Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Just prefacing this by saying I've lived in NYC for more than half a century. Born in Queens; lived on the UES, LES, and now in the Bronx for a few years.
Every hood had its good points, and it also depends on timing. I was very fortunate because as a kid I had a semi surburban hood with great schools. Then after college in my twenties I could afford the UES, as many college grads could back then (albeit a 5th floor walkup). Then the LES in a spacious coop. Now the Bx in a spacious coop in a so called "rougher" hood.
In any case, I think that my timing has been right both historically and personally, since all hoods change, and ebb and flow. In my view, right here and now, my area of the North West Bronx is "up and coming" but still rough around the edges, and I wouldn't have it any other way (almost).
There are a lot of folks who come here from elsewhere and move to the newly hip hoods. When enough of them move there, the demographics change and slowly but surely they complain that the "mom and pops" have been displaced, and the "soul" has been drained out of the area they once loved.
My feeling is that NY'ers are by definition ahead of the curve, and this goes for real estate especially. Having lived on the LES (and my mom and her family were born and raised there) I witnessed something that many could never predict: the transformation from a hood that didn't even seem like part of Manhattan to a relatively "hip" destination.
Meanwhile, the area of the Bx where I live (including the nearby Grand Concourse) was a place where my mom's relatives remember some more well off members of their family moving to because it was much classier than the urban ghetto of the LES.
When I go out in the evening, I see so many different ethnic groups...residents and store owners. The clerks and store owners will call you mami, and if you know a smidgen of Spanish it makes a big difference too.
The park near my coop is full of kids and families who picnic, barbeque, have birthday parties, and play bingo in the evening in large groups. The hundred year old Catholic Church down the block has weekly outdoor masses with singing and offers mass in English, Spanish, and Korean.
The nearby Aqueduct Park, though it attracts semi-homeless and other sketchy characters, also has chess tables where folks play. On the corner by the bodega guys play dominoes.
The vendors include new and used books, clothing, handbags, perfume, etc. And the Fordham Road shops and 99 cent stores make it possible to buy necessities dirt cheap.
On the streets you can people watch and see all the young girls and guys strutting their stuff. Women come in all shapes and sizes and unlike Manhattan are appreciated in all their varieties.
On the streets you can hear salsa or hip hop; in the stores you may hear Middle Eastern music.
In short, this hood has heart and soul. Many folks who wouldn't "dare" set foot here are some of the same folks who complain that rents are too high and other areas too gentrified.
The city has invested money in a state of the art library and cultural center, renovated parks, and soon the Kingsbridge Armory will become a huge mall. There are more and more cultural attractions, which makes traveling to the City for entertainment less necessary, but the commuting options are plentiful.
So, I ask you all, what's not to love?
Sound like you made a good choice. I visited the Orion and I really liked it. Congrats!
Perhaps the thread should be re named "the outer boroughs are the soul of NYC?" What say the moderator?
Consider it done. The thread will now be renamed as the OP requested.
__________________
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
Alot more culture has come out of the bronx than brooklyn. So all the brooklynites talking bas about the bronx needs to fall back a little. The thin thats holding the bronx back is its stigma. At some point, the bronx is going to become "cool" and its pop will rise, exact samething tht happened with bk. And if anything the bronx and brooklyn are the two boroughs that are the most alike
Alot more culture has come out of the bronx than brooklyn. So all the brooklynites talking bas about the bronx needs to fall back a little. The thin thats holding the bronx back is its stigma. At some point, the bronx is going to become "cool" and its pop will rise, exact samething tht happened with bk. And if anything the bronx and brooklyn are the two boroughs that are the most alike
Thumbs up on that last sentence, no question about it! As to the opener, you need to open up a history book--at the very least, Brooklyn and the Bronx are equal there, too.
Just prefacing this by saying I've lived in NYC for more than half a century. Born in Queens; lived on the UES, LES, and now in the Bronx for a few years.
Every hood had its good points, and it also depends on timing. I was very fortunate because as a kid I had a semi surburban hood with great schools. Then after college in my twenties I could afford the UES, as many college grads could back then (albeit a 5th floor walkup). Then the LES in a spacious coop. Now the Bx in a spacious coop in a so called "rougher" hood.
In any case, I think that my timing has been right both historically and personally, since all hoods change, and ebb and flow. In my view, right here and now, my area of the North West Bronx is "up and coming" but still rough around the edges, and I wouldn't have it any other way (almost).
There are a lot of folks who come here from elsewhere and move to the newly hip hoods. When enough of them move there, the demographics change and slowly but surely they complain that the "mom and pops" have been displaced, and the "soul" has been drained out of the area they once loved.
My feeling is that NY'ers are by definition ahead of the curve, and this goes for real estate especially. Having lived on the LES (and my mom and her family were born and raised there) I witnessed something that many could never predict: the transformation from a hood that didn't even seem like part of Manhattan to a relatively "hip" destination.
Meanwhile, the area of the Bx where I live (including the nearby Grand Concourse) was a place where my mom's relatives remember some more well off members of their family moving to because it was much classier than the urban ghetto of the LES.
When I go out in the evening, I see so many different ethnic groups...residents and store owners. The clerks and store owners will call you mami, and if you know a smidgen of Spanish it makes a big difference too.
The park near my coop is full of kids and families who picnic, barbeque, have birthday parties, and play bingo in the evening in large groups. The hundred year old Catholic Church down the block has weekly outdoor masses with singing and offers mass in English, Spanish, and Korean.
The nearby Aqueduct Park, though it attracts semi-homeless and other sketchy characters, also has chess tables where folks play. On the corner by the bodega guys play dominoes.
The vendors include new and used books, clothing, handbags, perfume, etc. And the Fordham Road shops and 99 cent stores make it possible to buy necessities dirt cheap.
On the streets you can people watch and see all the young girls and guys strutting their stuff. Women come in all shapes and sizes and unlike Manhattan are appreciated in all their varieties.
On the streets you can hear salsa or hip hop; in the stores you may hear Middle Eastern music.
In short, this hood has heart and soul. Many folks who wouldn't "dare" set foot here are some of the same folks who complain that rents are too high and other areas too gentrified.
The city has invested money in a state of the art library and cultural center, renovated parks, and soon the Kingsbridge Armory will become a huge mall. There are more and more cultural attractions, which makes traveling to the City for entertainment less necessary, but the commuting options are plentiful.
So, I ask you all, what's not to love?
Yeah, that's great until you get the gentrifiers to move into your neighborhood, drive up your rents and force you out. Then your hood becomes just another vanilla 'hip' area. Just look at Williamsburg. I can only imagine the day when Crown Heights looses the West Indian Day Parade, or when sugar hill has no black residents.
Yeah, that's great until you get the gentrifiers to move into your neighborhood, drive up your rents and force you out. Then your hood becomes just another vanilla 'hip' area. Just look at Williamsburg. I can only imagine the day when Crown Heights looses the West Indian Day Parade, or when sugar hill has no black residents.
Yea that's true. Took my pops to Williamsburg last week to show him around. He was not impressed. He's old school New York. As he tells it, it was when 3rd and 33rd was pronounced, "toid and toity toid"!
Yeah, that's great until you get the gentrifiers to move into your neighborhood, drive up your rents and force you out. Then your hood becomes just another vanilla 'hip' area. Just look at Williamsburg. I can only imagine the day when Crown Heights looses the West Indian Day Parade, or when sugar hill has no black residents.
Oy vey...typical New Yorker...we always have something to complain about lol.
The possible diff with the Bx is that it may likely remain a primarily middle class borough. The new housing that has been and is going up seems to be targeted that way, though of course that may change, but these things don't happen overnight. To get to even this point took decades, and on the face of it many would say there's not much substantive change at all (I disagree, but as soon as you mention the Bx you get all the knee jerk naysayers out there putting the boro down).
Williamsburg has suffered lately from overdevelopment and the financial downturn. A fair number of developers found themselves with new condos and no one to sell them to.
Another key thing here is: don't rent, buy! Then you won't get forced out if rents go up. Although not everyone has the means to do so, I daresay you can get a coop here dirt cheap comparatively speaking, but the prices are creeping up even here. They never went down during the decline, in part because they were modestly priced to begin with.
Immigrants tend not to have the funds to buy property, hence why Chinatown is being gentrified. I've said it time and time before, the city's becoming too expensive for immigrants to move into, and I do feel that there very well may be a day where you don't here the Muslim music in the street, or the Hispanic bodega owner call you mami almost anywhere in the city save for all they way out in Far Rockaway.
Yeah, that's great until you get the gentrifiers to move into your neighborhood, drive up your rents and force you out. Then your hood becomes just another vanilla 'hip' area. Just look at Williamsburg. I can only imagine the day when Crown Heights looses the West Indian Day Parade, or when sugar hill has no black residents.
Depends on how you look at it. I grew up on 145th and Broadway during the crack era of the 80's. Went to Randolph Highschool in the 90s on 135th and convent.
I welcome the gent's even if it means that lower class people have to move out... Its for the better. Maybe one day it will be good enough to raise children here..
Depends on how you look at it. I grew up on 145th and Broadway during the crack era of the 80's. Went to Randolph Highschool in the 90s on 135th and convent.
I welcome the gent's even if it means that lower class people have to move out... Its for the better. Maybe one day it will be good enough to raise children here..
The best post so far in this thread.
These so-called "purists" who never lived in an area like those during times like those are quick to complain about NYC losing its "grit". Keep in mind these people would never commit to living in these urban areas, yet like to come onto message boards like this and spew hypocrisy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The thread will now be renamed as the OP requested.
