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I will be attending a professional school at NYU (New York University) which is located in the midtown East of Manhattan. The rents in Manhattan are too expensive for my budget. So, I am looking for somewhere further as long it doesn't take more than 30 min. bus/subway to my school.
I am looking for a neighborhood that is safe and quiet. And most importantly, the place should have easy access to grocery shops, restaurant, and subway to Midtown Manhattan.
My budget for rent is under $1000/month. I am a single Chinese in early twenty's. Therefore, I prefer living in an Asian and student friendly environment.
Please let me know which areas I should look into. I heard Queens is nice, but more specifically, where in Queen is good for student?
ha ha. This is kind of funny. After all my posts on other threads about trying to get OP's to tell us exactly what they are looking for - finally one does tell us, and all he gets are people telling that must not be what he wants!!
To the OP -
If your professional school is in midtown east, then Queens is located perfectly for your commute. I'm sure if you could have your way, you would be a zillionnaire and be able to live right near school and not have to 'make the trek' to Manhattan every day, as DonnaReed mentions. But the reality is, most of us don't have the means to live in Manhattan.
So what do you do? You look at where you will be commuting to every day (midtown east) and you get out your subway map and see what is the easiest commute. And in this case, Queens makes the most sense. The 7 train may be convenient and depending on where exactly your school is, the E or V might work as well.
If you're looking for an Asian friendly area, I think you should check out Elmhurst. It's a diverse neighborhood with many Asians, and several huge Asian grocery stores and many Asian restaurants. You might want to look in the area of Elmhurst near the Roosevelt Ave stop on the E/F/V/R train, or over closer to the 82nd street stop on the 7 train. Since the E is an express train, it's only 3 stops (10 minutes) on the subway to midtown east, so your commute shouldn't be horrible. Even the 7 train from the 82nd st. stop should take you only 20 minutes once on the train to the grand central area.
Elmhurst also has some of the bigger chain stores like Target. And you should be able to find something for $1000.
Flushing is the obvious answer for an Asian community, but it is significantly further and significantly more Asian and only serviced by the 7 train (maybe the railroad goes there too but in terms of subways the 7 is the only one), and maybe you would be happier in an area that has a majority of Asians but isn't exclusively Asian.
Thanks for the info Hanna. This is what I am looking for. I tried my school, but it's still too expensive to share room with other ppl. I don't like to live in a ethically homogenous community either. I just wanna make sure that I don't get jump/beat up just b/c I am an Asian hanging out in the wrong hood.
My school is located at 345 E. 24th Street, New York, NY 10010.
Sunnyside and Woodside are also good areas to check out. They're pretty safe, a short commute into the city and have large Asian populations. You wouldn't be able to find an apartment for under $1000/month most likely (maybe a studio, but I'd doubt it), but if willing to share, it would definitely be doable.
There are 3 main Chinese neighborhoods in the city. One is Chinatown (doubt you'd want to live there as it can be very congested and most of Chinatown is a tourist trap), Flushing out in Queens, and Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
I would suggest that you consider looking at Sunset Park becaue it would have more of direct connection on the subway to the NYU area. You could take the R train right to campus.
There is no perfect subway commute to where the school is located (East 24th at 1st Ave), you would have to either walk (quicker) or transfer to a bus. You could take the 7 from Queens to Grand Central or E to 53rd Street and transfer to 6, then get off at 23rd and walk (~10 minutes) or take the bus (could get stuck in traffic). Or you could stay somewhere on the L line in Brooklyn and take the L to 1st Ave and 14th Street and walk from there (also 10 minutes) or take the bus. Or you could stay somewhere close to one of the lines going to Union Square but it would be a slightly longer walk from there.
the subway advice KB4 gave sounds right to me. The L train goes to Williamsburg and Bushwick (both in Brooklyn). The rents in Williamsburg are probably too high for you. You might be able to afford Bushwick but it's still gentrifying (some don't feel safe there or feel there are enough amenities) so I think the Queens options are much better.
I also agree with the suggestions to try Sunnyside and Woodside, both on the 7 train. You would be on the 7 train for about 10 minutes, then transfer to the 6 at Grand Central and take the 6 train to 23rd St and then walk 10 minutes. My Elmhurst suggestion still stands, and Elmhurst may be a tiny bit cheaper than Sunnyside and Woodside. Jackson Heights is also an option that I didn't mention before because of your request for an Asian neighborhood, and where I am in Jackson Heights is mainly white and hispanic, though there are certainly a fair number of Asians around.
You should expect your commute to be at least 40-45 minutes (I am guessing) from any of these locations, provided you are living fairly close to the subway.
I think any of those neighborhoods will be fine for you and you might be able to find a studio for $1000 or possibly even less.
If you're willing to pound the pavement and speak Chinese, you could probably find something the old-fashioned way in Elmhurst by going to look at Chinese newspapers and the bulletin boards in the Chinese establishments.
you might be able to get a sense of Elmhurst by looking at these photos on flickr. However, please be aware that "East Elmhurst" is not the same as Elmhurst (some East Elmhurst photos come up in the search) and they don't even border one another. Also, just doing a search for 'Elmhurst' without writing 'Queens' is going to bring up alot of photos from Elmhurst Illinois, in another part of the country. My search is for Elmhurst + Queens
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