Customer Reviews

If You're Thinking of Living in ...All About 115 Great Neighborhoods in and Around New York

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book paints **every** neighborhood in and around NY as being lovely and quaint, even if in reality they are filthy, graffiti-drenched, and not particularly safe. This book complicated my move to NY because, based on it's misinformative "rosey" neighborhood profiles, I went and looked at apartments in a lot of neighborhoods that were filthy and scary. I finally found a great neighborhood to live in, but this book had been no help at all. The sad truth is that not every place in NY is a great neighborhood to live. It's a big city and you have to be careful and avoid the bad places. This book **sinfully** ignores this. It's like they're bending over backwards trying to please every neighborhood council in the city instead of being accurate. I've never felt so ripped off about a book purchase before.

PLEASE NOTE:...if you want to move to New York, this book would be a great place to start. It tells you everything you'd want to know about the hundreds (115, to be exact) of places you can choose to live here, with information on schools, recreation, commuting, house prices, history, and community atmosphere. The perfect book for anyone coming to New York or contemplating moving around in New York

For many individuals living or planning to move to New York City or its' neighboring suburbs, getting to know the characteristics of the area's many diverse neighborhoods can be very difficult. Moving into the wrong neighborhood can often be both dangerous and unproductive for many outsiders (and even natives) who want to move to due to reasons relating to crime, finances, or proximity to jobs.

Well the New York Times has compiled a book of essays about the area's best communities to live in, which should make the job of choosing the right neighborhood much more easier. "If You're Thinking..." provides plenty of statistical and residential information that will prove helpful to anyone looking for new communities in the city. Although the book is very outdated when it comes to rents (a 2 bedroom in story has shot up to $1,200 in 1999) and the author doesn't really cover the recent changes in the ethnic compositions of some neighborhoods (Astoria, Queens is becoming heavily Brazilian, Colombian, and Mexican; Riverdale in the Bronx has seen a huge influx of Dominican immigrants; Inwood in Manhattan has also a huge Dominican population; etc..).

Overall this is a good book to review your choices before moving to the area, however I feel that an updated version is needed in the market. If you want to check out updated neighborhood information, then search on the web, however read this book to get a good picture of life in the suburbs (most of the info in the book is still up-to-date).

This book is good for broad overviews of the various neighborhoods in and around New York City. Thus it might be particularly helpful for the reader who is not at all familiar with the Big Apple and its surrounding communities. Not a good source for information on apartment rental markets. Info favors familes with children over the young, single professional.

It's unclear whether I'm moving to New York at this point, but I didn't want to wait to find out for sure before I got a head start on knowing where I would want to live. I was so happy when I stumbled upon thisbook. Not only does it list neighborhoods in New York, but also in N.J. and Conn. And for each neighborhood, it tells how long it takes to get to Manhattan, so "outsiders" have a point of reference. The only thing lacking in this book is it doesn't contain pictures, but the descriptions are so vivid and thoughtful, it doesn't matter that much. There are, however, some detailed maps, which makes getting used to the geography easier. I highly recommend it.

I have lived in Manhattan for 13 years, and when it was time to buy I picked up this book. I found it fun to read and helpful in understanding for example the commuting times to each area featured, etc. However it does not include every neighborhood, in fact the area where we finally purchased (Ft. Greene Bklyn) isn't even included in the book. Buy this book used, along with the Zany's guide and you'll get the full picture without spending too much $.

2007 is listed as the pub date for this kindle edition, but it's actually an electronic version of a 1998 book. When you read the sample, you discover that prices, etc. are as of 1998, making the book pretty much useless as a guide to moving to New York. Things change so quickly that this would make many of the neighborhood descriptions no longer very useful as well. In general, beware of Kindle publication dates, since they're the date that the book was added to Kindle and may be very different from when the book really came out.

Book published in 1999, and is in ***serious*** need of updating. NY real estate has transformed immensely in the last 7 years (as have most major cities in the US). For that reason, I found the book to be of very little use to my move.

I was surprised to find out that areas I thought should be in this guide were not and that areas I wouldn't consider "around New York" were. To me, a neighborhood "in and around New York" might include some NJ towns, but to give as much time to the towns listed in NJ and CT, I think the book would more accurately be titled "all about popular communities in the tri-state area."

I'm disappointed I bought this guide.

This book provides a wonderful overview of New York City and gives honest information regarding living choices. Raising children in a big city can be a difficult task and this resource makes selecting a kid-safe neighborhood easier.