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i think brooklyn is your best bet. i'm not sure what rule you're saying off the top of my head. some options for you: Emmons Avenue and Sheepshead Bay Rd - Trulia is in sheepshead bay, brooklyn, and is close to the b and q trains. it's by the bay itself, and is close to stores on sheepshead bay rd. there is a waldbaum's supermarket around the corner. a bally fitness is a block away.
you can also look here 3315 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn NY - Trulia which is also in sheepshead bay. it is closer towards marine park and you can walk to the avenue u stores and station on the q. you can also look Cortelyou Road and Ocean Avenue - Trulia at ditmas park which is right on cortelyou road near the cortelyou q stop and the beverly q stop.
My response to your other post, from Long Island City in Queens you'd only be 2 stops away from Rockefeller Center. That's where people in your situation move.
Note: In case this thread looks familiar, it's because I accidentally posted it into the NYC general forum when I wanted here in the NYC-specific forum. Apologies for the inconvenience.
I finally had a chance to actually visit NYC and I liked it a lot. The energy and feel (I LOVED the grid system) plus the fact that I won't need a car to live there makes it extremely appealing to me. However, if I chose to live there next year, I'm really worried about being able to afford living there. According to the graduate program I am currently in, the average salary for grads who choose NYC is only around 60k all in. I also will be working terrible hours (think upwards of 80...no I'm not an investment banker...I just work similar hours without the financial upside sadly), so I'll need to live in a place close to Times Square/Rockefeller (sp?) Plaza, which is obviously a prime area and not easy to afford.
I'm not hung up on Manhattan and would be fine with living in a less sexy/trendy area, but I definitely want to live in a place that is safe, has good access to public transport, is close to a gym (yes, I'm a health freak), isn't too much of a commute to where I'd work (30 minutes is probably max given the hours I'll be working), and isn't too grimy/filthy (although I understand that I'll probably have a few roaches/rats as roommates sadly). I'm also willing to pay more for housing and cut back a lot on entertainment (I doubt I'll have that much time to do things besides work, gym, and making food anyway) and am very, very low maintenance in that regard. One good thing is that the firm underpays the juniors, but we get nice salary boosts (I think they say that I'll be in the 6 figure range within 5 years), however, I'm concerned about living costs for my first few years when I won't be making much.
My question is how doable will NYC be on that type of salary? All of my friends are investment bankers and they complain that their 120k+ salaries are tough to live on in NYC and I can't imagine how much of a struggle it will be to live on half of that. I really want to be there, but at the same time, it may be more intelligent to go to another major city (such as DC or Atlanta) to work for a different branch of the same company with a better CoL adjusted salary (although less opportunities to work with multinational corporations of course). Part of this could be the fact that my friends are gigantic #YOLO yuppies (and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible), but still, whatever they said and some of the horror stories about NYC have me worried.
Any thoughts on how feasible it is?
The rent formula generally followed by landlords is annual salary before taxes divided by 40 = max monthly rent. In your case, $1500. You could easily live in a smaller apartment in Astoria, Queens for $1500. Nice neighborhood, plenty of gyms around and very easy to get to midtown.
You should do a search for "budget" within this forum to get a sense of where the rest of your money might go. One thing about being more poor than your I banker friends is that they will most likely have social lives that you can't afford to keep up with.
Flushing is your place, it's a little far from NYC (~40 minute train ride), but many asian restaurants and people living there.
Edit: funny seeing people struggling on 120k/year while I make less than 20k/year and still get easily around (eating in restaurants and going to bars, clubs a lot), living in Queens though
If you're going to commute to midtown, living along the 7 line would be convenient. There are a lot of great neighborhoods from Long Island City to Jackson Heights all the way out to Flushing. Generally, the further east you go, the less expensive the rent. I'm partial to the Sunnyside/Woodside area and would probably take a pass on Corona.
60K is a good salary. However, the real question you should ask is why 80 hours a week. People don't question overwork as much as they should in this society. How will you be happy with that schedule, not $$$... is a question worth asking. You won't have time to enjoy NYC on that.
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