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Need a place asap as I have a job and need to move by late june. Thinking of getting a sublease. Most listings are around Columbia (Harlem/Morningside) How safe is it? My budget is about $1200/m and I'm moving with my Boyfriend, so need either a studio or one bedroom. I'm lost and the search is quite overwhelming. Would appreciate suggestions on where to look and what areas would be best. Will be working on Midtown Manhattan. Thank you in advance.
harlem is no longer dangerous. in 2008 the murder rate dropped 80%, the rape rate dropped 58%, the robbery rate dropped 73%, burglary dropped 86%, and the total number of crime complaints dropped 73%. and yes 1200 you can get a one bedroom in harlem. try sugar hill its cheap compared to most of harlem. the commute depending on time can be 20-45 minutes any questions just message me
What a strange ,incorrect generalization.
Some of Harlem is quite nice and livable and some of it is still quite dangerous would be a more accurate description.
Check out all prospective neighborhoods and blocks thoroughly at different times of the day AND NIGHT.
The area around Columbia is fine but I wouldn't recommend that newcomers to NY just go anywhere in Harlem and rent a place. It takes a while to learn how to discern whether an area is safe for you or not and you must do it on your own.
Until you get your bearings,stick to the area very close to Columbia.
With $1,200 as a limit you might be better off looking in parts of Queens( Sunnyside,Astoria,Jackson Heights) or some Bronx neighborhoods (Pelham Parkway,Bedford Park,Morris Park.You might be able to find a decent apartment in these areas( at least a real 1 br) for 1,200
Don't restrict yourself to Manhattan only. It sounds like that's what you are doing if you are only seeing listings in Harlem and near Columbia.
What you should do is plug in the address of your job into google maps, zoom in and see which subway stations are nearby. Midtown is quite large and you could be near any number of different lines.
If you are near the 7 train, then look in neighborhoods in Queens that are on the 7, such as Sunnyside and Woodside. If you are near the E or F trains, then look at neighborhoods like Jackson Heights and Forest Hills.
I don't know much about the Bronx but the same logic should apply.
$1200 is not much for rent in Manhattan; if you live in another borough you should have many more options, and quite possibly a similar commute compared with coming from Harlem.
The Columbia area in Morningside Heights is safe. It's in one of the safest police precincts in the city, if Columbia University is to be believed. My son goes to school up there and loves the area. Almost all the professors live in the neighborhood with their families. It's lively and very diverse, with lots of bars (not just for students) and restaurants, and the subway puts you in mid-town in about 20 minutes.
There's even a weekly farmer's market along Broadway in front of Columbia - nothing to do with the college, it serves the whole community.
I'd say, stay away from Harlem until you know the city. It is changing and there are nice areas, but for an out of towner, it might be better to familiarize yourself with it before moving there. Stay west of Amsterdam Avenue.
Keep transportation in mind wherever you rent. Try to be with in three to four blocks of a subway station, because in bad weather that will matter.
Good luck in your apartment search! You are going to love living in New York.
You have to be careful with descriptions, especially on Craigslist. Some will try to lay claim to a neighborhood when the apartment is in an adjacent area. Morningside Heights is safe, but it's a small police precinct, and there is much in the way of security from the university in the area. Both are factors that make the crime statistics look much lower. The UES, by contrast, has a higher number of crimes reported, but the precinct is much larger, and it's an area that has generally been considered safer, overall, than the Morningside Heights area. And, there are parts of Harlem that have been, and continue to be, safe neighborhoods, and are not new discoveries, since they never fell to the depths, despite declines in blocks around them.
Painting the entire Harlem area with a broad brush as if to say that crime was suddenly removed from the area does not give an accurate picture because there are pockets of higher crime in parts of Harlem. And, you cannot just blindly pick an advertisement on price alone, since at $1200 if the neighborhood were great and the apartment in top condition, there would be a line around the corner for some people to move into the apartment -- those currently in a share situation, or those in an outer borough who would like to live closer to hot spots in Manhattan.
One thing to check is the police precinct, since Columbia is in the 26th, and if the apartment is in that precinct, the area is pretty safe. One other reason why the neighborhoods tend to be better in the Morningside Heights area is the lack of vast housing projects that one finds in denser concentrations in other Harlem neighborhoods. The reason for that is two-fold, fewer people live in a five-story building than live in superblocks of apartment towers, and and individual owners tend to be much less tolerant of any quality of life issues that can spur neighborhood decline/crime. Remember, however, that discussions of safety are relative, since NYC is a very large, complex urban environment, where one would exercise due caution so as not to fall victim to a crime, regardless of the "conventional wisdom" regarding a specific area.
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$1200 in Manhattan? HMmmmm. Go to Queens. Astoria is 10 mins to midtown. And there you get get a nice 1 bdrm for $1200...and easier to rent. Landlords in Manhattan are way too hard to work with sometimes, and ask for your whole life history just to RENT an apartment. It's easier to purchase a home than rent from Manhattan landlords. And with your budget....it's gonna be hard.
Did you find what you were looking for ams get ask settled in? I seen this feed and thought it would be worth a shot. We are moving from oklahoma and looking for a place within a 30 mile radius around Rye ny. We are trying to find something under 1000 unless it has utilities included. Is there any advice or help on what towns will be cheaper to look in to?
Use the NYC crime heat map to check various nabes. maps.nyc.gov/crime/
And while you could always get lucky, Manhattan is one tough place for bargain hunting. Go outer borough and look for listings closer to train stations. Most neighborhoods are safe during the day but at night things can be very different. And just because a neighborhood has 'buzz' doesn't mean it's safe. There's been a lot of crime in the West Village, for example.
The Columbia area in Morningside Heights is safe. It's in one of the safest police precincts in the city, if Columbia University is to be believed. My son goes to school up there and loves the area. Almost all the professors live in the neighborhood with their families. It's lively and very diverse, with lots of bars (not just for students) and restaurants, and the subway puts you in mid-town in about 20 minutes.
The OP will not find a place in Morningside with that budget.
Excepting the campus, I am not sure that it is actually one of the safest precincts. There have been incidents.
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