Good Place to live between Pearl River NY (Rockland County) and 350 Jay Street in Brooklyn, NY (Newark: rent)
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My girlfriend and I are looking for a place to move that is between two jobs that we will be starting soon. I will be working in Pearl River, NY and she will be working at 350 Jay street in Brooklyn. I will need my car at work, so I'll be driving, but she would like to take public transportation to Brooklyn. We prefer neighbprhoods that have a more suburban feel and we are looking to spend $2000 or less on rent per month. Any ideas? A Safe area is our first priority and a safe commute for her as she is pretty small, will be in business attire and may come home after dark several days a week. Any help would be much appreciated since we have not found a good NY option, and we don't really know much about NJ. Thanks
The part about commuting to Brooklyn, I would research how much time that takes, for instance if you took a train in/out on Newark Penn then a PATH to WTC and a NYC subway to Brooklyn. That might be a way of narrowing down areas. If that was a doable commute then look at towns along the Raritan Valley train line for starters or up further North maybe around Rutherford since that would be closer to your gig.
Realistically your options are northern parts of NYC (Washington Heights or other parts of 'upper' Manhattan) or nicer parts of the Bronx, allowing you to drive over the GWB and her to take the subway (probably A express being your best bet). OR somewhere in Westchester county, where you'd drive over the Tappan Zee bridge and she'd take Metro North into Grand Central and then the 4/5 express...Ask in the NYC forum if you haven't already.
Your NJ options include Hudson river towns like Fort Lee/Englewood (for her: bus across GWB, then A train); Edgewater/Weehawken (bus across Lincoln Tunnel, then A train from PA); Hoboken/JC (PATH train to WTC, then A/4/5 from Fulton St), etc. Rail i.e. NJTransit probably won't work very well for her as the northeastern NJ towns on the Bergen and Pascack lines IIRC will bring her to Hoboken, then PATH then subway (too long, too many connections).
I would go with making her commute as short as possible since if she's working late nights public transport will slow down the later it gets. Plus too many connections will be a PITA, if your commute is a little longer at least you have your car and can leave whenever and if you hit traffic you can always try a new route.
You've got a pretty good budget and no kids, I'd say hoboken or weehawken (the closer to the water the better) would be okay. Neither one of you is going to have an easy commute but I think it's be a fair split.
Look in Bergen County anywhere along the Palisades Parkway down to Fort Lee and that area. Ridgefield might be good. My reasoning is that it will be about as quick as possible a commute for your wife into NYC but also a relatively easy commute for you as you can take the Pal. Pkwy up to Pearl River (and you'll be going against rush hour so it should be an easy commute). I would say that ideally if you live in Fort Lee or Englewood Cliffs or Tenafly, it would be the most equitable. Ridgefield would make your commute to Pearl River slightly longer as you'd get snagged by GW Bridge traffic a bit but it would still be a good option.
Weehawken or Hoboken will make your commute to Pearl River MUCH longer while not really improving your wife's commute very much - IIRC, Jay St. is Dumbo and it's an easy enough commute by subway, first stop in Brooklyn on the F train...
Any thoughts on whether it would be possible for us to live in Brooklyn near her job and for me to drive up to pearl river, or is that going to be a nightmare?
Thanks for all of the good suggestions We live in Bronxville, NY now, so in theory we are already sitting in a decent location. But, because the metro north trains don't run as frequently, an extra half hour could be added waiting for the next train. Maybe we should stay though and hope she can control when she leaves work enough to make certain trains. While the towns suggested seem nice, they don't really seem to be closer than Bronxville. The only one that seems much better for her transportation wise is Jersey City which seems downright dangerous in most areas.
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