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I don't think anyone has mentioned New Haven yet. My perception(and i could be wrong) has been that it's the most open/liberal city in the state.
Agreed. New Haven is a great city for gays and has very nice areas (East Rock, Westville, Downtown). The city is very walkable and has decent transportation, in addition to Metro North that you can ride into Grand Central. Cost of living in New Haven isn't bad, and it's home to some of the best restaurants in the state.
I live in the West End of Hartford and would agree with other recommendations that you may want to try renting for a year. Rentals are prevalent in the West End, so you should have no problem finding one. From there, you can explore the surrounding area for a year to decide which neighborhoods might work for you.
Buying in the West End can sometimes be a bit of a challenge, simply because the houses are so large that they typically have a higher price tag. The lowest price you would often see on a house would be around $250K. From there, they go up to $1 million+. There are condo options, but the West End has more luxury condos than anything. That being said, there are some smaller, more reasonable condos on Owen Street that would be good for someone just starting out.
Transportation downtown by bus works well. My husband takes the bus to work on a daily basis and there are a few different route options he can take, based on where we are. He's made several friends via the bus and it is a nice little community unto itself. I would agree that biking to UHart might be the best option, as bus service doesn't really run directly from the West End to UHart. You would have to take the bus into Downtown and then another bus line back out to UHart. Less than ideal.
Thank you, everyone, for your expedient replies! They are tremendously helpful!
Here are some direct points I'll make to some of your suggestions:
I suppose I should clarify that by "gay-friendly" I don't necessarily mean an area replete with gay couples holding hands, gay bars, pride parades, etc., as that's most certainly not my "scene." All I'm asking for is a relatively tolerant area---a neighborhood where people would still wave hello to you from their front porches as you go for a brisk evening jog even though they know you are of an alternative sexual orientation. As I said earlier I've been the victim here of having people scream slurs at me from passing vehicles on my runs, had a bottle thrown at me, received hate mail, etc. over the past five years. When my ex-boyfriend and I went to get ice cream one time and asked to have the order put as one bill, the clerk made a rather unpleasant face. Heterosexual males here call one another "f*g" in order to belittle another heterosexual male, as they consider us to be worthy of insult. These are the same people who call one another "retards," which I always call people out on because I feel as if that is incredibly respectfully towards those who are mentally handicapped. I don't know if people in Pennsylvania are just culturally inept or what, but I can't believe that such behaviors are tolerated here.
I have most certainly not pinpointed Hartford as my "be all and end all." I thank the poster(s) who recommended New Haven to me, and I'll most certainly scope that city out as well. Providence is a city I've always been fond of as well, but unless Rhode Island follows the lead of MA and CT and legalizes same-sex marriage then there would really be no "incentive" for me to choose RI over CT. Hartford is a capital city, a relatively tolerant city, centrally located within CT, centrally located to both Boston and NYC, and is only a 3-hour drive via I-84 to my hometown of Scranton, PA should a family emergency ever arise that would require my attention. It is merely the "top contender" for me right now---it is not set in stone.
I currently own a vehicle and plan to purchase a newer fuel-efficient vehicle at some point in mid-2009. I already have $6,000 saved for a down payment. I have no qualms with driving and would be willing to drive to amenities if I had to. I would just like to minimize the amount of driving I'd need to do because having grown up in an almost exclusively residential suburb I've had to drive to go to someplace to run, to a park, to the gym, to the grocery store, to church, to school, to friends' homes, etc. I've driven nearly 70,000 miles over the past five years, and I'm just getting irked with having this suburban lifestyle of needing your vehicle attached to your hip and sitting in gridlock on commuter belts. Living in an in-town neighborhood where I could at least walk/bike/mass transit to a good number of amenities is of utmost importance to me, but I could always drive if absolutely necessary. It sounds lame that Hartford has yet to understand the benefits that mass transit, bike trails, etc. can have upon reducing traffic congestion in the same manner as cities like Portland, Oregon have already done, but there's always hope for the future.
I'm also not by any means firmly commited to Aetna, especially after a rather disappointing DM I just received from a former employee that cautioned me as to how it is nearly impossible to gain employment there. I'd be willing to work for any financial services/insurance/accounting-oriented firm in the Greater Hartford area. I'd ideally like to work downtown because I crave an urban lifestyle after growing up where I could see Scranton's nighttime city lights but was still trapped in a sterile housing development several miles away. I feel as if I have a lot to offer an organization, but I can only hope that in this rather dynamic economy an employer can see those positive qualities within me as well. I just guessed $50,000 as a starting salary since you tend to start at around $40,000 here in a much more affordable part of PA. I merely assumed that an area with such an astronomically higher cost of living as CT would have starting salaries correspondingly higher as well.
It is very disappointing to here how unattainable housing prices are in Hartford's West End, but I won't let that deter me. Surely there must be other decent neighborhoods in the city proper besides Downtown and West End, aren't there? Hartford is a financial center and capital of a very affluent state---how can the overwhelming majority of the city be undesirable? Has urban sprawl and white flight really taken that much of a toll?
Hartford is a financial center and capital of a very affluent state---how can the overwhelming majority of the city be undesirable? Has urban sprawl and white flight really taken that much of a toll?
Sadly yes. Having grown up in Hartford (we moved in 1988), I can say that neighborhoods deteriorated quickly in the 80's and many have not changed since then. I would really only recommend downtown proper or the west end for anyone looking to live in Hartford.
As far as the comment about Aetna - not sure thats entirely true as I know quite a few people who have gotten jobs there in recent years. Maybe it depends on the department? You have other options though Hartford Financial, Travelers, Lincoln, phoenix and probably others I am forgetting all have offices downtown.
Thank you, everyone, for your expedient replies! They are tremendously helpful!
It is very disappointing to here how unattainable housing prices are in Hartford's West End, but I won't let that deter me. Surely there must be other decent neighborhoods in the city proper besides Downtown and West End, aren't there? Hartford is a financial center and capital of a very affluent state---how can the overwhelming majority of the city be undesirable? Has urban sprawl and white flight really taken that much of a toll?
There are LOTS of decent neighborhoods in Hartford. Because people come from different backgrounds and have different comfort levels with urban environments, that's why I'd suggest you rent for your first year here. You can go exploring and determine which neighborhoods work best for YOU, and then go from there. Walk the different areas, talk to people that live there. There are various condo options and smaller house options throughout the city that are below $200K.
Sadly yes. Having grown up in Hartford (we moved in 1988), I can say that neighborhoods deteriorated quickly in the 80's and many have not changed since then. I would really only recommend downtown proper or the west end for anyone looking to live in Hartford.
As far as the comment about Aetna - not sure thats entirely true as I know quite a few people who have gotten jobs there in recent years. Maybe it depends on the department? You have other options though Hartford Financial, Travelers, Lincoln, phoenix and probably others I am forgetting all have offices downtown.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AmyBergquist
There are LOTS of decent neighborhoods in Hartford. Because people come from different backgrounds and have different comfort levels with urban environments, that's why I'd suggest you rent for your first year here. You can go exploring and determine which neighborhoods work best for YOU, and then go from there. Walk the different areas, talk to people that live there. There are various condo options and smaller house options throughout the city that are below $200K.
Thank you both for the reassurances. I actually do plan on renting if and when I first move to the city. I've already begun looking at CraigsList. I'm not very "fearful" of "urban" environments. I don't want to infuse racism into this thread, but I can tell you that many of my fellow suburbanites here in PA fear heading into our cities because...gasp...they, as WASPs, may bump into a person of a diverse background. I have friends who are African-American, affluent, impoverished, Asian-American, Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist, Wiccan, Christina, and Indian-American alike (although I'm still hoping for a Hispanic friend). Diversity doesn't scare me. Car break-ins don't deter me. Neither will vandalism, drunks urinating on my front stoop, etc. As long as I don't have to fear getting shot at random I'm a happy camper.
As far as employment is concerned I'll take any job that I can get while I pay the bills, even if it means transferring to another Lowe's store (I've worked there now for several years) and obtaining full-time status in the interim as I apply for a position more commensurate with my field. All of my peers here in Scranton are making the exodus next year to NYC to work in Manhattan, but I was always the "stray sheep."
Regarding decent neighborhoods in Hartford, yes, there are viable enclaves, and I've known friends with nice apartments tucked away in unexpected places. But those places tend to be small and scattered, and I just don't know that I would want to deal with the fact that things get so sketchy only a few blocks away. It's nice to take a walk and not need to have your street-smarts cranked to 100%.
To be candid, too, I don't think the Puerto Rican community, especially its low-income men (who seem to love calling each other "maricón"), would be very welcoming to an "out" gay male. Hell, I'm straight, and I'm not terribly likely to show up on anyone's "gaydar", but even so I've been (very mildly) harassed in that vein when I've been in Parkville.
Things aren't great in that neck of the woods, and though there are a lot of good, kind people, there are also a lot of genuine lowlifes who will mess with you for no reason at all, and the community has yet to find the means or motivation to get rid of them. It'd be noble to try to help, but I would advise against living in the thick of it, especially if you're planning to bike, walk, etc. Park Street is out, in other words, and I'd avoid Capitol too, except for the parts closest to West Hartford.
If you're determined to look outside of the West End and downtown, you might find some good deals in the westernmost parts of the North End, closest to the University of Hartford. The North End as a whole is sketchy, especially as you go east, but I've repeatedly read claims that there are some very nice, stable, low-crime, heavily African-American neighborhoods if you know where to look. If you're going to UHa and want a short commute, it might be practical.
EDIT: I wrote that post before I saw yours above. I appreciate your respect for diversity, but I would recommend that you exercise caution if you're already getting messed with. Anti-gay sentiment is generally strong in all low-income communities, but my perception is that Latino men are particularly likely to aggressively and specifically harass gay men. Perhaps I'm wrong, though.
(And let me note the massive wealth of literature on the sexual politics of male Latino culture -- a lot of ink has been spilled on the topic, and I'm not the only one who's noted an "issue" there.)
I am from Connecticut, fairfield originally but spent a year or two living in Manchester (just outside of hartford) and I have my opinions about hartford. I agree with the video of hartford (cool tupac song). Downtown hartford is VERY small and unless you can live right in the core of downtown, you should look into other areas. If you leave the area by the capital, downtown hartford, etc, it gets real ugly, real fast. If you want to live in the small nice historic section of downtown hartford, perhaps you can look into seeing if they have apartments/lofts in any of those beautiful historic office buildings. See where your job is first but all that aside. I'd recommend New Haven if you can as that has a downtown like you are describing. Otherwise if you are hellbent on the hartford area, manchester is nice an has easy bus transportation into downtown hartford. Manchester is built up quite a bit but it stil has a lot of charm and lots of "old connecticut" style architecture.
Thank you, everyone, for your expedient replies! They are tremendously helpful!
Here are some direct points I'll make to some of your suggestions:
I suppose I should clarify that by "gay-friendly" I don't necessarily mean an area replete with gay couples holding hands, gay bars, pride parades, etc., as that's most certainly not my "scene." All I'm asking for is a relatively tolerant area---a neighborhood where people would still wave hello to you from their front porches as you go for a brisk evening jog even though they know you are of an alternative sexual orientation. As I said earlier I've been the victim here of having people scream slurs at me from passing vehicles on my runs, had a bottle thrown at me, received hate mail, etc. over the past five years. When my ex-boyfriend and I went to get ice cream one time and asked to have the order put as one bill, the clerk made a rather unpleasant face. Heterosexual males here call one another "f*g" in order to belittle another heterosexual male, as they consider us to be worthy of insult. These are the same people who call one another "retards," which I always call people out on because I feel as if that is incredibly respectfully towards those who are mentally handicapped. I don't know if people in Pennsylvania are just culturally inept or what, but I can't believe that such behaviors are tolerated here.
There will be closed minded people where ever you go, and of course things like slurs and shouting happen here as well. I believe that once you leave the school environment and the area where you grew up in, things will change from then on.
I have most certainly not pinpointed Hartford as my "be all and end all." I thank the poster(s) who recommended New Haven to me, and I'll most certainly scope that city out as well. Providence is a city I've always been fond of as well, but unless Rhode Island follows the lead of MA and CT and legalizes same-sex marriage then there would really be no "incentive" for me to choose RI over CT. Hartford is a capital city, a relatively tolerant city, centrally located within CT, centrally located to both Boston and NYC, and is only a 3-hour drive via I-84 to my hometown of Scranton, PA should a family emergency ever arise that would require my attention. It is merely the "top contender" for me right now---it is not set in stone.
I currently own a vehicle and plan to purchase a newer fuel-efficient vehicle at some point in mid-2009. I already have $6,000 saved for a down payment. I have no qualms with driving and would be willing to drive to amenities if I had to. I would just like to minimize the amount of driving I'd need to do because having grown up in an almost exclusively residential suburb I've had to drive to go to someplace to run, to a park, to the gym, to the grocery store, to church, to school, to friends' homes, etc. I've driven nearly 70,000 miles over the past five years, and I'm just getting irked with having this suburban lifestyle of needing your vehicle attached to your hip and sitting in gridlock on commuter belts. Living in an in-town neighborhood where I could at least walk/bike/mass transit to a good number of amenities is of utmost importance to me, but I could always drive if absolutely necessary. It sounds lame that Hartford has yet to understand the benefits that mass transit, bike trails, etc. can have upon reducing traffic congestion in the same manner as cities like Portland, Oregon have already done, but there's always hope for the future.
I don't think Hartford is as bike friendly as New Haven, and they're definatly not as bike friendly as Oregon. There is still the stigma here where roads are for the cars. A car would be highly recommended, but the distances you travel may be shorter. You can visit the CT transit website to get an idea of bus routes and frequencies. Most of Hartfords surrounding towns are very suburban in nature. West Hartford center has a different vibe, but outside of it, it is still a traditional suburb and doesn't have an urban feel. There is a bus link to Hartford that runs through the town center.
I'm also not by any means firmly commited to Aetna, especially after a rather disappointing DM I just received from a former employee that cautioned me as to how it is nearly impossible to gain employment there. I'd be willing to work for any financial services/insurance/accounting-oriented firm in the Greater Hartford area. I'd ideally like to work downtown because I crave an urban lifestyle after growing up where I could see Scranton's nighttime city lights but was still trapped in a sterile housing development several miles away. I feel as if I have a lot to offer an organization, but I can only hope that in this rather dynamic economy an employer can see those positive qualities within me as well. I just guessed $50,000 as a starting salary since you tend to start at around $40,000 here in a much more affordable part of PA. I merely assumed that an area with such an astronomically higher cost of living as CT would have starting salaries correspondingly higher as well.
I know people that work in Aetna, but don't know how they got it. They will be consolodating their Middletown office in their Hartford office campus. There are many other financial/insurance companies to choose from, but don't also forget the small and medium sized companies that also hire people, but may not have a big name. Most new grads start in the $35,000-$45,00 range depending on demand and personal work experience in the field, I wouldn't say the cost is astronomically higher, but it is higher. The wages are liveable (especially if splitting bills with another) but most peoples may live a bit tight when first getting off on their own. You can move quickly within a few years up the ladder of course.
It is very disappointing to here how unattainable housing prices are in Hartford's West End, but I won't let that deter me. Surely there must be other decent neighborhoods in the city proper besides Downtown and West End, aren't there? Hartford is a financial center and capital of a very affluent state---how can the overwhelming majority of the city be undesirable? Has urban sprawl and white flight really taken that much of a toll?
Yes, Hartford did experience a lot of white flight and people who fled to the suburbs, especially when the interstates cut their way through. The city has its fair share of urban issues and crime with quite a bit of poor. The better areas beside the center and West end would be near the universities. Here is a map of Hartford Neighborhoods The Neighborhoods of Hartford, Connecticut and this website is good for comparing neighborhoods and their data Choose How to Search for Data - HartfordInfo.org
The more I read the OP replies here the more I too am thinking you might want to check out Manchester.
Manchester *is* a suburb of Hartford proper, but it's also a small city unto itself. You can get a heck of a deal on housing and we do have a nice main street with mom and pop ethnic places, (Chao's Vietnamese run by mother and son, El Marriachi Loco another mother and son run mexican place, Ali Baba a family run Pakistani/Indian place, Family run Thai restaurant, a burger bar [Irish pub atmosphere with gourmet burgers] etc etc) some cafe's etc, a great bike shop, hardware store, banks, churches, library, a park, brokerage firms, antique shops, etc etc all on Main Street...if you need the box stores the North side of town is the largest retail section of the state.
It's a very safe place to live as well.
The views you get of Hartford here are really great as well and you can be in downtown Hartford in literally 10 minutes. There is virtually no traffic East of the river - moreso if you are going into Manchester via I384.
I cycle - not mountain bike...cycle as in lets go for a nice leisurely 20 mile ride. I used to be the IT director of an small Aerospace company in East Hartford on the River (Basically across the river from DT Hartford) and rode in many a day. We are talking about a pretty easy roughly 10-12 mile ride.
There are walking trails in Manchester, bike trails, hiking trails, a very diverse population, very diverse housing, great little theater, pubs with some great live music, some very good restaurants etc.
Even if you are just looking for someplace to rent for now, the "mill" apartments would probably do you well. They converted the old silk mills in the Historic Cheney district into very nice apartments. It's a couple blocks distance to downtown and also to the "walking trails".
I would seriously take a look at Manchester if I were you. No, it's not an urban paradise or Greenwich Village, but it's not a bad place to live either and on top of it there is so so much in close proxitmity in this state you don't have to go far for a lot of variety.
One of the walking/bike trails that starts right from downtown. It's a roughly 10 foot wide paved trail that goes almost into Hartford and miles East into Bolton
Wickham park is also simply a great place to go for a day and hang out, play frisbee golf or visit some of the victorian gardens. It also has a commanding view of the CT River valley and Hartford Skyline:
There is a lot more too it and a search on here will reveal more info too...but I would suggest you take a drive up over a weekend or whatever. You are just around the bend.
P.S. Yes even in spite of the marriage thread - I can tell you I personally would wave to you, have friendly conversation and even invite you over if we were having a BBQ or something. So long as you are able to handle my "conservative views" as well having some friendly chat.
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I just guessed $50,000 as a starting salary since you tend to start at around $40,000 here in a much more affordable part of PA. I merely assumed that an area with such an astronomically higher cost of living as CT would have starting salaries correspondingly higher as well.
Hartford is a financial center and capital of a very affluent state---how can the overwhelming majority of the city be undesirable? Has urban sprawl and white flight really taken that much of a toll? 
