Is Astoria So Bad?
Someone told me I would “hate” Astoria.
Internet, confirm or deny.
Tough to answer. Mostly “no,” but in some regards, “yeah.” Mostly in comparison.
Before I moved there, someone once told me Astoria was all “gays, Greeks, and girls.” Disclaimer: That’s not to imply anything about the character of the neighborhood so much as to not-so-subtly comment on a percieved makeup of its inhabitants. That being said, I think it’s true.
Suffice to say Astoria isn’t Manhattan and isn’t Brooklyn. But it is also not Washington Heights or Midtown or the lower-lower East Side, and it isn’t Bushwick or Bed-Stuy (Do or Die! Gen-tri-fi!).
New York’s a pretty solid place to live regardless of what neighborhood you’re in; some are inevitably going to be a better fit for you than others (some are simply better than others). Besides, if you did live in a good neighborhood people would say that shit was over x-many years ago and if you live in a “bad” neighborhood, unless it’s East New York, chances are you can lie to friends and tell them it’s the next big thing but in reality most people will have no idea where you live and will never visit you (like: my old hood), but the crime won’t be that bad and it’ll be cheap as fuck.
Living three blocks from Fort Greene park will spoil you. For me, at least, Brooklyn has more appeal, but most of it is a little gritter than most of Queens, which is a little whitewashed and a little suburban. It’s also far more expensive. After that: don’t even think about Manhattan unless you’re going to end up living in Murray Hill, and if you are: coversation over. That being said - I now live in Astoria.
Astoria is nice, but the nightlife and bars there are either kind of mediocre or mostly suck with exception to the excellent beer garden, the Water Taxi Beach, LIC Bar and The Creek and the Cave (I know: 3 out of 4 of those are in Long Island City…where I also used to live…but Astoria addresses technically are LIC addresses, so, yeah). There’s that.
There’re some solid Thai, Greek, and Italian restaurants for the price you end up paying for them. Enough grocery stores and laundromats so that you’re never more than six or seven blocks away from them. I constantly find myself knowing more people that live there. It’s close enough to most of its subways, and the furthest one is seven stops out of Manhattan.
Astoria’s a decent place to live*. It ain’t the best, but for your dollar, it’s the best you can do.
*On some level: yes, I’m tortured about this. Someone I know started crying when they realized they were going to have to live in Astoria. Yeah. So I’m not that bad.
**Oh. And a bunch of Tumblrs who live there are about to chew my ass out for this. To them: fuckoff.