Manhattan

---

I finally got an apartment last night on Manhattan Island. None of these pictures are of my new apartment. These are pictures I took while walking around Manhattan during my first week here.

I arrived in NYC on April 17^th and have been going full speed ahead trying to get an apartment for my temporary visit here. I am here until the end of October, or so. I looked at about 20 apartments all over this island of Manhattan. I finally got one last night and I move in tomorrow at 11am.

I am looking for the New York experience while I am visiting. I wanted to have all the conveniences right in my neighborhood. Chelsea provides that. There are a bunch of other neighborhoods I would have been happy in also, but I took this one because it was the best of the first 20. Once I move in and make it feel like home, I’ll probably invite a few friends over for a house warming party.

Here is what I noticed about the neighborhoods.

In general, if you want to be surrounded by chaos, great food, night life, and diversity of people and foods from all around the world, you are probably going to want to stay south of 23^rd Street and North of Canal in lower Manhattan, Here are a few of my favorite neighborhoods:

Lower East Side (LES): It feels like east Berlin, with graffiti everywhere, small one of a kind businesses, people of all colors, shapes, and sizes, and a very industrial feel to it. People dressed in black, roll up doors on buildings, crazy late nightlife. This craziness was probably my favorite but I couldn’t get anything over there that had any amount of space. For example, an all brick-walled studio of about 400 square feet was $2700 month. A 2 bedroom share was offered to me for $1700 (for one bedroom) by this really nice 23 year old vegetarian French girl named Lisa, but the shoe-box sized bedroom faced a brick wall. I loved the neighborhood so much, I almost went for it. It would have been like living on a movie set.

Chelsea: This is where I ended up. Very funky cool walkable neighborhood. Great restaurants, night life, art galleries, and close to all the other interesting neighborhoods. It is known as a gay area, which means it is very fashionable, hip, and trendy. My landlords are this really cool married couple. He writes and produces indie movies and she produces and creates all sorts of media including live parties.

Murray Hills: Very nice upscale neighborhood with 25 to 45 year old up and coming professionals. Very clean with wide open streets and would have been a great place to meet females. Some very attractive ones walking around, but it seemed a little sterile for my taste--think Pacific Heights in San Francisco.

West Village: This was a toned down more livable and charming version of Murray Hills. Plus it is right next to the meat packing district which seemed to be crazy rave night life.

Washington Park: Amazing area, influenced by NYU no doubt. I would love to live here also. It is hard to imagine how people decide where to live in NYC, there are so many great neighborhoods.

Soho: Art galleries, fashion mecca--very charming also. Okay, so the whole damn city is charming south of 23^rd and north of canal, like I said above. There are a bunch of other cool areas I saw also, but I am out of gas for now.

---

Comments

[Nancy Taylor]

I heart NY
How cool, you're in Manhattan. This is one of my favorite cities. Hope you have a fantastic time. P.S. Did you get to see your Dad and what did you think?