don’t really know for sure which building Stephen Sondheim lives in, but I like to think that I used his wireless to look up the number for Domino’s pizza. The parks are actually very nice, propped on top of FDR, which afford fairly nice views of Roosevelt Island. They are kind of hard to get to, which might be why they are so empty. It’s a nice place to stop for a bit of quiet, but doesn’t have much in the way of excitement.

Turtle Bay is really a beautiful part of Manhattan. It’s an absolute delight to find Turtle Bay after a long walk through the rigors of Midtown.

Yes, the UN is there as well as many consulates. This doesn’t really affect long-term residents much, except when they close the streets when the General Assembly meets. Then it’s really a pain, but something you get used to after a while.

There are ugly places as well, but many of the buildings are truly beautiful brownstones and lovely apartment buildings. And the most beautiful thing about Turtle Bay is all the trees. Streets are lines with them. And they aren’t the straggly, withering saplings found in many Manhattan neighborhoods. No, these trees are solid and healthy, changing to crisp golden tones in the autumn and charming soft greens in the spring. Unlike so many places in New York, there’s a touch of unexpected nature here. I can’t even be mad at the less attractive residential structures because the little gardens and charming foliage lend even harsh stone facades a sense of grace.

Turtle Bay is also near all the conveniences of Midtown. There’s the great access to transportation, the stores open in the middle of the night, the restaurants and the bars. But Turtle Bay has far fewer tourists and much less noise. There’s the river as well, with a cool view of the derelict hospital on the southern end of Roosevelt Island.

There are some horrible things about Midtown: the crowds, the noise, the people stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to take pictures, the swell of busy busy business people during the day. The winter holidays are by far the worse, when those red tourist buses are packed and there are hoards of gawkers trying to find their way down to the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center. It’s amazingly annoying, to be sure.

There is a lot of high-end shopping here, but many of the more common stores are repeated farther down 5th, around the teens and twenties. If you need to go to Express, the Gap, H&M, or Barnes and Noble, save yourself and headache and get thee down the street a bit.

However, Midtown has many redeeming factors for residents. Many of the apartments are new and really beautiful, with full amenities. They’re also pricey, but less expensive than comparable abodes on the Upper West or East Sides. It’s a nice location to live in, with easy access to any other part of the city. It’s close to Central Park, which – even at the very busy southern end – is great for calming strolls. Midtown is fairly safe and clean and nearby some of the greatest restaurants in the city.

If you can talk yourself into enduring the holidays, consider living in Midtown.

I actually know that people do, in fact, live here. But the only happy resident I’ve ever met was a person that lived on the twenty-eighth floor. It wasn’t high enough to get away from the lights, he said, but it mostly cut down on the noise.

Everyone who has been even near Times Square knows that’s it’s crazy busy all hours of the day and night. It’s just a big, shiny mess. It’s extremely crowded, even by New York standards. And it’s crawling with retail places: the Gap, Starbucks, Ann Taylor Loft, Forever 21, Toys ‘R Us, etc, etc, etc. Then there are the extra kitschy places, like the store that sells only M&M’s. And the store that sells only Nike. Then there’s the Olive Garden and the Red Lobster and the TGIFridays. I don’t know why the tourists love it so much, because it’s exactly like the mall back home, only more expensive.

However, from a resident’s standpoint, there are a few advantages. It is centrally located and over the Times Square subway stop, which can get you anywhere you want to go in the tri-state area. It’s in Midtown, which is great if you work there. It’s near the great restaurants of the Theatre District and Hell’s Kitchen.

Still, though, I would have significant trouble getting over the swarming people every time I wanted to get a quart of milk.

Hell’s Kitchen is a strange place because it’s so obviously in transition.

There are great places to go in Hell’s Kitchen. I personally love the absolutely ginormous Salvation Army. I also adore the really amazingly great weekend flee market. You can get anything there, from African headdresses to organic clover honey, produced and bottled at a farm in the Hudson Valley. But there are also wonderful restaurants, running the gamut from good ole American to spicy Ethiopian. Some places of Hell’s Kitchen are vibrant and lively like this, with clean streets and nightlife and young people drawn in from all over the city.

It’s the other places, though, that aren’t so welcoming. It seems (not as an absolute rule but as a vague suggestion) that the closer you get to the river, the worse the neighborhood becomes. Despite what the movies would have you believe, Manhattan is not pockmarked with vacant lots. That land is worth a lot of money, and is likely to be snatched up and developed as soon as can be. But Hell’s Kitchen has a strange number of eerie, desolate lots decorated with empty beer bottles and Snickers wrappers. The neighborhoods are obviously not great, and are much emptier than I’m accustomed to seeing in Manhattan.

It’s really something of a mystery to me why some areas of Hell’s Kitchen, which is surrounding by great, classy neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Chelsea and Midtown, are somehow devoid of the momentum that characterizes so much of Manhattan. I think it won’t be long until all of Hell’s Kitchen is a desirable neighborhood and people are paying the big bucks for those great river views.

Okay. First of all, not every place in New York can be glowing and clean all the time. Up until a few decades ago, most places weren’t glowing and clean. The Garment District is not a fantastic place to live, that’s for sure. It’s a great place to catch a train or to get something you need. It’s also dirty and kind of sketchy at night.

But it has its uses. Unlike other descriptively named neighborhoods (I’m looking at you, Meatpacking District), this place still does what it says it does. It’s about garments. If you are really in the fashion industry, this is a great place to be. It’s not for fashionistas, who like to strap of sexy heals and wear fur vests. No, it’s for people who really love fashion as an art and as an industry. There are major design studios located here, and more sewing and millinery and shoe-design supplies than anywhere else in the city.

If you need a coat quilted, you go to the Garment District. If you need a copper zipper, you go to the Garment District. If you need a leather skirt to be hand stitched, you go to the Garment District. If you need a Parisian cornflower toile, you go to the Garment District.

So this is very much the kind of working neighborhood New York used to be comprised of. The people who don’t like the Garment District are those who don’t have a use for it. If you do have a use for it, you’ll be grateful it’s still there.

Oh, Chelsea. Chelsea is really a hilariously fun neighborhood with a great selection of entertaining things. There are movie theaters and awesome gay bars and stand up comedy and shopping galore. The residents of Chelsea are great looking. Well-dressed, fit men line the streets. It is, therefore, one of my absolute favorite places for people watching. Even if they all make me feel frumpy, I can always go fetch an organic, vegan, macrobiotic cilantro and raspberry hot dog to perk me up.

Now that there’s a nice Trader Joe’s in the neighborhood, the grocery shopping is even better. While there are few of the fresh produce stands you’ll find in other neighborhoods like Chinatown or Washington Heights, there are great places to buy healthy, completely chi-chi foods. Of course this means cost of living in general is higher, but if you can afford it, go for it.

But my favorite reason to visit Chelsea is to shop the home goods stores. Besides great designer places, there are tons of antique shops that sell vintage coffee tables and long, beat-up hardwood benches that are perfect to hold stuff in my extremely narrow New York apartment. There are also tons of quality thrift stores, like Salvation Army and Housing Works that have absolute gems of furniture. In a place like Chelsea, even someone else’s furniture castoffs are fabulous.

From a resident's standpoint, the thing that sets the Financial District apart from almost every other neighborhood in the city is the huge difference in the streets between different times of the day. If I were a cheekier, punnier person, I would probably say something along the lines of “it is, quite literally, like night and day.” But I will spare you my wit and just tell you the facts.

During the day the Financial District is crawling with tourists like pigeons on bread crumbs. They are absolutely everywhere, squinting into the sunlight to see the shiny buildings, creeping in hushed tones through the amazingly anachronistic tilted tombstones of Trinity Church’s cemetery. For a tourist, this neighborhood is great to explore. It’s unexpected, it’s twisty, and it’s full of both history and modernity.

For a resident it’s a pain to get around during the day and offers no sort of life at night. Even if you exclude the tourists entirely, there is a tremendous population swell of office workers during the day and a mass exodus at night. I once went to the grocery store at 11:30pm and got smacked in the leg with a tumbleweed. But if you like a quiet neighborhood for sleeping, the Financial District is amazing. It also has a decent selection of restaurants , every amenity you might want, and fantastic public transportation. I, personally, loved living there and cherished the very un-New York quiet.

I never really though of Tribeca as a neighborhood I’d like to go to until I was forced down that way to attend jury duty. Just taking a walk through the neighborhood convinced me that I should seriously look at it as a place to live.

While there isn’t much in the way of nightlife, the neighborhood does have some trendy goodness. There are some great, low-key restaurants rarely inundated by the tourist crowd. There are a few swanky bars and a few clubs. Upscale retail is huge there, with pet shops outnumbering many other niche ventures.

Walking the streets in the early morning is an absolute pleasure. The streets are clean and the buildings are beautiful. It’s close enough to the water to get some freshness from the river. It’s far enough from the Financial District to stay clear of the hugely busy morning rush.

Residents in Tribeca rare much more mellow than I expected, definitely more a relaxed urban vibe that the yuppie I was expecting. There are lots of families with children. Sharing sidewalks with strollers isn’t usually my favorite thing, but something about the quiet feeling in the streets makes it so I don’t mind as much. It really is a nice, New Yorky neighborhood with a great vibe.

First of all, I would like to address something that other reviewers have been saying: the smell. Does Chinatown smell bad? Yes. Yes, it does. It smells like fish in the summer. But almost every inch of New York smells like rotting garbage in the summer, and I don’t think Chinatown is significantly worse.

That said, there are some extremely unpleasant things about Chinatown. The crowds are tremendous, and tremendously annoying. If I have to watch another woman from Wilwaukee stand on Canal Street dickering over the price of a fake Chanel bag, I might bite her. And Chinatown isn’t limited to Chinatown; it bleeds into surrounding neighborhoods, like Little Italy and Tribeca.

But off of Canal Street and off Elizabeth Street and off the other major thoroughfares, Chinatown can be a fantastic place to shop. There is produce there you won’t find anywhere else in the city. And most of it is significantly cheaper and of better quality than you’d find else where in the city. If you ever need galangal root, you now know the place to go. It’s also a great place for cheap home goods. One of my favorite things to get in Chinatown and my main reason for going at all, is for the ridiculously cheap fabric to be found. While the selection is not quite as extensive as the garment district, the amazingly cheap prices more than make up for it.

The Lower East Side was known for decades for its tenement housing and slums. Then it was known for large Jewish and then Latino populations. Now it’s known for its hipsters. I could sigh dramatically for the Place That Was the LES, but why bother? It seems like most ethnic places in Manhattan have been scrubbed clean of their interesting bits of grit and coated with shellac.

While I wouldn’t say the results of gentrification in the Lower East Side are dramatically different than other neighborhoods, I would say that the change is remarkable. What was more recently a low-rent, kind of shady neighborhood with families and generations growing under the same roof is now a trendy place, desperately seeking cool. Kosher delis have been overtaken by organic smoothie bars. Cramped apartments have been converted into exposed brick residences for the upwardly mobile.

The neighborhood is fine, don’t get me wrong. It still has a considerable trend factor, though lacking a bit of the edge that used to make it a kind of dangerous, exciting place to go drinking in the evenings. There are all the conveniences that make living in New York great. There are clubs and bars and diners. It’s just lost a lot of the feel of what used to make the Lower East Side the Lower East side. Plus, it’s difficult to get to and from places like Alphabet City by train, which is just a pain.

While no longer the dirty, crime-ridden den of punk the Bowery had once been, the neighborhood retains a delightful bit of its grittiness. It’s one of the few places below 110th street where you can go and feel like you’re walking the NYC of the movies. The crime kind of movies, that is, not the happy love-on-the-Upper-East-Side kind of movies. It’s actually a great, refreshing feeling and one missing from most of Manhattan.

While the punk era has waned and CBGB having moved to Vegas years ago, the Bowery is home to a lot of hip musical acts at places like the Bowery Ballroom. Along with the weepy pseudo-folk music popular now, there’s also many Scandinavian musicians with interesting sounds. It’s not unusual for a partygoer to offer his or her roof deck for an impromptu performance/drinking gig after the clubs have closed.

The nightlife is really one of the best parts of the Bowery. Although it’s great when you’re attending, it’s loud if you’re just trying to sleep. It’s not a neighborhood that’s great for kids. But it is close to places where you might work, like the financial district. While rents have increased fantastically in the last decade or so, there are a few places with reasonable pricing. Reasonable for Manhattan, anyway.

You should go to Little Italy for two reasons: 1.) you really love tourists or 2.) you really love Chinese food. There’s very little Italian left to Little Italy. There are a few famous Italian restaurants left on Mulberry Street, though they’re only one breadstick more Italian than the Olive Garden. A couple other attempts at Italian-type culture, like a place with prosciutto hanging in the window or an opportunistic stand selling French bread glazed with olive oil. But most of Little Italy has been pushed out by Chinatown. The Italian population isn’t growing, but the Chinese one is.

It’s a nightmare to live in Little Italy because you are constantly bombarded by tourists asking where Chinatown is or where Ground Zero is (why do people visit that anyway?). It’s noisy during the day with the whine of tired tourist children and busy at night with the whine of those tourist children’s inebriated parents.

The only really great thing about living in this neighborhood is that it’s very close to the financial district and other places downtown where you might work. If are lucky enough to find an apartment high enough to get away from the street noise, is can be a more pleasant experience. But every time you go to street level, it’s more of the same.

If you’re looking for great New York Italian, I highly recommend hightailing it up to Athur Avenue in the Bronx. They have great Italian food with way fewer annoyances.

Nolita has very little of Little Italy left to it. But then, Little Italy has very little Little Italy left to it. Instead of a particular demographic of resident, Lolita has succumbed to the general “New Yorker” vibe found in locations that were formerly ethnic enclaves. Lolita doesn’t have much ethnic or cultural flare left. I mean, it has an Old Navy.

The Old Navy is on Broadway, though. Just down the street from the Urban Outfitters (whose corporate headquarters is located in what I’m sure is the very hippest part of…Philadelphia). If you stay off the main drag, you will stay away from most of the common suburban Americana that plagues this entire part of the city. The rest can be pretty cool.

Nolita definitely benefits from close proximity to the Bowery, where there are tons of cool clubs and up and coming musicians doing amazing things. Other parts of Nolita are great for living in. The streets are quieter than in Soho or Little Italy proper, with fewer Midwestern men sitting at outdoor cafes, getting sunburn and gulping down seven portions of pasta in one sitting. It’s close enough to NYUland to get lots of students passing through during the day, but it’s not as much of a nuisance as in the Village. It can be a nice, charming neighborhood with tiny places to get falafel and buy great used books. It’s definitely worth a day trip, if nothing else.

Soho, like many New York neighborhoods, has had a thousand past lives. The most recent one involved artists living and working in the sprawling lofts created from defunct factories. Then, Soho was a cooler, more artistic place.

The Soho of today is very clean and very expensive. There are few artists living and working in, or even near, Soho. While it’s a nice neighborhood to live in if you have the cash, its’ sad that another distinct New York artistic community has been pushed aside by gentrification.

Now that it has, though, there’s more room for designer boutiques and an Apple store and places to buy an obscenely expensive tufted ottoman. If you’re looking for amazing shopping, Soho is a good place to go. There are also isolated residences that look like warehouses from the outside but feature amazing interiors. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful apartments imaginable in New York. There are some huge spaces, with high ceiling and cathedral windows. I can see why artists would have been inspired by having so much gorgeous light to work in.

Much of the neighborhood is busy during the day, with tourist and regular traffic clogging the streets. In the evening things quiet down considerably, to the point of eeriness. It’s quiet at night but maintains a sense of isolation rather than safety.

The West Village is what people think of when they think of Greenwich Village. All the little bookstores, the tiny cafes with seating for six, the cobbled streets and the alleys that lead to nowhere…these are all found in the West Village.

Unlike Greenwich Village, the West Village hasn’t been completely overrun with NYU students looking for cupcakes and copy shops. The farther you travel into the WV, the shadier the streets gets. I don’t mean shady like you have a higher chance of getting mugged. I mean shady from tree cover and narrow streets. The buildings are old and traffic is very quiet. There are no high rises and few buildings of steel. There are many wonderful bakeries. Though Magnolia gets all the press for their sweets, there are amazing bakeries for bread lovers.

The WV is really like another world. If travel far enough in, it’s like you aren’t in New York anymore. While that means you have to go farther to get to a subway stop or catch an available cab, it’s worth it because of the quiet and the peace and the charm. If I could afford to live here, I would pick this neighborhood over any other, including Gramercy or the Village or anywhere else.

Like many of the other reviewers, I completely agree that Greenwich Village, fabled place of artists and songwriters, has been absolutely overrun by NYU students. As I lived here when I was an NYU student, I'm in a position to know. Another reviewer mentioned that Washington Square Village and Silver Towers are a place separate from this nonsense. Unfortunately, this is incorrect information. Both complexes house both NYU staff and faculty as well as students, though only graduate students (as I was when I lived in WSV).

There are parts of the neighborhood that maintain their charm. Many of the streets are quaint and delightful, with surprising stores, like a genuine butcher that will chop up a goat if you ask him and a row of wonderful bakeries.

But then there are streets with nothing but bars catering to the dizzy college crowd tipping around on heals or drunkenly (and incorrectly) debating Nietzsche. Overall, the place has a hip vibe because many of the business establishments cater to the college-age crowd. The older, artsy charm is gone and has been replaced by a shallow veneer made from the hair grease of hipsters.

If you want a neighborhood with the charm of the Village but with some more established residents and more of the oddness that made the Village a haven for the eccentric, look into the West Village.

After living in Noho for years (without ever actually calling it “Noho” to a fellow New Yorker) I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this neighborhood.

This little stretch of streets is really inundated by NYU. There are the purple flags of NYU flying over many of the buildings. A huge number of the residents are disproportionately young, which means they are college students. There are tons of hipsters and goths and just regular kids going to college. NYU kids, though, are pretty cool as college students go. I used to be one, so I know these things.

Noho, though, has a lot of chain stores. There’s a Swatch store and a Bank of America and every time I stumble on the sidewalk I reach out a steadying hand and encounter a Starbucks. Astor place is home to a shoe store. But you can still get a tattoo or rent some porn, so all is not lost.

That said, there are some beautiful buildings, like Grace Church, which is a stunning building with gorgeous architecture and windows. But across from Grace Church is an Au Bon Pain. And down the street is an Ann Taylor Loft.

It’s a very safe neighborhood and a convenient one to live in. It’s not as cool as it was, but it’s still pretty nice.

I very much fear that the East Village is quickly going the way of Soho. Soho, before it was the clean, exclusive shopping district it is today, was a quirky little neighborhood of artists and actors. There were special zoning laws passed that allowed artists to have their studio space included in their living space to make it significantly more affordable for them to maintain their place. Now greedy factions have tipped their fingernails into the canvases and ripped that idea to shreds.

The East Village still has a lot of its cool. There are the more extreme brand of hipsters lounging outside organic hummus restaurants and smoking menthols on corners next to community art projects. Some of the best, most cutting-edge bands in the city play to tiny, packed houses in buildings that, from the outside, look like abandoned warehouses. The neighborhood is definitely safer than it had been, with significantly fewer crack dens and much less violent crime. But with the influx of the younger, better-off set, many of the old artists have been forced to find much cheaper digs.

While this influx of money brings increased public safety along with twentysomethings toting home bags of bok choy from Trader Joe’s, it takes away a lot of the bitter flavor that made the East Village such a cool place for so long.

So I'm a pretty normal New Yorker. I’m not a celebrity, my parents aren’t rock stars, I’m neither old money nor nouveau riche. Therefore, I cannot hope to afford a place to live in Gramercy.

That said, it is absolutely one of the most beautiful places to visit in Manhattan. There are fewer tourists than nearby Greenwich Village and Soho, which is a blessing. There are tons of trees and little triangles of green space tucked between convening streets. Gramercy Park itself is off limits if you aren’t a resident, but there are plenty of gorgeous places to stroll. There are few high buildings and few new buildings. Which means there are shorter brick and stone buildings, private residences the size of apartment buildings, and decorative doorways lined with ivy. Spring and autumn are wondrous times to be in Gramercy, when the leaves are either very young or very old. Because I’m prone to whimsy, I can almost imagine myself in an Edith Wharton novel when I’m strolling in Gramercy. Although I obstinately leave off the obligatory ending of Wharton novels, where everyone is sad and alone.

My only real problem with the neighborhood is that it’s extremely expensive and the residents seem to be annoyed at those who would intrude on their privacy. The iron-gated houses could have little signs that say STAY OUT. If I lived there I would be annoyed at the absence of nearby conveniences like drug stores and all-night grocery stores. But then, if I was lucky enough to live there I could probably have my maid fetch my prescriptions and rocky road for me.

Stuy Town has always been super ugly. It’s basically a huge expanse of angular brick. But, for a long time, it was that rarest of commodities: affordable Manhattan housing.

Now the whole shebang has been bought by Tishman Speyer Properties after a bidding war with other organizations, like nearby NYU, and a fierce resistance from current residents. Tishman promised to make modern, beautiful living spaces from the brick expanse. The entirety of Stuy Town is still super ugly if you’re looking at it from the street. And while many parts of it have yet to be renovated, other parts have been turned into great, incredibly spacious living places. There are some remarkable amenities, like in-building gyms and concierges. The outdoor open spaces have remained unchanged for the most part, which is acceptable if not quite the expected sprawling expanses of green promised by Tishman.

But they are also expensive living places. Stuy Town is no longer an affordable neighborhood. With the new influx of residents, the feeling of the place is different. Some of the very long term residents have remained, but many others have been pushed out, changing the feeling of actual neighborhoody-ness to one of typical Manhattan buildings: a collection of strangers sharing a hallway.

This sense of isolation is not alleviated by the neighborhood. There are drug stores and Dunkin Donuts and a few Starbucks. But there is little nightlife and no "scene" nearby. Stuy Town benefits, though, by its proximity to cooler neighborhoods like the East Village.

Kips Bay is not the horrible neighborhood other reviewers make it out to be. There are a lot of hideously ugly high rises, built in that bricky-glassy 60’s mode, I’ll give you that. And then there’s something called the Kips Bay Mall, which is just never a good idea. There’s also Bellevue hospital, which I can tell you from personal experience is-unfortunately-not bursting with crazy people. Much of the neighborhood is dominated with NYU medical buildings. Which are also ugly and filled with cranky med students.

BUT there is more to this neighborhood than the ugly buildings and a plethora of medical facilities. Among the ugly buildings, there are completely charming, pretty buildings in unexpected places. If you don’t like unsightly high rises, keep your eyes closer to the ground and I guarantee you’ll start to appreciate the beautiful brick buildings with little alleys and decorative stone trims. There are charming carriage houses and some lovely little stores around the corner from the condos.

Keep in mind that having lots of high housing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means cell reception is great, there is cable in most of the buildings, grocery stores stock all manner of food, bus stops aren’t scary and lonely, and there are drugs stores where you can pick up cough syrup and ice cream in the middle of the night.

And if you tire of the overpriced delis and organic food stores (and who doesn’t?) then take a short walk over to some of the beautiful riverfront walks. Really, they’re beautiful. This neighborhood is not as sleek as midtown and not as quirky as the Lower East Side. But there are lots of conveniences to appreciate and lots of beauty in unexpected places.

There's a reason Murray Hill is known as Curry Hill. And that, of course, is the high number of Indian restaurants. Which are delicious, but being edged out by higher class joints like the famous Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles and a plethora of Greek places. The eating is fantastic in this neighborhood, and reason enough on its own to visit.

Though Murray Hill is considered part of Midtown, it has very little of the businessy bustle during the day and the echoing high rises at night that characterize much of Midtown. There are fewer tourists and fewer major chain stores and restaurants. In a few words, it’s just cuter and more neighborhoody than nearby sections of town. However, like much of Manhattan, Murray Hill is being invaded with high rise condos and Gaps. Starbucks waged a successful invasion which began and ended years ago. There are still quirky, independently owned cafes, but the green mermaids of Starbucks swim on every corner.

The neighborhood has many Indian and Greek families along with a huge number of yuppies and the upwardly mobile. There is a strong Jewish population, due to the presence of the female section of Yeshiva University. There are a few bleeds of people from the idiosyncratic neighborhoods of nearby Gramercy and Stuy Town. It’s an interesting mix of people which leads to a fun neighborhood feel

And, as a side note, though many reviews are calling Murray Hill a cheaper option than Midtown, it’s still pricey housing and shouldn’t be looked at for those on a very limited budget.