Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
Your real estate info is inaccurate. BH has some very expensive/large real estate along the promenade but overall it is not necessarily more expensive than other areas of Brooklyn. Of course you forgot DUMBO, boerum hill, LIC, and a number of other areas that have great real estate bc you don’t actually know the neighborhoods.
You have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to the public schools. You mention Stuy bc as a tourist it’s the one school you’ve heard of. I won’t list out what my kids had access to and some of their peers bc it will identify me, but I am constantly in awe of the opportunities they had just living here. Truly irreplaceable, no matter how much money I had.
And of course there are non whites in those fields, but they are still largely white, sorry that’s just the reality (that many of us would like to see changed). My point was that I suspect many people like you worried about living near ‘the projects’ are primarily concerned about being around non whites or people who aren’t wealthy/UMC. I am constantly amazed by how often people unconsciously view non white areas as ‘dangerous’. I’ve lived in NYC for decades and of course there is affordable/public housing around, as there is everywhere in NYC. But I’ve literally never ever been the victim of a crime except two times in the least diverse areas of NYC- 25 years ago near Wall Street when my car window was broken and when I lived in Brooklyn heights and someone stole my purse when I left it at a bar (so sort of my fault). My kids have never been the victim of a crime either. Not once.
Sorry, but you just don’t know anything so you should stop pretending you do.
Yea, people really want to be in LIC and boring hill (next to a ghetto) instead of BK Heights, which has some of the best private schools and is one stop from Manhattan.
Again, your understanding of NYC is touristy/dated and like from a SATC episode. And guess what? Packer is a good school but it is one of many many many good schools around (and certainly not considered top btw), all of them highly commutable bc NYC is fairly small. Btw there’s a jail near BH. Not that you’ve ever been anywhere near there in decades.
There’s St. Anne’s, which blows away your obsession with testing public schools.
I have spent only eight years away from Manhattan (boarding school and college) and have lived there my entire adult life. Keep telling me I’m a rube and unfamiliar with the city when I’m actually from there (unlike you, most likely, who wears the city like a fashion statement) and work in residential real estate.
Pp
I forgot about st Anne’s but look, it’s a good school but it’s not considered that prestigious, and there are dozens of other good schools around and you know it, both the top testing public ones (LaGuardia is an audition with a minimum GPA btw), other publics that aren’t test, and then private options.
Not sure what you mean about residential real estate but no, I’m a lawyer. I also recognize that my career was far more interesting than it might have been because I stayed here. I’m not wealthy but I’ve had a fascinating career.
You’re not familiar with the city, no. I’ve lived here since college so I’m not native but I figure 30 years and raising a family here gives me some knowledge. And I can tell you don’t have it. Even the way you refer to the ‘testing’ public schools shows you don’t really understand the system.
My parents and friends had their act together so they never tried for public, I don’t think ignoring the ins and outs of overrated public school admissions is a bad thing.
I have spent more time in the city than you. You are the worst type in the five boroughs. You think it is an accomplishment and special to live here and gatekeep anyone and everyone you think you can, you are what Jay McInerney parodied book after book.
WOW. A book from 30 years ago. How current. I’m the opposite of a gatekeeper. I think anyone, rich or poor, can find a way to live here and have amazing opportunity. Clearly you couldn’t hack it here, and had to be shipped off to boarding school. Pay to play.
He has published very recently.
I went to a K-9 where it was the norm (still is to a large degree). No one would ever consider Stuy, which is full of cheaters and greasy strivers. Almost all are financially prosperous and still live in Manhattan. You were hicking it up in Hackensack or Dix Hills while we lived and continue to live in the city that is actually our home.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
Your real estate info is inaccurate. BH has some very expensive/large real estate along the promenade but overall it is not necessarily more expensive than other areas of Brooklyn. Of course you forgot DUMBO, boerum hill, LIC, and a number of other areas that have great real estate bc you don’t actually know the neighborhoods.
You have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to the public schools. You mention Stuy bc as a tourist it’s the one school you’ve heard of. I won’t list out what my kids had access to and some of their peers bc it will identify me, but I am constantly in awe of the opportunities they had just living here. Truly irreplaceable, no matter how much money I had.
And of course there are non whites in those fields, but they are still largely white, sorry that’s just the reality (that many of us would like to see changed). My point was that I suspect many people like you worried about living near ‘the projects’ are primarily concerned about being around non whites or people who aren’t wealthy/UMC. I am constantly amazed by how often people unconsciously view non white areas as ‘dangerous’. I’ve lived in NYC for decades and of course there is affordable/public housing around, as there is everywhere in NYC. But I’ve literally never ever been the victim of a crime except two times in the least diverse areas of NYC- 25 years ago near Wall Street when my car window was broken and when I lived in Brooklyn heights and someone stole my purse when I left it at a bar (so sort of my fault). My kids have never been the victim of a crime either. Not once.
Sorry, but you just don’t know anything so you should stop pretending you do.
I said Stuy because there’s only three good schools in the Bronx. Horace Mann, Fieldston, and Riverdale
LOL again. Right. Only 3 good schools in the Bronx. Thats of course ridiculous especially bc BRONX SCIENCE is in the Bronx, a school that produced a significant number of Nobel prize winners.
Btw Stuy isn’t in the Bronx.
Right. I mentioned stuy because it is a public school and you mentioned them. I didn’t mention Bronx science because it isn’t good or worth mentioning. Hence I did not.
No one cares about your one in a million novel prize winners produced at a public school. People want to go to school with the children of tycoons at Horace Mann.
Bronx science is a top school. You’re crazy. Tycoons? Huh? I know people from HM. Not sure if you do.
Rich children of financiers and founders go to Horace Mann. They don’t go to Bronx science
LOL. I thought for a second you might know a little of the NYC private school scene, but clearly you don’t know that as well. There are lots of good private schools, and HM is great but not necessarily the top at all. And people who have money know what a Bronx Science degree means, don’t be foolish. The reality is that most kids can’t compete or get in there. That’s fine, there are still tons of good options, public and private.
No one said it’s top. This is a DC forum. It has broader name recognition than Dalton or Collegiate or Trinity.
Most kids are stupid. Most kids at Horace Mann are not stupid and could walk right into Bronx Science, which has pretty bad matriculation compared to the top privates.
I knew you’d pull the matriculation card. lol. But it’s not comparable bc lots of kids choose to save money and go to in state schools. Whereas lots of private school kids go the ED route which gives them a major admission boost.
Kids from HM could not just walk into Bronx science, sorry. Stats don’t lie.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
Your real estate info is inaccurate. BH has some very expensive/large real estate along the promenade but overall it is not necessarily more expensive than other areas of Brooklyn. Of course you forgot DUMBO, boerum hill, LIC, and a number of other areas that have great real estate bc you don’t actually know the neighborhoods.
You have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to the public schools. You mention Stuy bc as a tourist it’s the one school you’ve heard of. I won’t list out what my kids had access to and some of their peers bc it will identify me, but I am constantly in awe of the opportunities they had just living here. Truly irreplaceable, no matter how much money I had.
And of course there are non whites in those fields, but they are still largely white, sorry that’s just the reality (that many of us would like to see changed). My point was that I suspect many people like you worried about living near ‘the projects’ are primarily concerned about being around non whites or people who aren’t wealthy/UMC. I am constantly amazed by how often people unconsciously view non white areas as ‘dangerous’. I’ve lived in NYC for decades and of course there is affordable/public housing around, as there is everywhere in NYC. But I’ve literally never ever been the victim of a crime except two times in the least diverse areas of NYC- 25 years ago near Wall Street when my car window was broken and when I lived in Brooklyn heights and someone stole my purse when I left it at a bar (so sort of my fault). My kids have never been the victim of a crime either. Not once.
Sorry, but you just don’t know anything so you should stop pretending you do.
I said Stuy because there’s only three good schools in the Bronx. Horace Mann, Fieldston, and Riverdale
LOL again. Right. Only 3 good schools in the Bronx. Thats of course ridiculous especially bc BRONX SCIENCE is in the Bronx, a school that produced a significant number of Nobel prize winners.
Btw Stuy isn’t in the Bronx.
Right. I mentioned stuy because it is a public school and you mentioned them. I didn’t mention Bronx science because it isn’t good or worth mentioning. Hence I did not.
No one cares about your one in a million novel prize winners produced at a public school. People want to go to school with the children of tycoons at Horace Mann.
Bronx science is a top school. You’re crazy. Tycoons? Huh? I know people from HM. Not sure if you do.
Rich children of financiers and founders go to Horace Mann. They don’t go to Bronx science
LOL. I thought for a second you might know a little of the NYC private school scene, but clearly you don’t know that as well. There are lots of good private schools, and HM is great but not necessarily the top at all. And people who have money know what a Bronx Science degree means, don’t be foolish. The reality is that most kids can’t compete or get in there. That’s fine, there are still tons of good options, public and private.
No one said it’s top. This is a DC forum. It has broader name recognition than Dalton or Collegiate or Trinity.
Most kids are stupid. Most kids at Horace Mann are not stupid and could walk right into Bronx Science, which has pretty bad matriculation compared to the top privates.
I knew you’d pull the matriculation card. lol. But it’s not comparable bc lots of kids choose to save money and go to in state schools. Whereas lots of private school kids go the ED route which gives them a major admission boost.
Kids from HM could not just walk into Bronx science, sorry. Stats don’t lie.
What stats? No one there takes the public school admissions test and none of them would spend a penny on test prep for the exam unlike the scores of centers in Flushing.
It is so much better to go to school with kids who don’t have to save and go in state (in NY, not even NC or Virginia) than be around state school people.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
Yep, NYC is not for the snowflakes. You and your spawn are better off in a planned community somewhere.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
Yep, NYC is not for the snowflakes. You and your spawn are better off in a planned community somewhere.
If 65k tuition is a rounding error during accounting then you don’t send a kid to Stuyvesant. Lots of mental health issues and academic misconduct. The networking is way worse unless you want to know bodega owners’ children.
Reading this whole exchanges just underscores how unpleasant New Yorkers are. Couldn't pay me enough to live there. And I say that as someone who grew up in a major European capital, so I'm not exactly averse to city living in general.
Anonymous wrote:Reading this whole exchanges just underscores how unpleasant New Yorkers are. Couldn't pay me enough to live there. And I say that as someone who grew up in a major European capital, so I'm not exactly averse to city living in general.
I think the really insufferable voices on this thread are not actually the New Yorkers. Many of us who have written are quietly enjoying our lives and staying out of the private school arguments -- which are obviously populated by only a tiny minority of New York kids.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
Your real estate info is inaccurate. BH has some very expensive/large real estate along the promenade but overall it is not necessarily more expensive than other areas of Brooklyn. Of course you forgot DUMBO, boerum hill, LIC, and a number of other areas that have great real estate bc you don’t actually know the neighborhoods.
You have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to the public schools. You mention Stuy bc as a tourist it’s the one school you’ve heard of. I won’t list out what my kids had access to and some of their peers bc it will identify me, but I am constantly in awe of the opportunities they had just living here. Truly irreplaceable, no matter how much money I had.
And of course there are non whites in those fields, but they are still largely white, sorry that’s just the reality (that many of us would like to see changed). My point was that I suspect many people like you worried about living near ‘the projects’ are primarily concerned about being around non whites or people who aren’t wealthy/UMC. I am constantly amazed by how often people unconsciously view non white areas as ‘dangerous’. I’ve lived in NYC for decades and of course there is affordable/public housing around, as there is everywhere in NYC. But I’ve literally never ever been the victim of a crime except two times in the least diverse areas of NYC- 25 years ago near Wall Street when my car window was broken and when I lived in Brooklyn heights and someone stole my purse when I left it at a bar (so sort of my fault). My kids have never been the victim of a crime either. Not once.
Sorry, but you just don’t know anything so you should stop pretending you do.
Yea, people really want to be in LIC and boring hill (next to a ghetto) instead of BK Heights, which has some of the best private schools and is one stop from Manhattan.
Again, your understanding of NYC is touristy/dated and like from a SATC episode. And guess what? Packer is a good school but it is one of many many many good schools around (and certainly not considered top btw), all of them highly commutable bc NYC is fairly small. Btw there’s a jail near BH. Not that you’ve ever been anywhere near there in decades.
There’s St. Anne’s, which blows away your obsession with testing public schools.
I have spent only eight years away from Manhattan (boarding school and college) and have lived there my entire adult life. Keep telling me I’m a rube and unfamiliar with the city when I’m actually from there (unlike you, most likely, who wears the city like a fashion statement) and work in residential real estate.
Mwahahaha, it blows but not the way you think. That’s the school that hired a convicted felon to teach math in order to advance their social justice agenda. The said felon then tried to engage the students in things of sexual nature.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
Your real estate info is inaccurate. BH has some very expensive/large real estate along the promenade but overall it is not necessarily more expensive than other areas of Brooklyn. Of course you forgot DUMBO, boerum hill, LIC, and a number of other areas that have great real estate bc you don’t actually know the neighborhoods.
You have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to the public schools. You mention Stuy bc as a tourist it’s the one school you’ve heard of. I won’t list out what my kids had access to and some of their peers bc it will identify me, but I am constantly in awe of the opportunities they had just living here. Truly irreplaceable, no matter how much money I had.
And of course there are non whites in those fields, but they are still largely white, sorry that’s just the reality (that many of us would like to see changed). My point was that I suspect many people like you worried about living near ‘the projects’ are primarily concerned about being around non whites or people who aren’t wealthy/UMC. I am constantly amazed by how often people unconsciously view non white areas as ‘dangerous’. I’ve lived in NYC for decades and of course there is affordable/public housing around, as there is everywhere in NYC. But I’ve literally never ever been the victim of a crime except two times in the least diverse areas of NYC- 25 years ago near Wall Street when my car window was broken and when I lived in Brooklyn heights and someone stole my purse when I left it at a bar (so sort of my fault). My kids have never been the victim of a crime either. Not once.
Sorry, but you just don’t know anything so you should stop pretending you do.
Yea, people really want to be in LIC and boring hill (next to a ghetto) instead of BK Heights, which has some of the best private schools and is one stop from Manhattan.
Again, your understanding of NYC is touristy/dated and like from a SATC episode. And guess what? Packer is a good school but it is one of many many many good schools around (and certainly not considered top btw), all of them highly commutable bc NYC is fairly small. Btw there’s a jail near BH. Not that you’ve ever been anywhere near there in decades.
There’s St. Anne’s, which blows away your obsession with testing public schools.
I have spent only eight years away from Manhattan (boarding school and college) and have lived there my entire adult life. Keep telling me I’m a rube and unfamiliar with the city when I’m actually from there (unlike you, most likely, who wears the city like a fashion statement) and work in residential real estate.
Mwahahaha, it blows but not the way you think. That’s the school that hired a convicted felon to teach math in order to advance their social justice agenda. The said felon then tried to engage the students in things of sexual nature.
Yep, that’s the school I want for my kids.
Name a credible school in nyc that doesn’t advance “their social justice agenda.” NYC public schools don’t even fire their felons. Look at St Anne’s matriculation this year, nothing short of national leader.
Anonymous wrote:Reading this whole exchanges just underscores how unpleasant New Yorkers are. Couldn't pay me enough to live there. And I say that as someone who grew up in a major European capital, so I'm not exactly averse to city living in general.
I think the really insufferable voices on this thread are not actually the New Yorkers. Many of us who have written are quietly enjoying our lives and staying out of the private school arguments -- which are obviously populated by only a tiny minority of New York kids.
The insufferable voices are pretty standard issue among New Yorkers of a certain income and education. If you don’t like it you’ll probably live in a low income area to avoid it.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
So you think that OP should get to live in the most “desirable” (by price) neighborhood in NYC?
Anonymous wrote:I don't think people realize how much money it takes to live comfortably and I get that comfortably is relative. I totally get the Reddit attorney.
I often say it's hard to live on a $350k HHI in Del Ray with 2 teens. It truly is. You're in private school full pay with 2 kids who also have sports/activities. If you have a boy who also drives, the insurance kicks in + another car. You have a couple times of the year to do holidays that is more than a beach vacation - yes that is part of living comfortably or AKA without losing your mind and actually enjoying your life - and then you have your mortgage, fixed costs.
Food is insane - it's like $20 for a lunch sandwich in Del Ray by the way and groceries aren't cheap - teens eat a ton! So parents work and dining out is again, required sometimes because we do not want to lose our minds cooking post work every damn day - that is easily $100 dining out or $80 for take out from a restaurant. Even at 5 Guys it's going to be about that much if the kids order a milkshake with their burger. This is all not including fixed costs, savings, emergency fund, etc. It's just a lot of money when you added it all up.
Living life not spending anything is totally unrealistic. Maybe you can do that without kids but once you have the kids, forget about it. It's just not feasible to suggest every vacation you drive and you cook every day of the week except for once a month. If you don't want to be stuck in traffic, want a quality public school neighborhood, want to live comfortably, again, $350k/yr HHI is about what you really have to be at and that's NOT living large. That's all with the kids mow the lawn, we have 1 car payment and do 2 vacations per year. It's really not a big life we have.. so sorry to burst your bubble anyone who says we are richer than gods.
It's really hard to know someone's financials unless you know their family. If you have a kid with learning disabilities or paying out of pocket for therapy, even $600k HHI annually with 3 kids is not a promise of the potential of living large. It totally depends on that family's circumstances.
Oh please. I think we ALL know that both you and the Reddit OP are doing just fine financially. just because you literally burn money for private schools doesn’t change anything. That’s your choice.
Anonymous wrote:Reading this whole exchanges just underscores how unpleasant New Yorkers are. Couldn't pay me enough to live there. And I say that as someone who grew up in a major European capital, so I'm not exactly averse to city living in general.
I think the really insufferable voices on this thread are not actually the New Yorkers. Many of us who have written are quietly enjoying our lives and staying out of the private school arguments -- which are obviously populated by only a tiny minority of New York kids.
The insufferable voices are pretty standard issue among New Yorkers of a certain income and education. If you don’t like it you’ll probably live in a low income area to avoid it.
My takeaway is that the wealthier you get the more delusional you are about your personal virtues.
Oh man . . . I walked away from thus thread for a few hours and look what happened. Anyway, my kid goes to HM, and neither DH nor I are tycoons. We know plenty of kids from his private K-8 who chose SHSAT schools (and Beacon and Laguardia) over private high schools. I have yet to hear of any who regretted that choice.
Anonymous wrote:Main Line and Westchester are not much comparison. Philadelphia is a very poor city. It has so much history and good food but the people are so provincial and often don't leave the state ever. The politics of the state are ridiculous and stuck in the 1800s.
yep. Not at all the density of high-powered legal jobs as NYC. so it’s not really a comparison for most NYC partners, except in that if they believe they are “poor” in NYC then yes, maybe they need to trade some of the prestige and money of NYC for something slower paced. I went to law school in NYC and practiced in Philly at the beginning of my career and the cool thing is that most of my cohort went on to do a broad variety of interesting stuff in/around Philly (small firms, legal aid, DA, AG, opened own non-law businesses) specifically because Philly is so much more affordable and you are not locked into the law firm track the way you are in NYC.
Exactly. No one is arguing Philly is more exciting or even overall better. But it is better not to live in a shoebox and shoehorning three kids into a tiny space so you can brag about being a New Yorker. Go look at Rittenhouse if you want an urban neighborhood in Philly.
+10000. The people who insist on doing this are insufferable.
They also are typically lifelong renters.
Yep. You need to have family money, be in finance, or be an entrepreneur to live the life the redditor wants. Being a non-rainmaker partner doesn’t cut it and their NW will be a fraction of what it would be if they lived in the suburbs or a lower cost of living metro.
Again - the density of law and finance jobs cannot be paralleled in other cities. People move to NYC because they want the NYC lifestyle- which yes, includes less square footage but much much more to do outside of the home and higher power work. If you don’t want that then don’t move there, but don’t delude yourself into thinking New Yorkers are crying themselves to sleep over your McMansion.
This is debatable, especially when you have kids. Whenever I’m in NYC visiting family/friends I’m struck by how the only thing to do is go out to eat or to a playground. If you’re actually wealthy with multiple nannies then maybe you’re living a fabulous NY lifestyle. But the average $800k lawyer is hardly living it up. They aren’t doing anything you can’t do in any metro area in the US. They are just doing it with less square footage and less disposable income.
Correct. They have 2-3 regular neighborhood restaurants (not Le Bernadin) like they would in Scarsdale or Bethesda and they take advantage of NYC's artistic offerings to a similar degree (almost never).
No one is jealous of or impressed by your living in NYC, unless you have a 30+mm net worth, big apartment, weekend house, and place in Florida or Aspen for the winter. Then yes, lord it over us.
+1000. For all but the impossibly wealthy, living in NYC with children is exhausting.
Did you live in NYC with children? I’m not so sure what’s exhausting about having your kids’ elementary school two blocks away; multiple playgrounds, parks, libraries and museums within walking distance; delicious (affordable and fast) food options on every block; then when they turn 13 they can get themselves wherever they need to go on the subway?
Totally fine if that is not for you but you just sound like a rube when you make those kinds of statements.
Yes I did, and life was much easier when we moved to a major US city where we could still walk to all those things (well, not museums, but those are an easy subway ride away) and kids were using good public transit without adult supervision by 13, but we also could afford a home with a little room to spread out (although still not large) and a yard so that they could play outside without constant supervision, and we could use the car easily when we needed to and get out of the city easily when we wanted to, and so much less traffic noise--I didn't realize how stressful the noise was until I moved to a city with less traffic. (To be clear, traffic where I live is very bad. It's just not NYC bad.)
I love NYC, but I didn't love it with kids.
Great you made a good choice for yourself instead of whining that you are poor in NYC. Unlike the dumb*ss OP.
Anyone making 850k and has their children splitting a bedroom fits the dumb*ss description. Also thinking you’re doing well with 850k a year in NYC is idiotic.
Since when is having children share a bedroom a negative? I shared a room with two sisters and turned out pretty damn great
The issue isn't sharing a room. It's parents choosing themselves over their kids. OP's kids don't share a room out of necessity, nor because OP thinks it's a good formative experience. They are sharing a room because OP made a series of short-sighted and selfish choices and now she's blaming the situation on her apparently recent discovery that NYC is super expensive.
We're your parents selfish idiots too, or....?
Curious, what did your parents refuse to buy you? An American girl doll? Nike sneakers? Anyway, whatever it was, that’s not why your life turned out the way it did.
Nope. I'm speaking as a parent who understands that you don't have THREE KIDS before for firing it out where you will live and where they will go to school. It's one think to have one kid before you have this figured out, but three? And then to blame circumstances that you knew to be the case before you had any kids?
If OP were living in poverty or lacked education, I'd be empathetic because it can be hard to make good choices if you haven't been given many opportunities in life and are in survival mode. But she's a lawyer. A partner! She made the CHOICE to ignore her kid's needs and refuse to plan for their future. They will resent her for this later.
You sound unhinged. I’m pretty sure the redditor is giving her kids a great upbringing with more advantages than the vast majority of the planet. Geez. Why are you so angry about where a complete stranger is making a life?
Making 850k and forcing children to live in shared bedrooms all to live in Carrolll Gardens (lol) is not a recipe for a great upbringing. The Red Hook projects are 2-3 blocks away too.
Go look at the map, the Red Hook projects are a good 15-20 minutes hike with a highway in the middle of it. Besides, there is no place in the walkable areas of NYC that is not within 15 minutes from some “undesirable” housing.
It’s a seven minute walk from Red Hook East to the Dunkin in Carroll Gardens. There’s an army of criminals and sex offenders in that housing projects. Also keep in mind Carroll Gardens is a big step down from Brooklyn Heights and even Cobble Hill.
New Yorker here. Tell me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade without telling me you haven’t been to NYC in at least a decade.
90 percent of the posts on here are written by tourists who don’t know the city.
Cobble hill is extremely desirable. Carrol gardens is extremely desirable. As is Park Slope and many other neighborhoods you haven’t heard of bc you clearly don’t know NYC. FWIW Brooklyn heights has long been considered a bit passé and boring, although the promenade is pretty. It is not a ‘top’ area to live for most people. Red hook is a desirable and totally fun place to live. Yes, there are many projects in one section but guess what? That’s true of pretty much every NYC neighborhood. The city was designed that way. And there are also many mixed income buildings around as well. Again, this was by design, and the city has ramped up those types of projects. The city is meant to be vibrant and not full of just wealthy white people who are lawyers and finance people. If you want that, go to the suburbs and eat at a chain restaurant. And fyi the public school system, especially at the high school level is amazing. And kids can go to any school they apply to and get in. They are not limited by zone.
Desirability is measured by price. Brooklyn Heights is more expensive than Park Slope and Carroll Gardens because it is more desirable.
No one said the redditor is white. It’s also appalling you assume lawyers and financiers are all whites. There wasn’t some city charter or decree saying it has to be “vibrant” and mixed income. The last three decades of NY say otherwise.
The public schools are horrible. Even if you get into Stuyvesant, it is an unhealthy environment.
So you think that OP should get to live in the most “desirable” (by price) neighborhood in NYC?
Not necessarily. But don’t tell me that anchor neighborhood with less demand is more desirable. It may be more desirable to you or an individual, but amongst the broader population the market says otherwise.
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