Where best to look for cheap short-term accommodation in NYC?
Just wanted to stress the fact that the neighborhood labels people put on apartments on craigslist are frequently, uh, euphemistic. So it’s important to set out some geographic boundaries. As a general rule of thumb, for someone new to NYC and looking for a relatively fun, convenient and safe neighborhood in Brooklyn, I would look at a map and stay within the following boundaries: for south Brooklyn, stay north of Prospect Avenue, west of Washington Avenue, and south of Park Avenue. This advice may be a little bit politically incorrect, but, generally, anything in that big swath will be an easy commute, and fairly gentrified, meaning access to pretty good restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I’m not super familiar with Williamsburg/north Brooklyn but my hunch there would be, generally, Grand Street as a southern boundary and the area around the Graham Avenue L stop to the east. (Someone else could speak more authoritatively about this area; I think this is pretty conservative.) There
someone new to NYC and looking for a relatively fun, convenient and safe neighborhood in Brooklyn, I would look at a map and stay within the following boundaries: for south Brooklyn, stay north of Prospect Avenue, west of Washington Avenue, and south of Park Avenue. This information is a little outdated. I currently live slightly outside those boundaries (I’m a couple blocks west of Washington), and, while things are a teensy bit more wild and woolly than they were when I lived in the heart of Clinton Hill, it’s really not a big deal. If you’ve lived in a city before, you can handle it. I have a lot of friends living in Kensington (which is well south of dixiecupdrinking’s zone) and while it’s not the hippest part of the city, it’s very safe and friendly and generally an awesome place to live. I’ve spent time hanging out in Greenwood Heights, south of Prospect Ave around the cemetery, and it’s really lovely – I’d move there in a heartbeat. Prospect Lefferts Gardens is starting to bloss
