You gave me a point-by-point rebuttal, so I'll give a similar counter-rebuttal.
1) Queens is way too far away from lower Manhattan. Believe me, I tried looking elsewhere. It wasn't much cheaper. The solution I ended up with was moving into a tenement in LES with the girlfriend, who had a lease dating back five years. That was the 'cheap' way to go.
2) I'll quote the managing director on my desk: you need about 500K a year to live normally in Manhattan with a family. That's like 10 families in the flyover states.
4) At least in 2005, if you tried using CL to find an apartment in NY, you'd find it completely taken over by broker spam. As Craig Newmark himself mentioned in a recent interview, de-spamifying the New York CL rentals listings was one of his biggest challenges. I can't imagine it's much different now, although I'd love to see otherwise.
6) Dude, Starbucks isn't a cafe'. The fact you're even counting them proves my point about New Yorkers.
7c) Actually, New York delis can't sell wine by law, probably as a kickback to the liquor store owners. So good luck finding that bottle of Sonoma at 2am on Friday. I never did.
8) Yeah, and try getting to those big box stores from Manhattan. It starts with a subway ride to midtown to rent a car from one of the agencies next to the Queen's Midtown tunnel....
9) Eh, actually they did talk to me, once I dropped the G-bomb, which is kind of the point of the post. I wasn't a startup geek when I was in NYC.
1) Brooklyn or Jersey City is completely doable. I can be at the WTC in 10 minutes from JC. It's where I've met a bunch of Wall Street traders and programmers. I'm paying slightly more than you were and I have a 2500 sq. ft. loft (no broker).
2) Yes, that's Manhattan. Although I lived in a 5 floor walk up in Morningside Heights for $1000/month, 2 person share. About a 15 minute ride to Wall Street on the express train.
6) Ever been around NYU? Tons of places.
8) 23rd between Broadway and 6th is a Home Depot. But then again, you don't go above 14th.
How are you people measuring this time to travel? It seems a lot of people here only count the time on the train, disregarding the time it takes to get to the train station, wait for a train, and get from the station to the destination.
It seems people talking up this method always minimize the journey.
From my front door to the WTC station takes 10-15 minutes, assuming I hit the train when it arrives at the Grove street station. When I was working in an office on Chambers, that meant 15-20 minutes -- door to door -- to get to the office. Subways generally run on a predictable schedule.
I've been in the NYC metro area for 10 years now. 5 of those years were spent freelancing/contracting/starting businesses. Nothing beats the 15 foot commute from my bed to my home office, but I'll take the public transportation system in NYC over the commuting traffic nightmares of the rest of the country any day. Compared to my commute in SoCal, 1-1.5 hours every weekday on the 405 for a drive that takes 25 minutes on the weekend, I absolutely love the NYC public transportation system.
As I've said elsewhere, I'm not disputing your central claim that NYC tech scene is a pale shadow of the Bay Area scene. But your arguments for why that is are bizarre and nonsensical.
1) I was just picking someplace random. It's not a two hour commute from anyplace in the city to any other place (unless you count coming in from as far out as Jamaica or Mt. Vernon during rush hour I guess). But there's plenty of places 10-20 minutes outside of the Financial District that are way less. BTW CL is not the only place that lists apartments. There's a 2 BR in the NYT real estate section for $2k/mo in Ft. Greene right now. That's <25 minutes, bring a book and there's a ton of >500 sq ft. places on the Island for <$2500/mo.
2) I guess that's true if you want to live in a building with a doorman in a 3 bedroom apartment and an au pair. I wouldn't call that living "normally" in Manhattan though. I'm also mystified with the requirement to live directly on the island. There's other boroughs that are much cheaper. At that type of income, you're looking at around $10-$13k/mo in housing costs. There's not a lot of places you can't live in the city for that.
4) I don't disagree, that's why there's a half dozen other cheap/free ways to find apartments in cities.
6) I will agree that the cafe culture in NYC is not nearly as prevalent as places that are ~70deg year round. Heck, there's more cafes in the D.C. area. But they are there. I've actually had some very nice evenings sitting outside sipping a latte and chatting about the weather. But restricting yourself to cafes and only cafes is like going to Paris and talking about how the Tex-Mex food culture sucks. You know the old saying "When in Rome..." In NYC you do delis, coffeeshops and diners, not cafes. The last time I was in the city a month ago I spent half a day in a deli responding to email next to a guy hacking out some code. It's not like they kick you out so long as you buy something.
7c) All I can say is, I've never had a problem finding cheap CA wine in the city. I usually go out and pick some up and bring it back to my hotel instead of paying $30-60/btl at a restaurant. Much more satisfying and not terribly hard to find - did nobody in your social group in 3 years ever figure out where to buy a bottle of wine?
8) I think my point was that it's not necessary, nor does it make sense to equate big box hardware stores with a hacker's paradise. I mean, I guess if "hacking" has changed meaning to mean "I need some lumber and an industrial dehumidifier" then you make sense. Calling SF such a place because you can get all your gardening and plumbing needs taken care of at one store just simply is nonsensical.
9) Hang around superficial people and they'll expect superficial things.
Choose a random cafe in SF, and I bet it will not be filled with hacker-types. Choose a random person in SF to talk to, and I bet they will not care about startups either. It's all about who your friends are and where you hang out.
Did the OP actually try going to any NYC hacker meetups? Did he go to any NYC hacker spaces? When he was at parties, did he even mention his interest in startups, or did he himself perpetuate the myths he describes?
I worked 2 blocks from Wall St. for 4 years and came in from Hells Kitchen in midtown (20 minute total walk + train ride). Here is an apartment which is a few blocks from Times Square, Central Park, and Broadway's theater district for $1,295 per month. Hell's kitchen is packed with great bars, and restaurants, pizza, cafe's with free internet and cheap awesome Thai and Chinese food for delivery. It's 15 minutes from NYU and 30 minutes from Columbia University: http://www.trulia.com/rental/3011545407--W-48th-New-York-NY-...
Well, every development job I've had has been a ten am start. Most people I know out here(finance, advertising, marketing) start a ten too. Then again all of my buddies that work in finance work in boutique agencies so maybe it's different at the big shops.
1) Queens is way too far away from lower Manhattan. Believe me, I tried looking elsewhere. It wasn't much cheaper. The solution I ended up with was moving into a tenement in LES with the girlfriend, who had a lease dating back five years. That was the 'cheap' way to go.
2) I'll quote the managing director on my desk: you need about 500K a year to live normally in Manhattan with a family. That's like 10 families in the flyover states.
4) At least in 2005, if you tried using CL to find an apartment in NY, you'd find it completely taken over by broker spam. As Craig Newmark himself mentioned in a recent interview, de-spamifying the New York CL rentals listings was one of his biggest challenges. I can't imagine it's much different now, although I'd love to see otherwise.
6) Dude, Starbucks isn't a cafe'. The fact you're even counting them proves my point about New Yorkers.
7c) Actually, New York delis can't sell wine by law, probably as a kickback to the liquor store owners. So good luck finding that bottle of Sonoma at 2am on Friday. I never did.
8) Yeah, and try getting to those big box stores from Manhattan. It starts with a subway ride to midtown to rent a car from one of the agencies next to the Queen's Midtown tunnel....
9) Eh, actually they did talk to me, once I dropped the G-bomb, which is kind of the point of the post. I wasn't a startup geek when I was in NYC.
That might be enough for one reply....