After deciding I, too, wanted to go to school in New York and live a unique lifestyle of adventure and thrift stores, I found myself a year later moving back to the very state I had originally rejected, New Jersey. There were a handful of reasons why I had decided to backtrack my life into the continental United States (friends, family, nature), but, as a wise man once told me not too very long ago, it all came down to one thing: the money.
My entire Sophomore year as a student at Eugene Lang College was an experiment to test my personal endurance, and to prove that commuting from New Jersey to lower Manhattan was not only possible, but incredibly reasonable in comparison to both dorming and living in the outer boroughs of New York.
Bloomfield: Right near Rutherford, home to NJ's only Medieval Times (!!!)Freshman year I chose to live in the fine Loeb Hall, located right by the corner of 12th and 3rd, a happy skip into the heart of the East Village. The room, a two bedroom suite that fit up to four people, cost around $7,500 a semester, equaling to a rough figure of about $15,000 the entire year, or almost $1900 a month. This comes as no surprise, as a
recent article declared The New School to have the most expensive dorm rates of the entire country.
It was fun to prance around New York with no responsibilities for a while, but the reality of that figure left me crying inside for my poor father, who was essentially paying for me to live in a room with less floor space than a shed. I resolved to find myself a good half-way point with my friends in New Jersey; we settled, not much different than the Pilgrims, on the tiny, unknown rock of Bloomfield, a mere 11.5 miles from New York City.
The two bedroom apartment, at 644 sq. feet total, costs $1099 a month. Between three people, we contribute around $370. This figure includes only heat and water. With the addition of internet, gas and electric, it comes to about $390 a month. The apartment complex is not only a block away from a gas station, a grocery store, and the Garden State parkway entrance, but is also a hot minute away from Montclair, a town which boasts some great restaurants, stores, and the Wellmont Theater, sponsored by the Bowery Presents. Within the last month, I have seen Wilco (two times) and The Flaming Lips there.
Back in Brooklyn, depending on your neighborhood, rent can almost equal the amount that Loeb Hall does. At 600 square feet with two bedrooms, Christopher Gloria and Michael Duke pay $2000 a month to live in Williamsburg, about three blocks away from the Graham Stop on the L. Brian Salvatore, an NYU student, has a total rent of $1870 for an East Williamsburg three bedroom apartment, with his share coming out to $620. Daniel London, a Grad student at CUNY, lives in a 600 sq. foot apartment for $1200 total, paying $600 between himself and a
roommate.
My lovely living room back in Jerz. (Note: Missing usual mess)
From Bloomfield, it takes me around an hour from the moment I step out my door to the moment I get off the subway on 12th street. I use a free commuter shuttle bus offered by the city of Bloomfield, which takes me to the NJ Transit station. An 8:27 am train normally gets me into Penn Station at around 9:05 and hopping on the express 2 or 3 train gets me into the New School "campus" at exactly 9:10-9:15. The only disadvantage is the huge added expense of $640 yearly for NJ Transit tickets, and $160 in subway fares.
Brooklyn commutes vary depending on the neighborhood. Chris works on 14th St. in Manhattan, so his commute is around fifteen minutes. Danny's commute to midtown Manhattan, however, is up to 50 minutes. Mike, who works on Wall Street, has a commute of around 35-40 minutes. A normal NJ Transit ride from the Bloomfield/Montclair area averages 30-35 minutes.
I am ready to call New Jersey a completely viable candidate for other New School settlers. Paying almost half of what some people are splitting in the Brooklyn area, my only real strife has only ever been the commuting process. But the commuting time has only ever been to me a time to read, relax, and wonder how horrible it would be if I were actually commuting from somewhere really out there, like Stroudsburg, PA, or something.
On the verge of calling myself a pioneer, I like to think of myself as one of the founding New School settlers that are beginning to spill out into every cheap orifice of the New York area. Bloomfield and Montclair already have everything a college aged kid could want: crazy ethnic eateries, a Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters, an art museum, vegan cupcake shops. It's just a matter of time. I just personally know my debt will not be so outrageously high when I am out of college and jobless.
-Bloomfield stats found through city-data.com.
20 years ago passing a man on the streets of NYC with a full flowing beard carrying a fiddle, would be treated with sideways eyes, and thoughts of homelessness or a backwards town in New Jersey. In the current age of the hipster however the beard has made a come back, and street performers like Aaron Jonah-Lewis and Sam Guthridge in some ways well-timed relics of cool.
"I come to the states about once a year. I have family in Detroit, New Jersey, and a sister that lives here in Brooklyn" said Aaron "I had some gigs here and was doing some recording too. Sam had some gigs also in the city so we met up."
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