Being a New York City lifer isn’t a choice.
The asphalt got in my bloodstream at an early age: I walked to my school in Brooklyn Heights. Dinner was takeout. By the time I was a teenager, my father gave up the family car.
It meant that any fantasies I might have entertained about a very fine house with two cats in the yard were quickly dispelled. (I’m also allergic to cats, but nobody can blame that on NYC.) Still, the pull of suburbia can be strong. You get a lot more house for your money. The public schools are rumored to be excellent. And my wife — another native New Yorker — gets excited every time we set foot outside the five boroughs.
But where does a die-in-the-wilderness (maybe literally) New Yorker go if the suburbs are calling? “There are over 500 towns to move to within commuting distance [of NYC], each with their own personality,” says Alison Bernstein, president and founder of Suburban Jungle, which is one part real estate matchmaker, one part relocation company.
It’s not enough to find a roomy Colonial at a decent price. There are all the other considerations that NYC refugees can’t overlook: Commute time. Schools. Restaurants. Elks Clubs. Suburban Jungle — which is free, and only collects a fee from a seller if you buy a house — tries to hone your search, town-wise.
“There are a handful of brand-name towns, but so many under the radar,” says Bernstein. Her mission became to be “personality-driven rather than house-driven” in finding the ideal town for clients.
The first step is filling out Suburban Jungle’s questionnaire covering the basics: How much money can you put down; the longest commute time you’d tolerate; playroom needs, etc.
Second is a telephone interview with your client coordinator. (In my case, Bernstein herself.) Before the questions start, I begin with a fair word of warning: “I don’t know how to drive. My wife doesn’t, either.”
There is a brief moment of silence.
I add that I’m currently taking lessons. But for now, my wife and I are useless behind the wheel.
“If you move out to the suburbs, you’ll need to drive,” Bernstein states flatly.
I also explain that we’re close to our parents (all New Yorkers), that we dine at hot restaurants, that I’m allergic to the vast majority of trees in the Northeast, and that my wife hates the idea of a commute over 40-minutes.
“We might end the process saying that you’re better off staying in the city,” Bernstein says. Nevertheless, two days later, I receive a 12-attachment e-mail with three towns for a city creature who wants the suburbs.
Town 1: Irvington
This is one of the river towns of Westchester (the collection of settlements along the Hudson River, north of Yonkers), and from the get-go, it should appeal to foodies: A stone’s throw from the train station is MP Taverna, a Greek eatery from one of the culinary stars of New York, Michael Psilakis.
The main drag is as cute as you’re liable to find in Westchester. The Irvington Town Hall Theater is a 100-plus-year-old restored venue (it’s on the National Register of Historic Places), and there’s the Washington Irving Memorial, a tribute to the creator of Rip Van Winkle (and the person from whom the town gets its name).
The median sales price is $1.1 million — a huge uptick from late 2012, when the median was $748,000.
The commute is 50 minutes at rush hour via Metro-North.
Bottom line: Close enough to our 40-minute commute time; nice housing, but slightly pricey. Very good dining options. If we came into a windfall, we could afford Irvington.
Town 2: Pelham & Pelham Manor
We’re not talking about Pelham Bay, which residents of The Bronx will no doubt recognize, but Pelham and Pelham Manor, a town (and a village within a town) that is on the southernmost edge of Westchester, hugging up against The Bronx.
New Yorkers will no doubt plotz when they see the Wolf’s Lane Delicatessen — not necessarily because of the food (run-of-the-mill), but the extremely cool neon sign that looks straight out of the 1950s. They’ll also get excited about the town’s New York Athletic Club, a 30-acre temple to the good life, offering its own yacht club, tennis courts and private island.
The rest of the real estate ain’t bad, either.
Since last July, the median sales price was $607,000 in Pelham; in Pelham Manor, it was $729,500 and the houses (a mix of Colonials, Tudors and you-name-its) are on generous lots and aesthetically beautiful.
The commute is 31 minutes at rush hour via Metro-North.
Bottom line: Well situated; excellent housing and at an affordable price; but dining options leave something to be desired.
Town 3: Glen Ridge/Montclair, NJ
Many New Yorkers shy away from New Jersey, but you see the fallacy of this when you set foot in Glen Ridge, a modest collection of houses — or so one thinks, until you hear the names of the architects: Stanford White, John Russell Pope and Frank Lloyd Wright are all represented. (It also has the cachet of being the site of Tom Cruise’s childhood home, which inspires a few pilgrims per year.)
Glen Ridge might appear a little bare in terms of stuff to do — however, a trip (of about three or four minutes) by car into Montclair dispels this idea. The Wellmont Theater on Seymour Street advertises shows by Cheap Trick and Emblem3. Around the corner is Raymond’s, a coffee shop (with some seriously good hot cocoa), bookstores and clothing boutiques (some big names, some less so).
The median sales price in Glen Ridge was $840,000 this January (a big jump from a year ago, when it was $675,000 in the fourth quarter of 2012).
The commute is about 44 minutes from Glen Ridge at rush hour via New Jersey Transit.
Bottom line: Close enough to the city (although there were delays on NJ Transit when visiting); very good housing stock at a reasonable price; a pretty thriving downtown Montclair. But you need a car if you plan to go back and forth from Montclair.
The bottom bottom line: Irvington probably looked most attractive as a community; Pelham had the real estate that appealed most to me; and Glen Ridge split the difference between the two. But in the postmortem with Bernstein, she confirmed what I already knew — proving, perhaps, that honesty is the most valuable commodity of all. “We would recommend that at this point in your lives, careers and social life, you STAY where you are!” Maybe after the Grosses pass their road tests.