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My husband and I are thinking about moving to Madison. We have a 2 year old and both work in NYC .and
Are there any other families where both spouses work in NYC? We notuced that a lot of the daycare locations close around 6pm. With the commute being what it is it would be very difficult to make it home in time.
What do you think of the commute? Is it really 50 minutes or so to Penn or Hoboken?
What do you do for childcare?
In terms of the actual town:
What is the community like?
Is it conservative/liberal etc.?
Do new businesses open in the downtown area?
How would you compare Madison to Summit or Ridgewood?
Trains leave Penn Station at 5:15, 5:42, 5:50 and 6:20, I believe there is an express around 4:45 that's less then 40 minutes but you would have to do a check at njtransit.com
Madison is supposed to have some of the best schools in the state. Its very Conservative, homogeneous, the downtown has a nice mainstream with regular store turnover. The others I don't know much about but Summit has more train options and about 15 minutes less of a train ride.
I wouldn't recommend living in any NJ suburb if you both work in NYC unless you have a nanny or one of you has a flexible work schedule.
Tack on 10 minutes to the schedule times for the peak rush hour trains going into NYC (i.e., ones departing between 7 and 8). The same is true regardless of what town you live in. The earlier trains are generally more reliable. The outbound trains in the afternoon and evening are also generally more reliably on time.
I haven't been to Ridgewood in a while, but the downtown in Summit is a little bigger and livelier, but Madison still has a very nice downtown by suburban standards.
Madison, Chatham, and Summit have large premiums attached to their housing as compared with other nearby towns (due to trains, schools, and other desireablity factors).
In my mind, they are overpriced, Summit extremely so. But that's just me. And I've known these towns since I was a small kid.
You can get the same things in New Providence and Berkeley Heights for a much more reasonable price. Maybe slightly less frequent train service.
Madison, Chatham, and Summit have large premiums attached to their housing as compared with other nearby towns (due to trains, schools, and other desireablity factors).
In my mind, they are overpriced, Summit extremely so. But that's just me. And I've known these towns since I was a small kid.
You can get the same things in New Providence and Berkeley Heights for a much more reasonable price. Maybe slightly less frequent train service.
I wouldn't recommend living in any NJ suburb if you both work in NYC unless you have a nanny or one of you has a flexible work schedule.
I agree with this. Most daycare centers are only open until 5:30pm and it's probably going to be very difficult for you to get home from NYC by that time. As a parent of 2 kids, I can tell you their daycare and preschool call every time my kids get sick and they need to be picked up early. Unless you have other relatives in the area that can pick up the kids as a backup you don't want to put yourself in this situation.
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[SIZE=3]We recently rented in Madison, and I know its not the sameas buying the house but in the past 1 week we found the community fairly warm.Despite belonging to a minority ethnicity (we are asian Indian) the neighborswere warm and nice. We don’t work in the city but I have explored daycares inthat area a lot. Someone suggested Kirby – great option. Another one isPrimrose (they open 630 to 630 and provide all the meals). Their curriculum isreally good too. There is also Kindercare in Chatham with hrs till 630PM. Iknow a family where both the partners work in the city. They drive to summitstation due to higher frequency of train (both morris and Gladstone pass viasummit) and ease of parking, their 2 yr old goes to kindercare.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=3]Having some friends or family around is a must if you areusing daycare because of some unforeseen reason you cant make it.[/SIZE]
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Thanks for the advice... If we go the daycare route we are thinking about hiring a babysitter/nanny for a few hours in the evening to take her home and hang out until we get home. We know some people that do that in Hoboken where we live now and works well for them. I do agree having family or friends nearby is a great luxury to have. But not everyone is as fortunate.
Thanks for the advice... If we go the daycare route we are thinking about hiring a babysitter/nanny for a few hours in the evening to take her home and hang out until we get home. We know some people that do that in Hoboken where we live now and works well for them.
I have neighbors that do this and I can tell you based on their experience it is not easy to find someone reliable who is willing to work for just those couple hours a day. There might be a bigger market for that type of thing in Hoboken, but probably not the same in the suburbs from what I've seen.
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