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Rockville Centre. That's the closest you can get to the city on the Island with plenty of night-life locally. Its also a quick ride to Long Beach.
Depending on where your office is, id consider moving to Queens. Long Island City / Astoria is where the real young crowd is. The nightlife on the island is pretty bad compared to the city. I have about 20 trendy bars and resteraunts within a mile radius from my apartment. That's not even including the 10 minute subway ride into Manhattan. Also two large outdoor beer gardens.
The suggestions listed by everyone Rockville Center, Long Beach, Huntington, and Babylon are your best bets by far. The drawback of RVC and LB is the commute if you have to travel east most of the time. Huntington and Babylon are more central. The advantage of RVC and LB is they are a easier trip into NYC. They all have a good scene for your age but RVC and LB (especially in the summer for LB) have a slightly more urban/younger scene.
Ask your new job where most of the travel will be and that should make your decision if you want RVC/LB or Hunt/Babylon.
Live in NYC with a job that requires driving allover Long Island? That's some great advice. .
There's excellent nightlife here for people in their 20s. Eventually you grow out of that and LI has nightlife for us older folks in our 30s and above too. .. geez, you act like that's such a bad thing that some villages and downtowns have a little more of a mellow bar scene. Glad you left though, more towel space on the beach for us locals .
The problem with nightlife on Long Island is that you need to drive everywhere. That is a HUGE difference from D.C., or any urban environment. Also, there is a certain amount of sticker shock and amenity shock for someone coming from D.C. By "sticker shock," I mean if you're a culture-vulture, it's going to stick in your craw to pay an entrance fee to a museum. Yeah, yeah, they are "suggested" fees in some cases, but let's be honest. Who is going to not pay or cheap out on that?
As for amenity shock, central air and washer/dryers in each apartment are pretty common in the D.C. area, as are new or regularly renovated buildings. Those are tough, tough things to find here for a reasonable price unless you want to live out past MacArthur. Fairfield buildings tend to be pits, and I wasn't impressed with Heatherwood, either. There's nothing quite like walking into an empty apartment with a huge hole in the wall and being told that you must supply your own wall unit a/c.
In Virginia, I paid a $500 non-refundable deposit and a $45 application fee for a nice, huge 950 sq. foot apartment with amenities out the yin-yang. At most, some places charge one month's rent for security. There was none of this TWO months' rent for a security deposit. The non-refundable deposit was for cleaning. There was no "scrub your apartment or we will take cleaning fees out of your security even though you could clean the floor with a toothbrush and we would still find a way to charge you for it" b.s. like up here. And by law, apartments must be freshly painted for every new tenant, and in the high-rises, it's rare not to get a brand-new carpet, too.
And then there's the little stuff. I spent the first two months stopping myself short from scraping plates into the sink. I have yet to see a garbage disposal up here.
It's a big adjustment. I adjusted more easily going from Virginia to Hawaii than I did from Virginia to Long Island, and I grew up here.
Last edited by Yzette; 12-16-2011 at 09:17 PM..
Reason: Type much?
I would not suggest Long Beach since you need to drive around and it is far from major highways. If you are going to be car dependent, I also don't think it's a good idea to live in Brooklyn or Queens as parking can be extremely difficult and expensive, not to mention high car insurance. You would be better off living on (not in) Long Island and then going into the city for fun during your time off. What you will not have, however, are young single professionals like yourself living in either your apartment complex or "apartment" in your 2 family house. You will have to make friends elsewhere for the most part, but as a traveling pharm. rep. you will have no trouble meeting lots of people.
The suggestions listed by everyone Rockville Center, Long Beach, Huntington, and Babylon are your best bets by far. The drawback of RVC and LB is the commute if you have to travel east most of the time. Huntington and Babylon are more central. The advantage of RVC and LB is they are a easier trip into NYC. They all have a good scene for your age but RVC and LB (especially in the summer for LB) have a slightly more urban/younger scene.
Ask your new job where most of the travel will be and that should make your decision if you want RVC/LB or Hunt/Babylon.
RVC is an older crowd than LB. RVC is usually late 20's-early 30's and LB is early 20's...which might be perfect for her. Eventually most people grow out of the LB scene though.
My choice would be RVC...closer to the city via train vs LB (35mins vs 1hr...big difference), better train times late @ night on the Babylon branch vs LB and the nightlife will last longer (b/c she wont grow out of it as fast) and RVC has better access to more main roads, ie: Merrick Rd, Sunrise and Southern State Parkway. LB is a commute and a half just to get to the parkway and in order to go west via parkway, you must first go east. LB is out of the way I feel if she is going to be travelling alot.
^^ I think Coney and Jdawg are both spot on. I agree with RVC being much more preferable to LB as well.
@raiser - What I gathered from the OP is "travel" around LI is the most important factor. Astoria sounds great, but it's way too far. Bayside's closer although for $2k/month, she'll get a nicer apartment in a better area on LI, I believe. And most importantly OP will not be overwhelmed with driving from NYC to (and allover) LI, and back to NYC on a daily basis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JCNNY
I didn't say I was giving the best advice, I'm talking reality here. If you want an awesome nightlife with a lot of young people and looking to make friends Manhattan is the place, even Brooklyn and Queens are better. As I said Long Island does have its nightlife hotspots, but for someone coming from DC they may not like it. Long Island is not transient and few young people move here for a job, so she'll probably make more friends in the city. I did say that if she had to stay on Long Island places like RVC, Huntington, Long Beach, and Babylon would be her best bet.
There are fun bars on Long Island, particularly the in the places I mentioned. But I disagree with you Pequaman, I wouldn't say Long Island has an overall excellent nightlife. If you really think Long Island nightlife is excellent, then you haven't been out in other cities.
I'm happy I left Long Island too, especially since I'm not paying astronomically high taxes anymore unlike the rest of you.
It's pretty good for what it is. No one's comparing it to NYC. RVC/LB are not just "LI Natives hanging out with their friends" ... absurd. Seems like you've never really been to the bars in RVC or actually met people there -- the same way you couldn't find the lesser crowded beaches or the bike trails here on LI ... so you spend your days here on the Long Island forum (while living in Albany) bashing away on a regular basis. Maybe that says something about you, and not so much that LI sucks? Just a thought.
And comparing NYC nightlife to any suburb (or most cities) is a little pointless. I don't think anyone's coming here expecting anything close to that. It's not like there's a wall at the Queens-Nassau border barring entry -- We're a short trip into the city. There's a rail system here called the LIRR.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yzette
The problem with nightlife on Long Island is that you need to drive everywhere. That is a HUGE difference from D.C., or any urban environment. Also, there is a certain amount of sticker shock and amenity shock for someone coming from D.C. By "sticker shock," I mean if you're a culture-vulture, it's going to stick in your craw to pay an entrance fee to a museum. Yeah, yeah, they are "suggested" fees in some cases, but let's be honest. Who is going to not pay or cheap out on that?
As for amenity shock, central air and washer/dryers in each apartment are pretty common in the D.C. area, as are new or regularly renovated buildings. Those are tough, tough things to find here for a reasonable price unless you want to live out past MacArthur. Fairfield buildings tend to be pits, and I wasn't impressed with Heatherwood, either. There's nothing quite like walking into an empty apartment with a huge hole in the wall and being told that you must supply your own wall unit a/c.
In Virginia, I paid a $500 non-refundable deposit and a $45 application fee for a nice, huge 950 sq. foot apartment with amenities out the yin-yang. At most, some places charge one month's rent for security. There was none of this TWO months' rent for a security deposit. The non-refundable deposit was for cleaning. There was no "scrub your apartment or we will take cleaning fees out of your security even though you could clean the floor with a toothbrush and we would still find a way to charge you for it" b.s. like up here. And by law, apartments must be freshly painted for every new tenant, and in the high-rises, it's rare not to get a brand-new carpet, too.
And then there's the little stuff. I spent the first two months stopping myself short from scraping plates into the sink. I have yet to see a garbage disposal up here.
It's a big adjustment. I adjusted more easily going from Virginia to Hawaii than I did from Virginia to Long Island, and I grew up here.
I think amenity & culture shock applies to anyone moving to a different state. Not too sure on all these, but those sound like some pretty crappy apartments to me. For the OP's budget, I think she'll find something a lot nicer than that. I'm not too sure on garbage disposals, but I think they were banned in NY for a while. That might have something to do with those not being too common. And as for driving, she can take the train into the city or stay local using cabs and public transportation if she's a drinker.
Nightlife vs. Probability job will take OP EAST of 112
Our OP will be low man on the totem pole. There is the very distinct possibility that his/her territory might include the forks -- Greenport has a medical center, there are plenty of doctors on both forks.
Figure one rep can't cover and meet medical concerns on both forks in one or two days. The commute from 'as close to Manhattan as possible' is going to stink big time!
Just thinking of all the practices and hospitals (4) in my immediate area (much closer to NYC than the forks) it would take weeks for a rep to visit all concerns.
The OP is going to do A LOT of driving and needs to know exactly what the territory entails before deciding on an area.
I think amenity & culture shock applies to anyone moving to a different state. Not too sure on all these, but those sound like some pretty crappy apartments to me. For the OP's budget, I think she'll find something a lot nicer than that. I'm not too sure on garbage disposals, but I think they were banned in NY for a while. That might have something to do with those not being too common. And as for driving, she can take the train into the city or stay local using cabs and public transportation if she's a drinker.
Yep. Crappy apartments, priced from $1,300 to $1,725 a month. I think the rent at my old Babylon apartment might be pushing $1,800 by now, and I'll bet they still haven't replaced the carpet or put a modern a/c unit in the living room. That's Fairfield for ya.
I looked at a lot of places before I moved up here (Fairfield lied to me about what I'd have upon arrival--another story, another thread), and for my sister before she moved up here. I also looked at quite a few places when I left Babylon. To get NoVA-esque amenities in some of the areas others have mentioned on the thread (RVC, Long Beach), the OP would need to look at [URL="http://avaloncommunities.com/"]Avalon[/URL] properties, which they have a bunch of in DMV (DC/MD/VA). I don't know about how well the other ones on LI are maintained, but the ones in DMV tend to be absolutely gorgeous, if expensive, and from what I hear, the one in Smithtown is pretty nice.
But that's Smithtown, a place where all ye motorists who enter should abandon hope.
The lack of garbage disposals might have something to do with the sewer system and how waste-water is treated here. They were[URL="http://www.theplumber.com/disposal.html"] banned in the city[/URL] for a while, not sure about here. Beats me. I just remember my mother getting a big kick out of mine when she came to visit. I don't know anyone up here who has one. Bummer, too, because scraping plates into the trash means you either end up wasting garbage bags by taking out the trash every day or dealing with a big stink the next day. Garbage disposals are so much cleaner.
West Islip is a good town and near babylon night life. It is safe and near the Sag, SSP, and Sunrise.
Babylon Train Station is a hub and can get express trains to Penn to go to the city.
That would be my advice.
Forget Huntington and Bay Shore. Forget Long Beach, you will spend your life in a car.
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.. geez, you act like that's such a bad thing that some villages and downtowns have a little more of a mellow bar scene. Glad you left though, more towel space on the beach for us locals 
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