Comment by ics

I live in a 3BR which is currently around $2.5k/month in beautiful Brooklyn just minutes from the A, C, and G trains. Next week I'll hear back as to whether or not I also have a $1k/mo studio with yard in a well-kept brownstone at the belt of Morningside Park. Most of my friends with studios pay around $1.5k to be in either newly renovated units in not-so-hot areas (upper reaches of Harlem for example) or tiny (200 sq ft) and run down units in more hot areas such as the East Village. None of these are rent controlled or stabilized. Your numbers are the worst case– maybe what you should budget for coming from out of town and looking for a first place, but certainly not the norm if you're looking on a budget. A quick search just now shows at least a couple good listings in the $2400-2900 range for 2BR in the East Village. In my opinion the two big takeaways from these discussions are that (1) New York is what you make of it and (2) New York, due in no small part to its transit system, is bigger than just downtown or uptown Manhattan. I've never had the amenities you listed even growing up so it's likely I don't appreciate them in the same way but there's plenty of other things the city offers to make up for it.