North End/Beacon Hill vs. Swampscott (Boston, Cambridge: apartments, loft, condos)

[ebarriba]

Hi, I'm graduating college this May and relocating to the Boston area from the midwest with a job in Lynn. I have always loved New England and I'm very excited to be moving to the region. Initially, I really wanted to live downtown and was directed to the North End/Beacon Hill area. I was told it was a good area and close to North Station, which would make it easy to use the commuter rail to get to work. I'll be making a little over $60k, and being a single guy figured I should be able to afford it. However, the living space for the money, apartment broker fees, and the impracticality of having a car are starting to turn me away from the idea.

I began looking on the North Shore and really think I like Swampscott...it's close to Lynn, it seems like you get more for your money, and you can be essentially right on the ocean, which is a big plus for me. Does anyone have an opinion on a young guy living in the North End/Beacon Hill area vs. Swampscott? Is there much of a nightlife in/near Swampscott, or would I have to deal with going into Boston and taking a taxi home from the city everytime I wanted to go out at night? I'm trying to gauge if Swampscott is a place where you'll find young professionals or if it tends to be an older crowd...any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[CityGirl52]

I think I'd like the best of both worlds; living close to where I work and having the ocean steps from my door, but that's one decision you'll have to make with this. YES Boston, especially Beacon Hill and the North End is extremely expensive to live. My two nephews thought of moving to the North End at one point, but when they looked online at what they could afford? Forget about it, they didn't want to go with the roommate route at all and then again they didn't want to live in a little two by four apartment/condo just to live there; so their minds were changed fast, they ended up moving to the north of Boston instead and they love it all around. I also had that thought and changed it quick when I saw where I'd be living, forget about it. Of course, the folks that are really enjoying living on Beacon Hill and throughout the Waterfront and the North End right now, have quite a large large amount of $$$ to live there in those various stunning, expensive loft style condos and apartments they have throughout there these days. Oh you'd be comfortable with your type of salary there, but you would need even more $$ for all the other expenses you'd be racking up and trust me, it's extremely expensive to live there now. I wouldn't consider trying to keep up with that type of lifestyle because it's extremely high, but that's just my common sense, the rest is up to you in the end! Think of your own expenses and needs and not trying to keep up with the Jone's just to have a good time when you go out at night. I'll tell you something, if I had your choice to make? I wouldn't mind living in Swampscott one bit and I'd be packing my bags in a heartbeat to live there; especially being single! Yes, there's most likely a lot of couples settling through there of course like every where else these days, but there's an extremely large influx of business professionals and singles that live through there as well and there always was. I know this is true with Swampscott because I used to see them getting on and off the commuter rail all the time when I took it daily from Newburyport, with all these people I'm referring to.

Another thing, Swampscott would be ideal for you if you're going to be working right in Lynn! That's one thing you'd find out living there and also your winters would be less stressful figuring out how you're going to get home during our snow storms and all that. I think that would be a dream for me to live near where I work, so if I were you? I'd GO for it! One plus about living there? You're going to have the commuter rail stop right in town and you'd be at Boston's North Station in NO time to get anywhere you want, all over Boston and Cambridge, literally in minutes. You could probably walk most of the time and not even bother having a car, that's how convenient it's going to be for you.

If you go to this site below you'll see how close it is, it's only 4 stops away, that's awesome, I had to go all the way to Newburyport when I worked in Boston. Just click it on and go to commuter rail and you'll see the various routes, look for the "Newburyport-Rockport" route and you'll see how close Swampscott is to North Station.

MBTA.com > Official Website for Greater Boston's Public Transportation System

Good luck with your decision, may be this will help make it; but then again, may be it won't!

[holden125]

Originally Posted by ebarriba

Does anyone have an opinion on a young guy living in the North End/Beacon Hill area vs. Swampscott? Is there much of a nightlife in/near Swampscott, or would I have to deal with going into Boston and taking a taxi home from the city everytime I wanted to go out at night? I'm trying to gauge if Swampscott is a place where you'll find young professionals or if it tends to be an older crowd...any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Beacon Hill or the North End obviously would be a very different experience from Swampscott. My impression is that Swampscott is a very nice town but has really no nightlife itself and is more geared toward families than young professionals. Unfortunately I'd say that is the case of just about any town outside the urban belt of Boston/Cambridge/Brookline/Somerville. I know in other metropolitan areas there are suburban hubs of a sort that have decent nightlife, but that is rarer in the Boston area. The only area I can think of that has much nightlife at all nearer to Lynn is downtown Salem, and that doesn't have much but there are a few decent bars. Downtown Salem has a lot of beautiful blocks but pockets of it are rough around the edges and there's not a lot of pedestrian traffic at night.

The last train from North Station back to Swampscott on Saturday night leaves at 11:30, so there is that to contend with.

You might want to check out Charlestown. It's also close to North Station and might offer more space for the money than Beacon Hill or the North End, which have the smallest apartments in Boston.

[ctrres]

The North End and Beacon Hill are tight living, relatively close-quartered, somewhat congested spaces with little room to move around unless you have a comfortable amount of money.

The North Shore is another world. Swampscott is a serious commuter rail ride away; it's a bedroom community, the suburbs. Singles there generally have jobs in that area--and a car--that would make living on the North Shore more convenient for their commutes.

But parking a car inside Boston is a real hassle, and not worth the effort for most people. It's a very expensive form of transportation unless your job is in outlying areas of Greater Boston.

However, parts of East Cambridge may also be worth looking into, as its Green Line will get you directly to North Station within minutes.

[ebarriba]

Thanks guys, this helps, if anyone else has an opinion, please give it...also, if anyone is familiar enough with the Chicago area to make comparisons between Boston neighborhoods/suburbs and Chicago neighborhoods/suburbs, that would be helpful.

[redpanda]

It depends...are you more of a homebody or do you like to be out and about?

There's no sense paying for a cramped dwelling downtown so you can sit in it and feel miserable. But likewise, there's no sense in having a lovely apartment in Swampscott that you never see because you're always downtown having fun.

If you're a workaholic who'll be in the office most of the time, maybe it makes sense to live nearby so you can come home and just...crash. But on the other hand it also makes sense to live downtown so you can stop somewhere on your way home from the T to grab a drink with a friend.

Personally, I would go the downtown route. If you find it's not your scene, you can move later. Swampscott is quite lovely, but you won't exactly be sunning at the beach most of the year. There isn't much nightlife or anything of that nature there or even nearby...so you'll find yourself trekking into Boston for that.

I live much closer to downtown than Swampscott...and I really, really miss the walkability of the places I lived before. But maybe that's just me.

[missionhill]

Chicago's North Shore consists of elite suburbs and the South Shore is industrial and working class, no? In Boston, the comparably elite suburbs are west of downtown and the city neighborhoods in-between (Allston-Brighton, Cambridge, Somerville) are where the universities are and a lot of the action is. Boston's North Shore is pretty workingclass for the first 8-10 miles and gets very elite farther out, Swampscott being a point of transition. If there's no scene in Salem then there probably isn't one in Marblehead, either. Charlestown is not a bad idea...

[holden125]

Originally Posted by missionhill

If there's no scene in Salem then there probably isn't one in Marblehead, either.

Marblehead is a gem, a beautiful and unique town, but there is no scene at all for someone right out of college looking to go out. The whole town is pretty much shut down by 8.

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by holden125

Marblehead is a gem, a beautiful and unique town, but there is no scene at all for someone right out of college looking to go out. The whole town is pretty much shut down by 8.

The bars are open a lot later than that, but during the week they're pretty dead too.