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we moved from md to suffolk county. let me tell you, think hard and long about whether you want to move here. for some reason, long islanders, esp. suffolk folks think of LI as a suburb to NYC. it's not, it's a few bridges away (that most of the time are jammed pack, but before you get to the bridges, you deal with awful traffic, crazy drivers (you've heard about NY drivers. not a legend, it's true). you cannot compare DC to NYC, you can't even put those two on the same page.
if you really have to move to LI, then look into nassau county. it resembles civilization to a slight degree. you really cannot compare bethesda to anything in LI. wish we could, but we can't. I can't explain the towns. the LI towns baffle me the most. most of the areas do not have a 'downtown,' good restaurants are a phenomenon. read this message board on LI schools and see the variety of opinions. my opinion as someone who is not from LI is that schools are not great but you pay a pound of flesh and God knows what else in taxes, so you'll probably end up using public schools. if you do ask here which school districts are the best and why, and once you get a district recommendation know that it will still be substandard to where you are coming from. LI is overrated, has nothing to offer, beaches are to write stories about (not good ones).
if you are bringing family (sorry didn't rest all the pages), and have kids, and have a wife, then make sure you guys come and spend days here. you cannot get to know LI in a day trip or via message boards. taxes are huge, roads are broken (feel free to replace your car and get a junk thing to drive around with), because you'll ruin it within a year. grocery stores are filled with expired items (diary, meats you name it, it's like an epidemic of 'i just don't care' attitude).
i could go on and on but if i had gotten to know LI like I do now, i and kids would have probably never moved here.
Eww! What a comment! NYC does not stink. I'm there everyday. (Although perhaps you are talking about the shadier areas which are places I don't go.)
The OP doesn't have to commute to NYC so she can live as far out on LI as she wants.
You know I adore you.
But the city reeks, especially in the summer. In D.C. the shop owners hose down the sidewalks in front of their shops in the morning. I understand that NY is too busy and water-conscious for that, but after being in D.C. for all that time, the first thing I noticed about NY is the stench. D.C. is an exceptionally clean city, NY is an exceptionally dirty one (most cities I've been to are somewhere in between), so the contrast was really noticeable for me. I always feel gross after a day in NY, between the air there and the dirt on the LIRR.
we moved from md to suffolk county. let me tell you, think hard and long about whether you want to move here. for some reason, long islanders, esp. suffolk folks think of LI as a suburb to NYC. it's not, it's a few bridges away (that most of the time are jammed pack, but before you get to the bridges, you deal with awful traffic, crazy drivers (you've heard about NY drivers. not a legend, it's true). you cannot compare DC to NYC, you can't even put those two on the same page.
if you really have to move to LI, then look into nassau county. it resembles civilization to a slight degree. you really cannot compare bethesda to anything in LI. wish we could, but we can't. I can't explain the towns. the LI towns baffle me the most. most of the areas do not have a 'downtown,' good restaurants are a phenomenon. read this message board on LI schools and see the variety of opinions. my opinion as someone who is not from LI is that schools are not great but you pay a pound of flesh and God knows what else in taxes, so you'll probably end up using public schools. if you do ask here which school districts are the best and why, and once you get a district recommendation know that it will still be substandard to where you are coming from. LI is overrated, has nothing to offer, beaches are to write stories about (not good ones).
if you are bringing family (sorry didn't rest all the pages), and have kids, and have a wife, then make sure you guys come and spend days here. you cannot get to know LI in a day trip or via message boards. taxes are huge, roads are broken (feel free to replace your car and get a junk thing to drive around with), because you'll ruin it within a year. grocery stores are filled with expired items (diary, meats you name it, it's like an epidemic of 'i just don't care' attitude).
i could go on and on but if i had gotten to know LI like I do now, i and kids would have probably never moved here.
Roads: I own a commercial fleet as well as multiple personal vehicles ranging from 1920's stock to a pro street rod that has been appraised well into the 6 figures. ALL are driven on LI roadways and aside from normal wear and tear, nothing exceptional has happened. Roadways in some communities aren't as well kept as others, so I won't say all the roads are smooth as silk, especially following this past winter.
Drivers: Yes, they can be nuts, aggressive and do things with no apparent rhyme or reason. I've also seen this in MA, RI, NJ, southern CT.
Traffic: everyone agrees it can be horrible.
Stores filled with Expired Groceries: There have been news reports of this problem in groceries in the five boroughs, most typically in poor areas. I haven't seen this in the supermarkets I frequent. Once in a while I might catch a product just past expiration in my local supermarket, it would be one thing out of a bunch of the same and I feel it is more a problem of young employees not knowing better to rotate when they stock shelves. I'm not stating this is acceptable. I am one of those people who marches the expired product to the manager and lets him know there's a problem.
In all fairness you should tell the OP where you live and what drove your decision to choose that location -- i.e. proximity to work, housing price, advice or lack thereof. She's mentioned 2 areas and those of us who've chimed in have made it very clear that these areas on LI are certainly not like Bethesda.
Actually the OP said if she were to end up on LI it would be somewhere near Stony Brook or Babylon. I expanded on it to try to give the OP more of an insider perspective, while making sure that she knew I wasn't familiar with Bethesda.
As for housing in Stony Brook, if the OP is a doctor's wife, she is NOT going to want to live in a 400K house in Stony Brook, in a development south of 25A. I'm not a doctor's wife and I didn't want that, either. Good houses in SB under $500 are primarily in the developments or are smaller, older homes north of 25A.
Professionals tend to live north of 25A in homes north of Christian Ave. That doesn't mean they don't live south of Christian, though. The tendency is to have a home on the water, or with at least a minimum of a waterview. There are 2 houses currently for sale on West Meadow Lane which fit the bill. Both are over $1 million with taxes between $13K and $19K.
Taxes are high here because we do not have a huge commercial tax base.
The OP did state near Stony Brook, so I would suggest that she look into Setauket (Old Field, Old Field South, Strongs Neck, Poquott) as many of the doctors with whom I am friends (and those I am a patient of) are partial to those areas. Stony Brook has it's share of doctors, but is a little more limited in the upper end housing stock. When these homes become available, they tend to go quickly.
If the OP is looking for nights on the town, the city lights, etc, Stony Brook and it's neighboring towns are not close to NYC. The train from Stony Brook is 2 hours; a 25 min car ride to Ronkonkoma can get one on a faster train which is about 1 hour into NYC -- if it is an express. It's not a short hop into NYC like Bethesda is to DC.
Stony Brook University (SBU) has the Staller Center for Arts and does have a variety of live performances throughout the year as well as a film festival. Staller Center for the Arts (http://www.staller.sunysb.edu/0910/season.html - broken link) Many local residents take advantage of having this in our backyard.
From what I am learning, Bethesda has 3 high schools and several middle schools in addition to a slew of elementary schools. It is a much larger district than 3V. As you've indicated, national test comparisons might be apples vs. oranges when they count number of APs, IBs and such. A much larger district will be able to offer more of such.
I don't know a lot about bethesda people vs. long island people because all the people I know in bethesda are from NYC.
I can say this much tho. People from bethesda are very educated bunch because of the top schools and a top notch medical/research center NIH. They are much more cultured and appreciate culture. I'm not sure if they are materialistic but many LI people tend to be. People from other places actually move to bethesda for bethesda, but very few move to LI for LI. Most who move to LI are from NY somewhere, have roots there, or got a job in NYC. Many have been on LI for most of their lives. If it weren't for my family and friends here, I wouldn't be on LI. Who wants to pay so much to live in an area filled with malls, chain restaurants, and schools that claim to be the best? There are other places that offer more or the same for less. Bethesda is more expensive but it offers so much more.
And ohbee, doc's wife or not, I wouldn't assume that she doesn't want a house <500k. Price ranges are wide in that area and yes you can get million dollar houses near the water if you prefer. Irregardless, bethesda houses are much more expensive for the same houses NEAR stony brook. I for one would be happy in a house <500k and do not need to be in a 1M+ house by the water just because I'm a doc's wife. But again, that's a LI mentality... materialism and keeping up with the joneses.
And ohbee, doc's wife or not, I wouldn't assume that she doesn't want a house <500k. Price ranges are wide in that area and yes you can get million dollar houses near the water if you prefer. Irregardless, bethesda houses are much more expensive for the same houses NEAR stony brook.
Most doctors prefer to live amongst those of similar socioeconomic status. The <500K house in Stony Brook could be next door to a university rental, a cop, teacher, fireman, contractor (with work truck in the driveway) but more than likely it is not next to another MD. It could be a fixer upper or situated on a small lot.
No one is arguing that Bethesda homes aren't more costly. Bethesda is right outside of DC, whereas Stony Brook and environs are over 40 miles to NYC, correct? If I were to pull real estate closer to NYC ( Western Nassau County) there are over 69 pages of Million plus homes listed. It would seem that Nassau is like Bethesda, home value wise. The closer to NYC or DC, the more prestigious the area, the higher the home values.
Quote:
I for one would be happy in a house <500k and do not need to be in a 1M+ house by the water just because I'm a doc's wife. But again, that's a LI mentality... materialism and keeping up with the joneses.
Roads: I own a commercial fleet as well as multiple personal vehicles ranging from 1920's stock to a pro street rod that has been appraised well into the 6 figures. ALL are driven on LI roadways and aside from normal wear and tear, nothing exceptional has happened. Roadways in some communities aren't as well kept as others, so I won't say all the roads are smooth as silk, especially following this past winter.
Drivers: Yes, they can be nuts, aggressive and do things with no apparent rhyme or reason. I've also seen this in MA, RI, NJ, southern CT.
Traffic: everyone agrees it can be horrible.
Stores filled with Expired Groceries: There have been news reports of this problem in groceries in the five boroughs, most typically in poor areas. I haven't seen this in the supermarkets I frequent. Once in a while I might catch a product just past expiration in my local supermarket, it would be one thing out of a bunch of the same and I feel it is more a problem of young employees not knowing better to rotate when they stock shelves. I'm not stating this is acceptable. I am one of those people who marches the expired product to the manager and lets him know there's a problem.
In all fairness you should tell the OP where you live and what drove your decision to choose that location -- i.e. proximity to work, housing price, advice or lack thereof. She's mentioned 2 areas and those of us who've chimed in have made it very clear that these areas on LI are certainly not like Bethesda.
obh, in paper that may be true. in reality, it's too far away to be considered a suburb. suburbs are outside cities, i was talking specifically about suffolk. we're not outside the city, we're hours away at the mercy of drivers.
like you said, my opinion based on being in many beaches other than LI. i have ruined my pretty much my brand new car in less than 2 years.
I was not talking about some dinky store, or stores in poorer areas. i am talking about chain stores like stop and shop, for which now i incorporate another 30 min into my grocery shopping getting the employees to come remove the expired items. i shop 1 x week, and there has never been a time i have not gone to get someone to remove something. please respect my experience, as i have no reason to tell it other than telling the truth. on the lefthand side it says where i live, brookhaven hamlet, i think, who the heck knows because there are no visible borders between towns.
Most doctors prefer to live amongst those of similar socioeconomic status. The <500K house in Stony Brook could be next door to a university rental, a cop, teacher, fireman, contractor (with work truck in the driveway) but more than likely it is not next to another MD. It could be a fixer upper or situated on a small lot.
No one is arguing that Bethesda homes aren't more costly. Bethesda is right outside of DC, whereas Stony Brook and environs are over 40 miles to NYC, correct? If I were to pull real estate closer to NYC ( Western Nassau County) there are over 69 pages of Million plus homes listed. It would seem that Nassau is like Bethesda, home value wise. The closer to NYC or DC, the more prestigious the area, the higher the home values.
Sure the western Nassau is more expensive, but I'm not sure how that is relevant to this post. I can equally say that the hamptons (which by the way are farther away from the city) have mostly million dollar homes. But how is that relevant?
Yeah, I looked at the Hamlet estates, I looked at houses in Nissequogue, but I've also looked at houses for 500k near stony brook area. I've basically came to the conclusion that we don't really need that much of a house. To tell you the truth, just because we can afford a house more than that doesn't deter us from buying something cheaper. And, I would love to live near teachers, cops, and firemen!
we moved from md to suffolk county. let me tell you, think hard and long about whether you want to move here. for some reason, long islanders, esp. suffolk folks think of LI as a suburb to NYC. it's not, it's a few bridges away (that most of the time are jammed pack, but before you get to the bridges, you deal with awful traffic, crazy drivers (you've heard about NY drivers. not a legend, it's true). you cannot compare DC to NYC, you can't even put those two on the same page.
if you really have to move to LI, then look into nassau county. it resembles civilization to a slight degree. you really cannot compare bethesda to anything in LI. wish we could, but we can't. I can't explain the towns. the LI towns baffle me the most. most of the areas do not have a 'downtown,' good restaurants are a phenomenon. read this message board on LI schools and see the variety of opinions. my opinion as someone who is not from LI is that schools are not great but you pay a pound of flesh and God knows what else in taxes, so you'll probably end up using public schools. if you do ask here which school districts are the best and why, and once you get a district recommendation know that it will still be substandard to where you are coming from. LI is overrated, has nothing to offer, beaches are to write stories about (not good ones).
if you are bringing family (sorry didn't rest all the pages), and have kids, and have a wife, then make sure you guys come and spend days here. you cannot get to know LI in a day trip or via message boards. taxes are huge, roads are broken (feel free to replace your car and get a junk thing to drive around with), because you'll ruin it within a year. grocery stores are filled with expired items (diary, meats you name it, it's like an epidemic of 'i just don't care' attitude).
i could go on and on but if i had gotten to know LI like I do now, i and kids would have probably never moved here.
Knowing L.I. as well as I do and spending some time in Bethesda, I'll give my take. I don't know how you can compare the two, especially anything in Suffolk. Bethesda is a true suburb and an expensive on at that. I wouldn't even compare it to G.C. or R.V.C either, that to does it an injustice.
If you ever get the chance walk down Bethesda Ave at night, walk down Bethesda Lane, Arlington Road. Wow what a beautiful place, lite up, clean, modern, very, very high end, plain and simple gorgeous Now walk down The two blocks on Park Ave in R.V.C or Franklin Ave in G.C. if you think these areas are compatible your all nuts.
Not that I'm a L.I. hater ok maybe I am a little but there is no comparison...if you can afford it, Bethesda is the way to go. Keyword afford
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Now walk down The two blocks on Park Ave in R.V.C or Franklin Ave in G.C. if you think these areas are compatible your all nuts.
