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My husband and I are currently renting a 1 bedroom apartment in Cliffside Park area with a good commute to NYC. We're planning on buying a house in the suburbs with relatively good commute to NYC. We've seen a couple of options in Tenafly, Cresskill and Westwood. We are moving because the school system in cliffside is vey poor so we would like to move to an area with a good public school system as well as young families with children. Safety is very important to us as well as a family oriented area with a good diversity of blacks.
My husband and I are currently renting a 1 bedroom apartment in Cliffside Park area with a good commute to NYC. We're planning on buying a house in the suburbs with relatively good commute to NYC. We've seen a couple of options in Tenafly, Cresskill and Westwood. We are moving because the school system in cliffside is vey poor so we would like to move to an area with a good public school system as well as young families with children. Safety is very important to us as well as a family oriented area with a good diversity of blacks.
OK, you need to provide some information. We have no idea what your budget is, how long a commute you will tolerate, or where in NYC you work, which can make a difference in where you live also.
The sticky at the top of the page was created for the purpose of providing that information so that people could help you with your specifics. It does not take long to answer the questions.
OK, you need to provide some information. We have no idea what your budget is, how long a commute you will tolerate, or where in NYC you work, which can make a difference in where you live also.
The sticky at the top of the page was created for the purpose of providing that information so that people could help you with your specifics. It does not take long to answer the questions.
So we have a budget of about $600,000. For the commute, anything between 45 mins to an hour should be fine. My husband works in midtown manhattan.
In terms of schools, Tenafly > Cresskill >>> Westood (not that Westwood is bad mind, just that the other two are standouts).
Tenafly and Cresskill there are several ways to get to Midtown in an hour (in practice you'll probably budget slightly more for cushion time) but all of them involve driving for at least part of your commute -- if you're not willing to get behind the wheel at all that means the bus lines which go through the Lincoln Tunnel, which is prone to occasional severe / high-variance traffic jams. That said, you don't need to drive the whole way: bus across the GWB* + A train or driving to the ferry will both do the trick. Westwood you'll spend about an hour on the train (again slightly more for cushion time), which means you can get reliability without getting into your car if you're walking distance of the train station, which is nice.
There aren't many black families in Tenafly or Cresskill (like <1%). Westwood has a small community. You wouldn't be discriminated against anywhere** and the towns are diverse in other ways.
*Technically there is a rockland coaches bus across the GWB that goes through Cresskill and Tenafly but it goes down 9w, and nothing in a reasonable daily walk of 9w is going to be in budget.
**Perspective of a white person who knows the area well, so, grain of salt that I do have local knowledge but haven't walked a mile in those shoes.
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