Communities
Every city is comprised of neighborhoods, but New York City carries this, like many things, to extremes. Residents often proclaim themselves as being from a neighborhood before they profess to city residency.
New York City is made up of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. Each borough is likewise made up of neighborhoods, each with its own identity and real estate market.
Manhattan
Wall Street. Yes, THAT Wall Street. The city’s first district – created literally by the wall built by settlers to keep the indigenous Indians out – today is the epicenter of the nation’s economy; home to the New York Stock Exchange and the scar left by the loss of the World Trade Center.
Harlem
Harlem is hot … and not just the music at the legendary Apollo Theater. There is growth, expansion and an influx of new, affluent residents, many seeking and finding housing and office space bargains.
Greenwich Village
Long a magnet for counter-culturalists as far back as the late 1800s, Greenwich Village has been the locus of change and its residents have been catalysts of reform. Like many places in the city, the Village became too expensive for the people who lived there and they moved on. It is now home to some of the city’s nicest and most expensive residences.
East Village
Many of those who left Greenwich Village settled here. Housing has been a source of concern for many years as students, artists and the well-off young professionals have challenged for places to live.
SoHo
Its name means “South of Houston Street” (pronounced HOUSE-ton). A close relative of the Village, the rather expensive SoHo of today is home to many folks who used to be called Yuppies, some mega-chic restaurants and a lot of shopping. To the south are Chinatown and Tribeca
Tribeca
More New York shorthand, this time for “Triangle Below Canal (street)”. This former commercial district has become residential in the last 40 years; home to many actors artists and the Tribeca Film Festival, making some call it Hollywood on the Hudson.
Upper West Side
Artists and actors of all financial stripes call this home. So does Lincoln Center and the AOL/Time Warner complex at Columbus Circle. The Donald has a high rise in this neighborhood between Central Park on the East and the Hudson River on the west. To the north is Morningside Heights and Columbia University.
Upper East Side
The street names say it all: Park Avenue. Fifth Avenue. Madison Avenue. All of these trump Boardwalk on the real world monopoly board. Same for shopping: Tiffany’s. Barney’s. Armani. Versace. Prada. Bring the gold card.
Lower East Side
South of the East Village and east of SoHo, this neighborhood is an eclectic mix of residential and commercial. Its history traces to immigrants living in the city’s most notorious slums, quite the contrast to the gentrification going on today.
Chinatown
Home to America’s largest Asian community, this neighborhood, ironically, is also home to New York’s City Hall. Hurly-burly shopping and every kind of Asian food imaginable.
Little Italy
Its name says it all. The Feast of San Gennaro each fall fills the narrow streets of this working class neighborhood.
Gramercy
Comfortable and popular residential neighborhood. Of late it has become part of New York’s high tech enclave known as Silicone Alley. Pricey but nice is this neighborhood north of the East Village.
Chelsea
North of Greenwich Village, chic Chelsea’s culturally-diverse population fills its many brownstones and lofts. Many shops and even more clubs and restaurants.
Meat Packing District
This Chelsea neighbor really was the slaughterhouse of the city. Now it is among the hottest of any hot spot in the city, including places to live; an area in transition.
Midtown
This IS the middle of Manhattan (in every sense of the word) and has a little bit of everything. Diverse housing is available, some even is affordable. This also is what the rest of the world sees of New York City: Rockefeller Center, Bloomingdale’s, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Central Park is its northern entrance.
Hell’s Kitchen
The section of the city began life as the squalid tenements filled primarily with German and Irish immigrants. Located between the Theater District and the Hudson River, today it is a neighborhood in transition; there is a proliferation of luxury apartments.
Times Square
Even a few years ago, Times Square – even though they dropped the ball here on New Year’s Eve – was the city’s seediest neighborhood. Now it has a Disney Store; the change has been that dramatic.
Brooklyn
Cross the Brooklyn Bridge and you are in the other New York. If it were a city separate from the rest of New York, Brooklyn would be the fourth largest in the U.S. with 2.5 million people. Often best remembered for what it has lost – the baseball Dodgers and the Giants – Brooklyn is a collection of neighborhoods: Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Sunset Park, Park Slope, Greenpoint, each with its own, usually ethnic, identity. Calling Brooklyn Manhattan’s bedroom may be accurate, but it is not fair. Brooklyn is much more, and there is a revival afoot.
Queens
Affordable is how many people describe this borough, the most ethnically-diverse county in the U.S., and property revitalization continues as Manhattan rents climb.
Attached to the western end of Long Island, Queens is home to 2.2 million residents, many from elsewhere. Astoria is home to the largest Greek population outside Greece, and Richmond Hill has the largest number of Sikhs outside India.
Queens is vitally important to New York and anyone coming here on business or pleasure. It is home to both LaGuardia and Kennedy airports. It’s also home to the New York Mets and Shea Stadium, and the U.S. Open Tennis Center in Flushing.
Bronx
Located above the northern end of Manhattan, The Bronx is a dichotomy. While it is home to Yankee Stadium, the world-famous Bronx Zoo, Fordham University and 1.3 million people, many of those people live in some of the city’s neediest neighborhoods. But the Bronx, in many ways, is home to the essential New Yorker. Woody Allen, Billy Joel, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Al Pacino and Jerry Orbach were born here.
The Bronx is also home to the beginnings of hip-hop culture and music. And, yes, the derisive Bronx Cheer was created here. Even in this densely populated borough, about a quarter of the Bronx is parkland.
Staten Island
This former pastoral farm setting has become a working-class residential locale. It is the third largest of the boroughs, but has only 5 percent of the city’s residents.
Staten Island is home to St. John’s University, Wagner College and the College of Staten Island, so higher education offers numerous employment opportunities.