Scraton, PA to Albany Region-- Yikes (New York, Buffalo: housing, rent, lease)

[skid13]

Hello,
I am a 23 year old single male who is soon to be starting a job on Washington Ave in Albany. I will be moving from the Scranton, Pennsylvania area and am looking for a safe, relatively quiet area around Albany to rent.

I have had a few recommendations on Regency Park, Woodlake Apartments and Heritage Village apartments in the Guilderland Area. I have also heard that the East Greenbush area is a nice place to live.

Unfortunately I do not know anything about either city. Does anyone have any comments to make on those cities or can you offer any information on other cities/apartments nearby that are nice?

I currently live about 5 miles outside of Scranton in a safe, clean area of neighboring small towns, each town with populations around 7,000. I'd like to try and find the same sort of living in New York.


Please help.

[jasil]

Hi,

I am also 23 and moving to the Albany area from Buffalo, NY in early April. I've been doing months of research at this point, and would be happy sharing notes with you, if you're interested. I grew up in a pretty white-bread country area just across the PA/NY border from Honesdale - near your neck of the woods. I am looking for pretty similar things, and I might be able to help out.

Shoot me an email if you'd like - my address is xjasilx@gmail.com

Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

Jason

[HomerBrink]

Skid- I think there are many areas around Albany that have what you are looking for depending on how urban/rural you want and commuting distance - Delmar, Guilderland,
East Greenbush, Clifton Park and parts of the city of Albany. I think you'll like the Albany area. Good luck.

[radamus]

If feasible I'd suggest going to the off-campus-housing departments of SUNYA, UNION COLLEGE, SIENA, RPI, or SKIDMORE and looking for a sublet for the summer, then take your time looking around. If you can't do that then where you will be on Washington Ave could make quite a difference in your commute time. Washington Ave is a fairly long street with poor parking near the downtown areas. The following are some nice villages within 1/2 hr of the western end of Washington Ave: Voorheesville, Altamont, Guilderland Center, and Slingerlands. Delmar is nice but much larger. Hopefully you are coming to help straighten out Albany's criminally imcompetent High School on Washington Ave.

[ScranBarre]

Oh dear! Yet another bright young mind is leaving Scranton. Will this trend never end? We export all of our wonderful, innovative, vibrant youths to you, New York, and in turn all you give us are your retirees! Why?!!! ARRRGHHH!! I hate it when people say my opinions don't matter because I'm a "kid" when I'm in my TWENTIES! PA has to be the only state in the nation where people are so old that they think twenty-somethings are actually children!

Wow! Sorry about that! Thanks for letting me vent! I just hate to see more and more of my peers leaving this city at a time when I want to see it reborn. It's so depressing. We're like a mini Buffalo! In any event, best of luck with your new position, and I hope you'll find your new home to be very warm (not literally of course) and friendly (which I know Albany to be).

[HomerBrink]

SWB - C'mon up!

[NYS of Mind]

SWB - I love your photo tours! My husband and I are looking forward to taking a road trip through some of the towns that you've highlighted, once this weather breaks! Thanks for taking the time, and please keep 'em coming! I can understand your frustration re: NEPA. So much potential, yet nothing happens to further it. There are many areas of NY just like that. There are many young adults jumping ship on NYS as well (quite the brain-drain). I love NY, but the benefits do not outweigh the financial cost of living here IMO, particularly for young adults starting out.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by HomerBrink

SWB - C'mon up!

Better yet---y'all come on down South! We're a balmy 24 degrees right now with about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Quite romantic if I do say so myself.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by NYS of Mind

SWB - I love your photo tours! My husband and I are looking forward to taking a road trip through some of the towns that you've highlighted, once this weather breaks! Thanks for taking the time, and please keep 'em coming! I can understand your frustration re: NEPA. So much potential, yet nothing happens to further it. There are many areas of NY just like that. There are many young adults jumping ship on NYS as well (quite the brain-drain). I love NY, but the benefits do not outweigh the financial cost of living here IMO, particularly for young adults starting out.

Thanks for the compliments. I'll be starting my 2008 installments as soon as the weather breaks and the vegetation returns---I've noticed my fair-weather tours are much more preferable esthetically than the dreary ones with the black snow and the dead plants. Any special requests? Bear in mind also that I branch out into other states as well. In NY I've done Binghamton, Ithaca, and Callicoon/Narrowsburg thus far with hopes of visiting Corning sometime this year. In NJ I've done Hackettstown (and I'm doubtful any further ones since all the folks on there do is pick me apart for a few belly-laughs). In PA I've done several dozen. I actually have a few "special" tours planned for this year. I hope to offset the "rosy" picture I portray of Scranton by doing a black-and-white "blight" tour that will feature dozens of photos of the city's rather unsavory looking structures that point back to an era of former prosperity. I also hope to finish the Route 6 corridor---Troy, Wyalusing, and Waymart are really the only three towns of interest along this route in NEPA I have yet to do. I'd love to visit Centralia someday and photograph what is left of this former town that is now home to roughly a dozen "hold outs" who have refused to leave as a mine fire rages beneath them. It's supposed to be quite an eerie place. An art gallery in Scranton had a photographers' works displayed in late-2007 that included a number of black-and-white photos of the old coal region down in Schuylkill/Northumberland Counties.

Well, that's enough of my rambling! Off to bed so I can arise with plenty of energy to shovel our driveway!

[NYS of Mind]

I may pm you soon with some questions re: PA. Our search for property will pick up again once the weather breaks for longer than a day at a time. No special requests at this time, though I'll be sure to ask if we come up with any destinations! Though from a curiosity perspective I think that a tour of Centralia would be so interesting!