Have to move back to NY
 

Was in the City yesterday and it just feels like home. Going to start looking for space in Brooklyn soon.

Driving in, random pics at speed
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Very envious. I would lOve to live in NYC!

Shaun, you moving the business here too?

Hey Vinny, yes, the rents are staggering, but I think it's entirely possible to move in early 2013. We've got 4000 sq ft here but don't really need it anymore, I could get by with 1K if we wanted to keep screen-printing in-house and do our own packing, would prefer 2, but that will be about twice our rent here.

lived there from 97-2001 Chris, some of the best years of my life. it's the energy of the City.

NYC is amazing, but I could only live there if it was midtown :)

Rents in Bklyn are sick high. Especially over the past few years. Bklyn has become the new hotspot. What section you thinking about?

Shaun, where are you going to work on your cars ?? I think you're nuts!! ( but in a good way)..
Personally I'd never live in NYC ,, much prefer Boston but hey that's what makes the world go around..

Yeah, the car thing is going to be tough.

I'd go DUMBO but it's too hip right now so rent is probably stupid.

DUMBO is the hotspot now. WAAAYYY high!

Tough call where I'd want to be. I've lived on W29th and W86th in the past. Both were great for different reasons.

With some changes to the company's production, I could do the whole thing out of a 2 bedroom on the Upper West Side, something in the 70s and Amsterdam would be nice.

But then I could see 2K sq ft. of first floor light industrial outside the City where I keep the cars and the company and me, but that's a pipe dream.

I'll start looking seriously in September. Too many factors right now, from shipping FA12 to how far we take vintageracingtees.com to new developments in The Great Adventures of Joey & Rex.

I just know I should be out of here no later than June 2013, April would be perfect. The downside would be leaving all my best friends, but would at least be closer to others.

Interesting, I've fallen completely out of love with New York. Still enjoy visiting but no desire at all to live there. I would need to be paid some ridiculous amount of $$ to consider it, yet I will live in L.A. for pocket change.

It's a lifestyle thing...if you like cars and dogs and houses, not to mention mountains and beaches and having $$ to travel, the west is the best. This is not coming from some big city or NYC hater. When I was younger, it was my favorite place in the world. I've lived in Manhattan under very lucky circumstances, (including on 79th between Columbus and Amsterdam), and I have great, cool friends there. I see them all in L.A. anyways, so no loss there.

Between Guiliani and Bloomberg, they killed it for me with all these rules and laws and whatnot...cleaned the place up too much or something. Plus it's just ungodly expensive, which drives out a lot of cool people and attracts rich scum, IMO.

But it's still the great city. I just don't want to live there. I'm opinionated about these things, so YMMV. :) I wish you good luck in whatever you do.

I was born and raised in NYC. My family is still there and I still work there
everyday. But no way in hell I could ever live there again.

I've lived all over. Started off in the country in CT where you couldn't see your nearest neighbor through the woods, had 4 dogs, 2 cats that brought home 5 foot snakes and an outdoor guinea pig; many of the dogs had bloody noses. Idyllic, perfect. Minnesota suburbs, also great. TX...no. Western MA, Chicago, NYC and traveled to SF enough for years that it was like home.

Denis, I could as readily live in that small CA town you posted recently as I could NYC. Both work for me. I can see how NY gets tiring, didn't for me while I was there, but was younger then. If I were growing the business there, it would only be an energy feed.

time will tell.

Shaun,

We need more people like you in Brooklyn.

With screen printing it makes sense to be here, plus my favorite guys K rock just folded up shop. So there could be more work for you.

& I can loan you tools..for the Porsche, but you probably have that covered.

Speeder... I agree with you, as always , but I am still here for work etc.

City is a bit too cleaned up, generic feeling, with all the chain stores, clean scrubbed kids everywhere but they haven't managed to fix one pothole!

Start...

Spreedin...

Da news...

I was there at same time. Moved out in 2003. Go back often for fun. Was there last week for work. Was thinking how the hell I did it. Lived in soho and life was fun but at 40 now, I could never do it again. Very tough way to live and many sacrifices required. After a while, the fun becomes less so and bitterness sets in and the wallet is empty. I lived in long beach, ny for a while and loved that. Wish I was still there sometimes

I agree with you speeder 100%

I'm glad I lived there in my 20's. Somehow I managed to keep a new car and Harley parked in little Italy but going to that parking garage only to ruin my shocks from pot holes and everything else made me long for more space. Everything there gets old and annoying after a while. I do miss it at times, especially in the fall and winter

I'm conflicted about NYC. It's still probably the greatest city in the world and it continues to attract some of the smartest, coolest people from every corner of the globe. When I visit, I have it good in terms of friends and knowing where to go. It definitely has a lot of energy, good and bad.

Brooklyn for a while there was looking like the village in the '60s in terms of young artists swarming in, it's still cool but really expensive and gentrified. My former stepmother, who is only slightly older than me, lived in the village through the 1980s and '90s. Myself and my brother and sisters could go and stay with her anytime and it was a lot of fun. She lived on Bleecker and Morton, between 6th and 7th, in the '80s and on west 4th and west 12th in the '90s.

In the mid '90s, I lived for a time with a GF on 14th and B, in Stuyvesant town. Really nice rent-controlled apartment that she was sub-leasing somehow. She was working as a model and making good $$, me not so much. ;) During that stretch in NY, I had a car and a big dog. I drove everywhere, at least at night, and could always find parking in Stuy town.

One reason that I don't love the place anymore has more to do with me than NYC, i.e. I am not all that driven of a person. I wish it was different and when I was younger I had a lot more ambition but I've made peace w/ it and have a good life in CA. One good friend in NY, whom I used to work for in the nightclub and restaurant business in L.A., is out there tearing NY a new ass hole, so to speak. He co-owns several restaurants and hotels with other big swells, including The Waverly Inn w/ Graydon Carter, (editor of VF magazine). It is the perfect place for someone like him, the possibilities are truly endless.

Everyone's opinion about various places can have a lot more to do with them than the place. I see that here with rednecks hating CA., etc... I have to remember that my biases color my views as well. Go to NY and tear it up, if you have it in you! :cool:

Meh - you couldn't pay me enough to live in NY - MA too. Apparently some people like it (only a few millions!). That's good, more from LA need to move there.

In all seriousness though, Shaun, go with your heart and maximize your happiness!

G

DUMBO is so year 2000.... Like Williamsburg was in the late 1990s...

Redhook..... is almost at the peak of cool hip about to change 'hoods...

My cousin, her hubby and 6 kids live in a 3000 sf loft overlooking upper NY bay (over Fairway Market) amazing views of lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty etc... they have an amazing loft..

My cuz and her hubby both work in Media, both have been published a few times and one has a gig on talk radio...... they can afford the astronomical rent that I imagine they pay

I could not live in NYC... but it is an amazingly vibrant place....

I work in the Hamptons raising and rehabbing some railroad bridges that were built around 1907...

Today on my way to work the road was shut down because of an accident between a farm tractor and a cidiot going to the Hamptons for the weekend... just an hour drive from the financial center of the world..

I have only been there once in the late 80's.... It smelled like a garbage dump above ground and the subways all smelled like urine. I was visiting my mother and little sister who rented a tiny apartment there for a couple summers while Little sis was modeling for the Ford modeling agency. I positively hated it. Luckily my motorcycle I rode there did not get stolen at night while shoehorned into a parking spot on the street.

Even if it is cleaner now, I could never live there (or in any city again for that matter). I lived in a city in college when my lifestyle consisted of partying and chasing girls, but even then I missed having a suitable workshop. In my 40's, I value my privacy and freedom to enjoy my shop, house and 9 acres any way I want. I truly do not understand how adul men can enjoy living in such tiny residences with no yard, no shop, no privacy.... nothing but some walls and a TV.

Good point Denis. I have friends who have been in the city all their lives and are still obsessed with everything about it. I just never was all that crazy about it. Yeah there are alot of thing to do there, and there is places I do like to go, but to me, most of it was always just overpriced hype.

Yeah its amazing, how the hipsters move from neighborhood to neighborhood. Once too many of them move to an area, it is no longer cool. I remember when I was working in wiliamsburg I seen it change practically overnight from a trashed, dirty, dump, into prime real estate.
Im originally from Bensonhurst/Bath Beach. Ive watched that unfortunately change for the worst. :(

Shaun, how about the jersey side? Hoboken, Jersey City, Weehawken rents are way cheaper.

Shaun - Just a quick, serious question: Why couldn't you run this business from BumFauck, Wym? Why do you have to be in the city?

He likes the energy of the big apple, he already said.

I could never live somewhere I could not have a garden and a few fruit trees. I dig the fresh produce too much.

A good suggestion, but Jersey just doesn't do much for me.



With changes to how we manufacture, I could operate out of a shoebox. and places on my list to move have included: Minnesota, Los Angeles, NY, PA and NH. Each place has its own charm. Boston...never really liked it here other than having great friends. Another thing that keeps me here is the space I have for the company, me and the cars.


Plenty of places in Brooklyn with backyards. Fast search on CL commercial found several. old GF I had in Park Slope (what a firecracker) had a serious garden in her back yard. Which reminds me, how are the peaches coming along?

But the farmers markets dotting the city allow for better, local produce than most places in the country. one of the real benefits of NYC is the entire state of NY.

Thanks JT,

Why did they fold? Any idea?

I'm sure between us we'd have more tools than your average shop. if I could find a place big enough and cheap enough, I'd love to set-up a membership-based Porsche/VW/BMW/Benz club shop. Always been a side dream. If I could find 4K sq ft for $4K/month, could do it, but I think $6K is probably more reasonable, and that prices out the idea.

Peaches are getting close, another few weeks, looking a little small though:(

If you can grow decent peaches in Brooklyn I would be shocked

harlem is the next best place to live.I was there the other day completely changed ....

harlem is the next best place to live.I was there the other day completely changed ....west of lenox ave of course

Been there several times with "local" people. Never could figure out what people see in it.

A lot of people seem to have this mindset, but the truth is that Jersey City & Hoboken have much more in common with Manhattan and the Boroughs than they do with the rest of NJ. My commute to midtown is the same length or shorter than many people who live on the island of Manhattan. Downtown and Greenwich village are about a ten-minute ride. 24 hour access via PATH train just 500 feet from my front stoop.

Private garages, while not particularly common in my 'hood, are available if you look around.

http://asbury.smugmug.com/By-Land/Pr.../DSC5949-L.jpg

One of the things I appreciate the most about living on the western shore of the Hudson (aside of proximity to NYC and availability of garage/workshop space) is that when I want to head out to the country (Western Jersey and Pennsylvania) I don't have to run the gauntlet of Hudson river crossings.

Anyway, I love living in the NYC metro area.

You make a very compelling argument there, Jacob.

Shaun,, Jacob has a killer sailboat,, I'd put him on your "new best friend" list :-)

Another benefit of living in Jersey City. Not only is Manhattan 10 minutes away, so is the marina (on foot...shorter on bicycle).

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so definitely don't look into jersey...it sucks:D

Lot of fruit trees on Christopher street.

View from the closet. :cool:

Brooklyn born and raised, 57 years. I cannot imagine living anywhere else, mainly because of the food! Shaun, right now everywhere in north Brooklyn is very expensive, but way cool. My shop is on the edge of Williamsburg and Greenpoint and one stop from Manhattan on the L train. I live in the suburban part of Brooklyn, Bergen Beach.

The diversity of the city is the best part of this city. You'll find us very friendly and helpfully, but you know that already. Good luck with the move.