Singles in NYC

With spring approaching and soon-to-be recent college grads start planning their next move – we decided to compile a list of the best New York neighborhoods for singles. There are many good neighborhoods to choose from – filled with parks, restaurants, shops, outdoor cafes and cultural institutions as good as any in the world.

To narrow down our exhaustive research – the factors that played an important role in ranking these neighborhoods are the numbers of restaurants, bars, nightclubs, health clubs, culture, the population of young people in the area, median age and crime figures.

Education and family-oriented factors were not heavy considerations (they’ll make their appearance in our “families looking to relocate in New York list.”)  The financial factors leaned on affordability.

So, without further delay, here are 10 of the top city neighborhoods where singles will feel most at home, surrounded by the things that make New York City great for them.

1.     Gramercy/Flatiron: With a median age in the mid 30s, you know there’s fun to be had here. Any night of the week, and we mean any night of the week, walk down Park Avenue in the teens or Irving Place around Gramercy Park, and you’ll smile to your heart’s delight at the hustle and bustle of people in their 20s and 30s–the women dressed in short skirts, the men with ties loose at their neck–flirting and laughing, and in short, trying to become unsingle, for the night or longer.

2.     East Village: Somehow this neighborhood once known for sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll keeps getting better. If this place were a rock band, in the 1990s it would have been a raucous merging of the Sex Pistols meets the Rolling Stones. Today, it’s more mellow indie rock meets John Mayer.

But the mellowing of the East Village has managed to draw more singles looking for value in exchange for pristine streets. A whopping 86% rent here, and it’s not small with a population of 77,000.

3.     Long Island City / Hunters Point: No surprise, Long Island City has arrived. With over 8 buildings attracting recent college graduates with lower prices, better views and a six minute train ride to Grand Central Station, this enclave on the East River staring at the United Nations Building will finally get the credit it deserves. It’s heaven for singles who don’t mind living a few minutes away from the center of it all and sharing apartments.

4.     Wall Street: Imagine an entire New York City street dedicated to the pick-up scene. Now imagine one of the oldest streets in Manhattan, one block off the Southern tip of the island, filled with cobble stones and historic buildings with colonial cornices and a roof line filled roof lines.  Welcome to Stone St., a little stretch of New York City with five bars, five restaurants, a wine bar, and a steak house housed in one of the most historic buildings in the city with a wine cave and tiny nooks and crannies filled with bottles of liquor and tables for two.

Yes, Wall Street’s loss is a single person with some money in his pocket’s gain. Filled with rental buildings coming to life in old office skyscrapers, this neighborhood has become a young person’s dream with studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms every thirty feet. Once considered a dead zone at night, newcomers enjoy the peaceful feel of the place once the work crowd has gone home.

5.     BAM: Move over Williamsburg. There’s a new hot singles neighborhood in Brooklyn with less crime, more culture, and less pretension. It’s the area around the Brooklyn Academy Music, which straddles downtown and Fort Greene.  Anchored by the Brooklyn Academy Music, arguably the borough’s top cultural resource, this neighborhood has the constant buzz of entertainment and intellectual curiosity.  There are also great places to go and get drunk. Mo’s is a bar just blocks away which attracts every ethnicity under the sun. Chez Oscar’s in nearby Ft. Greene is a French restaurant with a bohemian feel. The Alibi, full of Pratt students old and young, is one of New York’s last great dive bars.

6.     Williamsburg: With a median age of 26 and male/female population split down the middle at 50%/50%, Williamsburg is known throughout New York as one of the best places to live affordably in the city. Rents hover around $1,600 in some areas for a one bedroom and bars, chic boutiques, coffee shops, and funky restaurants are almost around every corner.

7.     Hell’s Kitchen: You have to have a few more dollars to live here with the median sales price hovering around $740,000, but Hell’s Kitchen and environs farther west still draw young people year after year.

Why? Simple. It’s always been gritty and cool. Just a stone’s throw from the lights of Broadway, hundreds of actors and theatre musicians live here, meaning the late night bar scene is as strong as any other neighborhood in the city.

8.     Yorkville: It’s easy to be single in Yorkville, this neighborhood on the upper East Side with one of the most popular stretches of bars and restaurants going up and down Second and Third Avenue from 79th St. to 86th St. Great supermarkets, small food shops, wine stores, movies theatres, and the 86th St. shopping corridor bring services right to people’s doorsteps.

Proximity to Central Park means sports and exercise junkies love this neighborhood, which has a diverse population and very low crime index. Rents in the area can be low, as in $1450 for a studio near First or York Avenue. Closer to Third Avenue and the 86th Street subway stop, the same size apartment will cost you closer to $2,000.

9.     Fort Greene: With over 83% of the neighborhood single, Fort Greene is becoming a hotspot for singles. Busy Dekalb Avenue is all restaurants, bars, and food shops with a few wine stores and boutiques thrown in. Closer to Lafayette and Fulton Avenues are salons, more bars, and more clothing boutiques that range in style from traditional African garb to new emerging fashion designers.

10. Astoria: Not many neighborhoods in the city or the world, maybe, are more fun than Astoria after 7pm on a weekend night. The streets are packed with singles and couples of all ages speaking several languages, eating Greek foods, packing the Irish bars, and enjoying the outdoor Middle Eastern cafes along Steinway St.

This area is for singles on a budget looking to share apartments, be in the middle of international New York, and have close proximity to Manhattan. The transformation of this neighborhood from quiet family enclave with traditional values rooted in the Old Country (pick one–Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy) to hipster hood found by value conscious New Yorker’s not wanting to pay an arm and a leg for a place to live is almost complete. Best of all, the two groups, the old and the new, live together in harmony.

Following is a list of some of the activities throughout the city.  Of and by the way -”Laissez les bons temps rouler!”  (“Let the Good Times Roll!”)

Fat Tuesday Events in NYC

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Sally Albright: At least I got the apartment.

Harry Burns: That’s what everyone says. But, really, what’s so hard about finding an apartment? What you do is look in the obituary section. You see who died, find out where they lived, and tip the doorman. What they could do to make it easier is combine the two. You know, Mr. Kline died yesterday, leaving behind a wife, two children, and a spacious three bedroom apartment with a wood burning fireplace.

The real question is – should you venture into the arduous task of navigating the New York Real Estate World on your own?

There are a lot of reasons to use an agent, especially now that most landlords are paying the fees anyway.

First off, why spend your time researching and running around when an agent already knows all the information on buildings, prices, amenities, etc.  Okay – here’s where we have to add the caveat that you need to work with a good agent, someone who listens to what you want and works within your budget.  It will save you time, money and aggravation.

Also, not all buildings have full time rental offices, so it’s difficult to gain access.  It’s a big city.  Running around trying to find supers is a really unpleasant way to waste an entire weekend.  Also, your agent can follow up on apartment availability for you.  I had a client recently who wanted a 1 bedroom apartment in a building that doesn’t have a lot of inventory.  He had some flexibility regarding his move in date and I stayed in touch with the management office of that building to find out as soon as a 1 bedroom became available.  I had his paperwork submitted before the apartment hit the market.

Your agent will know in advance if you qualify for certain apartment buildings.  Landlords have different requirements (income, pets, etc.) and your agent can weed out the ones that won’t work for you.  That might not seem like a problem but wait until you fall in love with an apartment that you can’t get into.  Every apartment after that will fall short of the perfect one that would love to have you as a tenant but unfortunately doesn’t take out of state guarantors (or whatever your situation is).

Ultimately, why not have a professional working for you for free?  Again, since most landlords are paying the broker fees right now – work with someone who understands what you want and will help you find it.  Remember the most important point of the situation is that your agent works for you (even if you aren’t personally paying the fee).  If they don’t seem to get what you’re looking for or don’t seem to have the inventory you need – fire them.  It’s that simple!

The FDR memorial designed by architect Louis I. Kahn is finally underway.  The ground breaking happened one month ago with the official ground breaking being planned for this summer.

FDR Memorial Wheelchair

The project was conceived 40 years ago when the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (then known as the Four Freedoms Foundation) initiated the planning of a memorial in New York.

In 1973, Roosevelt Island was officially renamed (from Welfare Island) and plans for a memorial were disclosed. But the project encountered what William J. vanden Heuvel, who founded the Roosevelt Institute in Hyde Park, N.Y., to preserve the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and has been instrumental in raising money for the memorial, called “a perfect storm” of obstacles – most pertaining to funding.

In an ironic twist, the memorial is finally getting underway during what many have called the biggest recession since the great depression, which FDR shepherded this country through.

The memorial is being built on the southernmost part of Roosevelt Island, an area that currently houses another Roosevelt Island icon/curiosity – the ruins of the Small Pox hospitals.

Visitors to the memorial will enter past a stand of copper beech trees. They will ascend a monumental stair to allees of 150 linden trees flanking a sloped lawn and culminating in a granite-lined open-air plaza called the “room,” which will house a bust of the former president and will be engraved with the Four Freedoms (speech and religion and an absence of want and fear) he proclaimed in a 1941 speech.

People who donate a tree will have their names engraved on a granite parapet with relevant Roosevelt references.

Just north of the memorial, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation is completing Southpoint Park, 10 acres of “green rooms” and “wild gardens” surrounding an abandoned smallpox hospital. Southpoint, a partnership with the Trust for Public Land, is scheduled to open next fall.

Now that ground has been broken for the memorial, Mr. vanden Heuvel was relatively sanguine about the long wait. He pointed out that the memorial in Washington to Abraham Lincoln, who died in 1865, wasn’t dedicated until 1922.

While I always read the New York magazine lists – “Best Bargains,” “Hippest Restaurants” or “Cheapest Lawyers Who Will Still Keep You Out of Jail,” I always take it with a grain of salt since it can be highly subjective (after all, I waited on line for about 2 hours at Artichoke pizza on 14^th street to have a huge “am I missing something?” dining experience).

However, this list has incorporated some semi-scientific data into their calculations and resulting listing ranks.  They compiled data that the Bloomberg administration gathers regarding life in New York (every element of life in the city—from potholes to infant-mortality rates is recorded), used sites like Yelp to provide a reasonably objective perspective on the popularity of neighborhood bars and restaurants, StreetEasy.com and Zillow.com to assess the costs of apartment space per square foot.   “Even, ethnic diversity is now broken down in much finer gradients than black and white: You want to know how many Albanian-Americans there are in Sheepshead Bay? The answer is 734.”

They broke down this information into the following categories, weighted in order of importance:

Housing Cost: 25 percent
Transit: 13 percent
Shopping and Services: 9 percent
Safety: 8 percent
Restaurants: 8 percent
Schools: 6 percent
Diversity: 6 percent
Creative Capital: 6 percent
Housing Quality: 5 percent
Green Space: 5 percent
Health and Environment: 5 percent
Nightlife: 4 percent

The list gives an excellent evaluation.   Obviously, every New York renter’s priorities are different (Nightlife and Schools seem to run in opposition to each other) but you’ll get a comprehensive overview of 50 neighborhoods.  A pretty well-rounded choice of neighborhoods, as well, although a little heavy on Brooklyn but it was nice to see Staten Island wasn’t overlooked.

For those who want to cut to the chase – here are New York Magazines top 50 Most Livable Neighborhoods:

1. Park Slope
15th St. to Flatbush Ave., Prospect Park West to Fourth Ave.

2. Lower East Side
Canal St. to Houston St., East River to Bowery

3. Sunnyside
Greenpoint Ave. and First Calvary Cemetery to Northern Blvd. (along the census tract), 44th St. and Locust to Van Dam St.

4. Cobble Hill & Boerum Hill
Union St. to Wyckoff St/Warren St., Fourth Ave. to the harbor

5. Greenpoint
N. 14th St./Nassau Ave./McGuiness Blvd. to Newtown Creek, Newtown Creek to East River

6. Brooklyn Heights
Atlantic Ave. to Old Fulton St., East River to Court St./Cadman Plaza

7. Carroll Gardens & Gowanus
15th St. to Union St., Fourth Ave. to Interstate 278 (BQE)

8. Murray Hill
34th St. to 40th St., East River to Madison Ave.

9. Prospect Heights
Eastern Pkwy. to Atlantic Ave., Franklin Ave. to Flatbush Ave.

10. East Village
Houston St. to 14th St., East River to Fourth Ave.

11. Astoria
36th Ave. to Twentieth Ave./Con Ed Power Plant/19th Ave., Ditmars Blvd./BQE /Northern Blvd. to East River

12. Bay Ridge
65th St. to Interstate 278 (BQE), Belt Pwy. to Shore Rd.

13. Woodside
Calamus Ave./Maurice Ave./Maspeth Ave. to Northern Blvd., BQE to 44th St. and Locust

14. Tribeca
Vesey St. to Canal St., Broadway to Hudson River

15. Jackson Heights
Roosevelt Ave. to Grand Central Parkway, Junction Blvd./Jackson Mill Rd./94th St. to BQE

16. Long Island City
Newtown Creek to 36th St., Northern Blvd./Queens Blvd./Van Dam St. to East River

17. Midtown East
40th St. to 59th St., East River to Fifth Ave.

18. Fort Greene & Clinton Hill
Atlantic Ave. to Nassau Ave./Flushing Ave., Pratt Institute/Classon Ave. to Flatbush Ave.

19. Dumbo & Downtown Brooklyn
Dumbo: Sands St. to East River, Brooklyn Bridge (through to the Brooklyn Navy Yard) to Manhattan Bridge
Downtown Brooklyn: Wyckoff St./Warren St. to Sands St., Flatbush Ave. to Court St./Cadman Plaza

20. Williamsburg
Flushing Ave. to North 14th St./Nassau Ave./McGuinness Blvd./Meeker Ave., Newtown Creek to Kent Ave.

21. Central Greenwich Village
Houston St. to 14th St., Fourth Ave. to Sixth Ave.

22. Flushing, Queens
Horace Harding Expressway to Willets Pt. Blvd., Francis Lewis Blvd./Utopia Pkwy. to Whitestone Expressway and Van Wyck

23. Battery Park & Financial District
Battery Park City: Southern tip of Manhattan to Vesey St., Broadway to Hudson River
Financial District: Chambers St. to southern tip of Manhattan, East River to Broadway

24. West Village
Houston St. to 14th St., Sixth Ave. to Hudson River

25. Flatiron & Gramercy
14th St. to 34th St., East River to Broadway

26. Chelsea
14th St. to 29th St., Broadway to Hudson River

27. Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
Sheepshead Bay to Ave. P/Kings Highway, Nostrand Ave./Gerritsen Ave./Knapp St./Shell Bank Ave. to Ocean Pkwy.

28. Soho
Canal St. to Houston St., Lafayette St. to Hudson River

29 Nolita & Little Italy
Canal St. to Houston St., Bowery to Lafayette St.

30. Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
Atlantic Ocean at the Riegelmann Boardwalk to Neptune Ave., Manhattan Beach at Corbin Place to Ocean Pwy.

31. Inwood
Dyckman St. to northern tip of Manhattan, Harlem River to Hudson River

32. Corona Park, Queens
Long Island Expressway to Northern Blvd., Van Wyck to Junction Blvd.

33. Red Hook, Brooklyn
Red Hook peninsula between Buttermilk Channel, Gowanus Bay, and Gowanus Canal to Hamilton Ave

34. Midtown West
29th St. to 59th St., Madison Ave. to Hudson River

35. Upper East Side
59th St. to 96th St., East River to Fifth Ave.

36. Upper West Side
59th St. (excluding Columbus Circle) to 110th St., Central Park West to Hudson River

37. Washington Heights
155th St. to Dyckman St., Harlem River to Hudson River

38. Riverdale, the Bronx
Harlem River to Yonkers, Van Cortlandt Park / Broadway to Hudson River

39. Sunset Park, Brooklyn
65th St. to 36th St. (along the south end of Greenwood Cemetery), Ninth Ave and Borough Park to Upper New York Bay

40. New Dorp, Staten Island
Cedar Grove Ave.to Staten Rapid Transit Railroad, Elm Tree Ave. to Oak Ave.

41. West Brighton, Staten Island
Forest Ave. to Richmong Ter., Bard Ave. to Clove Rd.

42. Chinatown
Chambers St. to Canal St., East River to Centre St.

43. St. George, Staten Island
Victory Blvd. to Richmond Ter., Bay St. to Westervelt Ave.

44. Belmont, the Bronx
E. 183rd St. to Fordham Rd., Southern Blvd. to Webster Ave.
Cheap rent ($675 on average), terrific Italian food, lots of Fordham students, but also high crime, tenement housing, and poor transit.

45. Co-op City, the Bronx
Relatively low crime rates and a diverse and distinctly middle-class population, but it’s more than an hour’s commute into Manhattan.

46. Morningside Heights
110th St. to 155th St., St. Nicholas Ave. to the Hudson River

47. Roosevelt Island
Although technically part of Manhattan, Roosevelt Island is an Island between Manhattan and Queens – running parallel to the East Side between East 59th Street to East 80th Street.

48. Bedford Park, the Bronx
Hall of Fame Terrace/Aqueduct Ave./Jerome Ave./Fordham Rd. to Woodlawn Cemetery/Moshulu Golf Course/Gun Hill Rd./ Jerome Ave., Webster Ave. and Bronx Park to Golden Ave. and Harlem River

49. Parkchester, the Bronx
Cross Bronx Expwy – Westchester Ave. to East Tremont Ave., Castle Hill to Bronx River Pkwy.

50. Harlem
Central Harlem: 110th St. to Harlem River, 5th Ave. to St. Nicholas Ave.
East Harlem: 96th St. to Harlem River, East River to 5th Ave.

New York City Tenants' Blacklist

When most people apply for an apartment in New York City, they have a general idea of where their credit rating stands.  Sure, there are always some surprises but, unless there’s a lot of inaccurate information on your report, you know if the leasing representative is going to look up at you from the credit report with a big smile or not.

However, there is one housing credit curve ball that many tenants don’t even realize exists – the Tenant Blacklist.  Sounds scary and archaic – yes.  Does it exist?  Absolutely.

Any tenant who’s been in housing court for an eviction proceeding stands the chance of being on the blacklist.  Whether you fell behind on your rent or purposely withheld rent due to problems in your apartment.  Screening companies collect these names and sell them to landlords to help them spot potentially troublesome tenants.  These reports include information on actions taken against a prospective tenant in housing court.  Unfortunately, often these screening reports lack meaningful detail regarding the reasons why the tenant was in court or the final decision in the case.  The lists are comprised only of names, not social security numbers, so it doesn’t distinguish between “John Smiths,” for example.  So if your name is similar to someone’s name who has been in housing court, you might be denied an apartment based on that alone.  Also, there is no further detail regarding the cause of the court case or any resolutions.

Even if you were perfectly correct in withholding rent and won your case – your name could wind up on the list.  The prospect of being added to the list can definitely stop someone from pursuing action against their landlord.

“There are a lot of tenants who won’t withhold rent or complain to get repairs done because they’re afraid of getting blacklisted,” said James B. Fishman, a lawyer for plaintiffs in a 2004 class-action suit against First American Registry, a national tenant screening company (it is now called First Advantage SafeRent).

However, there is finally a bright spot in this murky situation.  After hearing complaints from potential renters (Louise Seeley, the executive director of the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court, a nonprofit agency that helps people navigate the housing court system, said her organization received 5 to 10 calls a week from potential tenants whose names were on the list) the City Council has introduced new legislation to help tenants.  It’s called the Tenant Fair Chance Act and it requires landlords, property managers and brokers to disclose which screening company, if any, they plan to use for these background checks.  Starting this summer, tenants will have the chance to order their files from the firms in question, and correct any inaccuracies.

“We began to hear from constituents throughout the city that they were getting rejected for apartments and they couldn’t figure out why,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. “They had an albatross around their necks, and they didn’t even know it.”  “Tenants need to be able to exercise their rights in court without fearing that it will prevent them from ever renting another apartment,” said Council Member Dan Garodnick, who authored the Tenant Protection Act of 2007 and introduced the Tenant Fair Chance Act.  “If simply asserting those rights will land tenants on a do-not-rent list, then we need to make sure that they know when these lists are being used and how to correct inaccurate information on them.”

The City Council is not able to stop the practice of selling this information but tenants finally have knowledge about their personal reports and a means of responding.  This legislation simply levels the playing field between landlord and tenant so that both parties have a clearer understanding before entering into a contract.

To contact Councilperson Quinn for further information, you can go to http://council.nyc.gov/html/members/contact_the_speaker.shtml

http://www.InFocusRealtyNYC.com