What Keeps Me Up at Night, Part 1

WARNING: Long Post

When we first came to NY, we had only a vague idea of where to look for an apartment. We'd heard good things about some neighborhoods, bad things about others, and absolutely nothing about Queens or the Bronx. We had no money to pay a broker, so we ended up getting the first place we could find, here on the border of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace. We actually get a lot of square feet for our rent. And we're two express stops from Manhattan. But as time passed, my list of why I didn't like our place got longer and longer. After a few months living and working in Brooklyn, I'd gotten around enough to know which neighborhood I really wanted to live in and often talked about moving, if the right opportunity came along.

But then I started to "nest." We bought a rug to cover the hideous commercial-grade carpet. We rearranged the furniture. We scraped the pink paint off our faux fireplace (only to reveal ugly and now scraped stone underneath.) We put up a room-dividing bookcase. Throw in some pillow covers and matching lamp shade and our apt started to feel like a home. With every screw Adam drilled into our walls, I felt less inclined to move, and more inclined to put down roots. So I met the neighbors. Joined community groups. Started walking to the tiny grocery stores instead of driving to the supermarket. I got brave and started venturing into bodegas and restaurants and bakeries where I'd previously been too shy to go into. (It takes a certain amount of courage to go into a cramped, little store filled with stuff from floor to ceiling, not having a clue where to find what you need and ask for help.) We even joined a community-supported agricultural co-op thing. I was resigned, content, even, to reside here indefinitely.

But every once in a while, the dissatisfaction starts to bubble up, like a bad taste in the back of my mouth. I spent hours one Friday looking up apartments on Craig's List. I looked in Brooklyn, in Westchester, in Jersey, all the while growing more and more discouraged. Then we left to go up to visit Adam's parents. They live in a small, rural town north of Syracuse. As we drove around the main drag of Mexico, NY (pop. 5,181) I kept thinking to myself, where do these people work?!? That's when it hit me: the crux of the matter.

As far as I can tell, the NYC metro area, which basically covers anywhere within an hour and a half commuting distance from Manhattan, is extremely DENSE. People are packed in like, well . . . like straphangers on the 4 train at rush hour. For the rich, there are two options: (1) live in the city in the nice neighborhoods in nice, albeit small, apartments. Or (2) live someplace "normal" (ie. a house in a suburb) and commute to the city. The closer you get to Central Park, the more expensive it gets. The farther away you get, the cheaper it gets, until you hit some sort of cusp where the rent starts to go up as things get more spread out and, in a word, normal. This confused me at first. As I was surfing through Wikipedia articles and cross-referencing them with Google maps to calculate commute times, I kept thinking, well, if I go a little farther out, it will get cheaper, right? Wrong. More suburban, yes. Cheaper, no.

When we first moved here, we had no idea how long we'd stay. If we had to predict, as people often asked us to, Adam would say 5 years at least, while I would say, "you better be kidding." To me, this was just a step. Make it here so you can make it anywhere. But then the economy tanked. We were lucky just to have a job—any job—let alone one with such great benefits doing work that Adam actually enjoys. So when people ask how long we think we're staying (it really is a constant question here), now I say, "There's no way we'll think of looking for another job until the economy turns around." So here we are, anchored to a job in Midtown Manhattan for who knows how long. Will we be having another kid here? Will Elizabeth start school here? These are the questions that are always floating in the periphery. Along with, will we ever own a home?

You see, with half of your salary going to rent, it doesn't leave much room to save for a down-payment. So maybe we should live someplace cheaper. But there is no place cheaper. (Is there? No, really; is there?)

Okay, so you don't worry about home-ownership for the time being. Just be happy to rent. But for how long? We already had to move into the living room to give Elizabeth the bedroom. (See previous post for reasons.) What happens if/when we have another baby? Even without that, having had a few people stay with us since moving our bed out here has really opened my eyes as to how not-cool it is to live in a studio. And I'm almost looking forward to the winter when we can shut our windows and the noise of the street OUT. For now, every car alarm, foul-mouthed pedestrian, and cart-clanking trash picker make it that much harder to sleep.

So do we look for a new apartment? A two-bedroom? With cost-of-living pay increases at Adam's work postponed indefinitely, there's no way we can afford to pay more rent. Plus, our landlord hasn't raised our rent at all since we've been here. I'm afraid to leave and find out that's not normal for NYC housing. Then there's that feeling we get, each time we come back from visiting family. The last few times, as we'd exited the BQE and turned onto 4th Ave, Adam has sort of sighed and said, "Why do we live here?" Don't get me wrong. I've worked hard and long to come to appreciate city life. It definitely has it's perks. And it's never boring. (Well, unless you're home with a baby who still takes 2+ naps a day.) But what about trees? That aren't encased in cement. What about grass? Space. Just space. Being able to SEE space. Stars.

Maybe it's the oncoming winter, but right now I just really don't want to be here.

End of whiney post.