hilarybk

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.