Oh man getting my question answered really made my week in a surprising way (I'm the not-living-in-New York-FOMO person). Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful response! Not sure if "you can be boring anywhere" is ultimately a reassuring thought or a scary one for me, but I love the phrasing nonetheless. A funny extra anecdote about my case of NY FOMO: last night, I dreamed that I was in New York and that you and Avi were looking for a housemate (?!!? lol), Avi was giving me a tour of the apartment and we became instant friends, he was super funny. So I agreed to move in, then tried to find a job to pay for everything (I remember calculating the costs in my dream and even in dream logic it was decidedly impossible), but somehow ended up in London to do interviews? Brains are really something... Typing all of this out made me realize how creepy I might sound but I promise I'm not! Anyway I'm still happy staying put in Europe, I hope you guys are not too disappointed that I'm not moving in after all :p
For #3, your answer was excellent but I feel like the real solution should be that graduate schools should offer basic private studio apartments near campus for students who are paying exorbitant tuition prices.
Somewhat NY related, but my boyfriend is heading over there is about a week or so - do you have any recs for an international bodega santa run? i.e. what weirdly specific items would you recommend a foreigner get their hands on (and are relatively non-perishable). We're from Australia, fyi. :)
This is really nice to read as someone who lives in Dublin. I've lived in Ireland's capital city - the one I went to college in - for 6 years now. Ireland's always had a huge culture of emigration, and that sentiment is still there. It often feels like everyone my age is fleeing for Vancouver, or Sydney, or NYC. It's a sad feeling when no one wants to put down roots in the place you all grew up and became adults, blaming the housing crisis or lack of jobs or archaic nightlife licensing laws or vulture funds buying up the city. The attitude of 'Dublin is shit' is SO pervasive that it feels weird to reckon with the feeling that I am pretty happy here! I have a beautiful apartment with roommates I love, a great relationship, a job with co-workers so fun that we all just spent a weekend at a festival together. The creative scene is small in a nice way - I'm starting a club night with my girlfriend and we're covering the city with our posters and stickers, it feels overwhelming and exciting and promising. But the urge to run away never leaves when you live in Ireland. I have to continually remind myself not to get wrapped up in a fantasy version of what could be and instead focus on what is real and true and right in front of me.
i recently moved to bed stuy from the east village and LOVE it so far. i’m in grad school as well and knowing i’ll be in the city a few times a week quelled any manhattan fomo i was having before i made the move. i paid 1100 for a bedroom on c ave, no closet, twin bed & 5 roommates including me. my boyfriend and i now each pay 1200 for a recently renovated apt in bed stuy with a washer and dryer. i’m glad i experienced a bit of the manhattan life but i wish i had been more honest w myself when i was apartment hunting from afar for the first time. unrelated but would also love to hear some bed stuy greatest hits-- so far i’ve done lots of coffee drinking/eating (warude, tucum, chez alex, macosa, saraghina’s almond croissants, trad room, turtles!) but i feel like i’ve still only scratched the surface!
sending so many hugs to everyone searching and moving now! xxx
“sometimes I’m sorry that the most fertile roots I’ve laid in my adult life are in such a transient place, so far from my family, so expensive, so chaotic. To leave now sounds lonelier than if I’d never come.”
Ohhh this resonates with me. And I only moved from the South of England to Edinburgh!
I just can’t get over how expensive the New York hip life is! I love visiting my sister in NYC and I think it’s so fun but just the amount of money a typical social weekend ads up to is rough. When I see pics of my 25 year old friends living it up in NYC I just wonder where they’re getting all that money.
native new yorker here and i (unsurprisingly) don't think its overrated. I think the key is though that it's just not for everyone, and living here ain't easy, but for those who grew up here and who love it... man it really makes the rest of the country feel a little disappointing/underwhelming.
I romanticized New York so much growing up (in the country outside a college town in the South) I swear I could have written that John Updike quote myself. I believed everything Vogue magazine and Darren Starr and every rom-com promised New York was, even after I moved here. I’ve been here 12 years now and thankfully grew out of that fantasy pretty quickly. My life is more blundstones and cooking at home in Brooklyn than heels and dinner in manhattan. I probably won’t stay here forever (I really do want a farmhouse) but I’m glad I’ve lived here and got to see through the glossy image. The truer parts of New York — the deep friendships, the non conformity, the proximity to other people and anonymity when you want it — are the reasons I have stayed this long.
All of these comments and questions are so thoughtful and genuine!
I grew up in CT and never ever saw a life for myself in the city. It wasn’t until a few failed attempts to find work elsewhere, my ex got a teaching job in Gowanus. We actually begrudgingly moved to NYC and I hated it. He never wanted to do the cultural things I did, and I never wanted to go to the sporting events he did. It wasn’t until we broke up and I got the very best roommates ever that I began to love it there (we were most certainly neighbors at one point Haley since I lived off the Utica A right next to the small park right there lol!) I finally got the glittery magic of roof bar summers and high class museum events (tres chic). When I met my now husband we lived the never sleep chaotic New York life for a year, and then we woke up one morning, puffy faced from drinking, half way through a day off, sweating on the hot concrete as we walked to breakfast, and all we wanted was space, air, exercise. We quit our jobs and moved to Denver two months later.
I think about the city a lot. Sometimes I feel less than for not being one of the hard New Yorkers (like my husbands aunt who has lived in Harlem for 20+ years), who stuck it out. I hear the ring of “if you can make it there…..” and then I wander aimlessly through the park next to my house, smoking a joint after a long morning bike ride in the mountains, and I go to a restaurant that has incredible food and wine and feel that hazy glittery happiness again and it goes away.
There are other cities, and while New York is very special and has a very specific energy that works for many people, other cities can do that too. I spent 6 years total in New York and wouldn’t change that at all, sometimes I think I could go back to retire when I had the time money to luxuriate in the high end aspects New York had to offer. But I also saw baby ducks in golden hour in the gardens in my backyard yesterday, so I’m kind of set here.
I like your description of the "vitality" of the intersecting of so many groups. I lived in New York for 6 years (in Manhattan, Murray Hill, sigh, and East Village), sort of unexpectedly, and I loved it, but I have a hard time describing why. On the surface, it is expensive, crowded, smelly, there are piles of trash on the street, there is very close proximity to extreme wealth, etc. But there is also something alchemical or magical about wandering home from dinner as it starts to get dark looking into people's windows or having a favorite block in the neighborhood or seeing someone wearing something perfect on the subway or getting a taxi with all of your friends or seeing about 6 strangers give a lost someone directions when the subway is running limited service on the weekends. It's all of those things and more. Also: I had a roommate I sort of knew at first and we got to be better friends, and then I had a studio. Both were great. I paid $2k/month for 300 sq ft and a patio in the East Village but that was in 2016. I saw a few roaches in each place (over several years) but they were already dead.
as someone who had a few summers in NY and has always dreamed / been curious about living there longer, this was really nice to read! I just moved from home to a new city (seattle) and find it just as interesting. I think the newness + mystery is part of the draw anyways? thanks haley!
i don’t think new york is overrated, but i think the best things about new york aren’t the things that are young 20 something instagram fomo material. i’ve lived here for almost 9 years, and my life is… so different from when i moved here. i used to love going out to bars, going shopping, now i’m grating at the idea that the best things in new york are alcohol and spending your money. but whenever i get upset about living in a hyper capitalist hellscape, i go to a deep part of an outer borough and get really authentic food somewhere. a different kind of adventure, but one that’s difficult to replicate elsewhere! just one night at a russian restaurant/club chowing down pierogis while old lesbians dance to a live singer will rebalance me again, until i once again remember i’ll never be able to afford a place with a garden 😵💫
This is so well put!! New York is both worse and better than its reputation. It’s famous for the wrong things!! (At least on mainstream social media.) Many of the reasons I love it now are different from the reasons I thought I’d love it when I first came
Your comment reflects my experience in NY over the years, as well, and is a good reminder of what I love about it here. A garden would be nice, though.
I read this while taking a break from packing up my apartment. I’m moving from DC to Clinton hill in 2 days and it feels completely cosmic to have found this 💜 thank you Haley, I can’t wait to read this over and over again on my long journey home
Oh man getting my question answered really made my week in a surprising way (I'm the not-living-in-New York-FOMO person). Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful response! Not sure if "you can be boring anywhere" is ultimately a reassuring thought or a scary one for me, but I love the phrasing nonetheless. A funny extra anecdote about my case of NY FOMO: last night, I dreamed that I was in New York and that you and Avi were looking for a housemate (?!!? lol), Avi was giving me a tour of the apartment and we became instant friends, he was super funny. So I agreed to move in, then tried to find a job to pay for everything (I remember calculating the costs in my dream and even in dream logic it was decidedly impossible), but somehow ended up in London to do interviews? Brains are really something... Typing all of this out made me realize how creepy I might sound but I promise I'm not! Anyway I'm still happy staying put in Europe, I hope you guys are not too disappointed that I'm not moving in after all :p
For #3, your answer was excellent but I feel like the real solution should be that graduate schools should offer basic private studio apartments near campus for students who are paying exorbitant tuition prices.
Somewhat NY related, but my boyfriend is heading over there is about a week or so - do you have any recs for an international bodega santa run? i.e. what weirdly specific items would you recommend a foreigner get their hands on (and are relatively non-perishable). We're from Australia, fyi. :)
This is really nice to read as someone who lives in Dublin. I've lived in Ireland's capital city - the one I went to college in - for 6 years now. Ireland's always had a huge culture of emigration, and that sentiment is still there. It often feels like everyone my age is fleeing for Vancouver, or Sydney, or NYC. It's a sad feeling when no one wants to put down roots in the place you all grew up and became adults, blaming the housing crisis or lack of jobs or archaic nightlife licensing laws or vulture funds buying up the city. The attitude of 'Dublin is shit' is SO pervasive that it feels weird to reckon with the feeling that I am pretty happy here! I have a beautiful apartment with roommates I love, a great relationship, a job with co-workers so fun that we all just spent a weekend at a festival together. The creative scene is small in a nice way - I'm starting a club night with my girlfriend and we're covering the city with our posters and stickers, it feels overwhelming and exciting and promising. But the urge to run away never leaves when you live in Ireland. I have to continually remind myself not to get wrapped up in a fantasy version of what could be and instead focus on what is real and true and right in front of me.
This is a really sweet sentiment. I want to come to your club night in Dublin!!
i recently moved to bed stuy from the east village and LOVE it so far. i’m in grad school as well and knowing i’ll be in the city a few times a week quelled any manhattan fomo i was having before i made the move. i paid 1100 for a bedroom on c ave, no closet, twin bed & 5 roommates including me. my boyfriend and i now each pay 1200 for a recently renovated apt in bed stuy with a washer and dryer. i’m glad i experienced a bit of the manhattan life but i wish i had been more honest w myself when i was apartment hunting from afar for the first time. unrelated but would also love to hear some bed stuy greatest hits-- so far i’ve done lots of coffee drinking/eating (warude, tucum, chez alex, macosa, saraghina’s almond croissants, trad room, turtles!) but i feel like i’ve still only scratched the surface!
sending so many hugs to everyone searching and moving now! xxx
“sometimes I’m sorry that the most fertile roots I’ve laid in my adult life are in such a transient place, so far from my family, so expensive, so chaotic. To leave now sounds lonelier than if I’d never come.”
Ohhh this resonates with me. And I only moved from the South of England to Edinburgh!
I just can’t get over how expensive the New York hip life is! I love visiting my sister in NYC and I think it’s so fun but just the amount of money a typical social weekend ads up to is rough. When I see pics of my 25 year old friends living it up in NYC I just wonder where they’re getting all that money.
I really love Avi’s photo contributions!
native new yorker here and i (unsurprisingly) don't think its overrated. I think the key is though that it's just not for everyone, and living here ain't easy, but for those who grew up here and who love it... man it really makes the rest of the country feel a little disappointing/underwhelming.
I romanticized New York so much growing up (in the country outside a college town in the South) I swear I could have written that John Updike quote myself. I believed everything Vogue magazine and Darren Starr and every rom-com promised New York was, even after I moved here. I’ve been here 12 years now and thankfully grew out of that fantasy pretty quickly. My life is more blundstones and cooking at home in Brooklyn than heels and dinner in manhattan. I probably won’t stay here forever (I really do want a farmhouse) but I’m glad I’ve lived here and got to see through the glossy image. The truer parts of New York — the deep friendships, the non conformity, the proximity to other people and anonymity when you want it — are the reasons I have stayed this long.
All of these comments and questions are so thoughtful and genuine!
I grew up in CT and never ever saw a life for myself in the city. It wasn’t until a few failed attempts to find work elsewhere, my ex got a teaching job in Gowanus. We actually begrudgingly moved to NYC and I hated it. He never wanted to do the cultural things I did, and I never wanted to go to the sporting events he did. It wasn’t until we broke up and I got the very best roommates ever that I began to love it there (we were most certainly neighbors at one point Haley since I lived off the Utica A right next to the small park right there lol!) I finally got the glittery magic of roof bar summers and high class museum events (tres chic). When I met my now husband we lived the never sleep chaotic New York life for a year, and then we woke up one morning, puffy faced from drinking, half way through a day off, sweating on the hot concrete as we walked to breakfast, and all we wanted was space, air, exercise. We quit our jobs and moved to Denver two months later.
I think about the city a lot. Sometimes I feel less than for not being one of the hard New Yorkers (like my husbands aunt who has lived in Harlem for 20+ years), who stuck it out. I hear the ring of “if you can make it there…..” and then I wander aimlessly through the park next to my house, smoking a joint after a long morning bike ride in the mountains, and I go to a restaurant that has incredible food and wine and feel that hazy glittery happiness again and it goes away.
There are other cities, and while New York is very special and has a very specific energy that works for many people, other cities can do that too. I spent 6 years total in New York and wouldn’t change that at all, sometimes I think I could go back to retire when I had the time money to luxuriate in the high end aspects New York had to offer. But I also saw baby ducks in golden hour in the gardens in my backyard yesterday, so I’m kind of set here.
I like your description of the "vitality" of the intersecting of so many groups. I lived in New York for 6 years (in Manhattan, Murray Hill, sigh, and East Village), sort of unexpectedly, and I loved it, but I have a hard time describing why. On the surface, it is expensive, crowded, smelly, there are piles of trash on the street, there is very close proximity to extreme wealth, etc. But there is also something alchemical or magical about wandering home from dinner as it starts to get dark looking into people's windows or having a favorite block in the neighborhood or seeing someone wearing something perfect on the subway or getting a taxi with all of your friends or seeing about 6 strangers give a lost someone directions when the subway is running limited service on the weekends. It's all of those things and more. Also: I had a roommate I sort of knew at first and we got to be better friends, and then I had a studio. Both were great. I paid $2k/month for 300 sq ft and a patio in the East Village but that was in 2016. I saw a few roaches in each place (over several years) but they were already dead.
(I deleted and reposted this because I realized my change to my substack display name hadn't gone through! lol sorry)
as someone who had a few summers in NY and has always dreamed / been curious about living there longer, this was really nice to read! I just moved from home to a new city (seattle) and find it just as interesting. I think the newness + mystery is part of the draw anyways? thanks haley!
i don’t think new york is overrated, but i think the best things about new york aren’t the things that are young 20 something instagram fomo material. i’ve lived here for almost 9 years, and my life is… so different from when i moved here. i used to love going out to bars, going shopping, now i’m grating at the idea that the best things in new york are alcohol and spending your money. but whenever i get upset about living in a hyper capitalist hellscape, i go to a deep part of an outer borough and get really authentic food somewhere. a different kind of adventure, but one that’s difficult to replicate elsewhere! just one night at a russian restaurant/club chowing down pierogis while old lesbians dance to a live singer will rebalance me again, until i once again remember i’ll never be able to afford a place with a garden 😵💫
This is so well put!! New York is both worse and better than its reputation. It’s famous for the wrong things!! (At least on mainstream social media.) Many of the reasons I love it now are different from the reasons I thought I’d love it when I first came
“Hyper capitalist hellscape” lol
Your comment reflects my experience in NY over the years, as well, and is a good reminder of what I love about it here. A garden would be nice, though.
I read this while taking a break from packing up my apartment. I’m moving from DC to Clinton hill in 2 days and it feels completely cosmic to have found this 💜 thank you Haley, I can’t wait to read this over and over again on my long journey home
Yay welcome (back?)!
Soooo happy you’re back! Hope your time away was chill and vaguely meaningful! x