Berkeley heights, Chatham or Mountainside. Relocating with kids. Commuting to Manhattan (Newark: 2013, houses)
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What's a good area out of the three Chatham, Berkeley. Heights or Mountainside. We are relocating from Wisconsin. What town has best schools, town feel and most friendly community.
Which town has the easiest/shortest commute to Manhattan.?
Since i hear so many bad reviews about short hills and its snobbish people we ruled out that area.
I've only heard good things about Berkeley heights from a coworker but it's a longer commute to nyc about 1-1.5 hours just on the train and in town parking permits are nonexistent. He drives to summit to catch the train. Supposed to have terrific schools I think Chatham is probably the same.
Well, Chatham has the same snobbish reputation. I have relatives in Short Hills and they're not snobbish at all, but they've been there for decades and don't live in the massive estates either. I believe of the ones you mentioned, Mountainside is the worst commute (no train station) and Chatham the best. Short Hills is an easier commute than any of them; so is Summit. Chatham and Berkeley Heights are both traditional train towns with a small downtown area around the train station. Summit has a much larger downtown area with lots of restaurants. Mountainside is more suburban, if it has a downtown I haven't seen it.
We are coming from Milwaukee, wi
Why are you moving? My husband job transferred him to Manhattan
Where will you be working ? If NYC, what part of NYC? Fin district manhattan, i have the option of working either in jersey city or manhattan. But potential opportunities in Parsipanny.
Will you buy or rent? Buy
What is your budget ? 1M-1.2M
What kind of place are you looking for ? Good schools and close commute and good neighbors
Will anyone (spouse, children, pets) be moving with you ? Family
Do you need/want good public schools? Yes
Briefly describe the kind of neighborhood you'd like to live in : families with young children and outgoing families
(examples: families with young children, young, mature, artsy, diverse, safe, close-knit, block parties, etc)
List three things that are important to you in order of importance. Good school (sports oriented not just academics), outdoor activities, new construction, proximity to NYC, family oriented, short commute, friendly neighborhood
What's a good area out of the three Chatham, Berkeley. Heights or Mountainside. We are relocating from Wisconsin. What town has best schools, town feel and most friendly community.
Which town has the easiest/shortest commute to Manhattan.?
Since i hear so many bad reviews about short hills and its snobbish people we ruled out that area.
Chatham is the only one of the three with a true town. Chatham and BH have higher ranked schools, but Mountainside still has good schools. If you're ok with the location of Mountainside, why don't you join us in neighboring Westfield? Westfield has the best combination of town feel, high ranked schools in academics and athletics and very loyal residents (I am one.)
What sold me when I went house hunting was the feel I got from the staff at the Westfield public library. The children love all the activities!
Even the high school newspaper ranks high. (Out of 350 national submissions, WF was one of 3 to win an award!
You just have to switch at Newark Penn Station (I do it, you just have to walk down and up a staircase) on the Raritan line for Manhattan. This issue is thoroughly discussed by other posters, along with the slow place of midtown direct coming to our train line.)
The cost of not (now) having midtown direct service is more than made up by relative driving ease, e.g. ease of getting on the parkway via north avenue through cranford or central avenue on the south side of westfield. As much as I like the towns, I hate going through chatham and Madison because everything revolves around congested 124. I am probably going to get his by the "chat"itude for this post. Like Westfield, Chatham also has a good number of loyalists.
Thanks for the info. Yes i have heard good reviews about westfield.
Its funny we started off looking at houses in the north and now we have done a 360 turn
I dont know at this rate we can decide where to live in nJ with easy pen station commute.
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what about Westfield?
