Originally posted August 15, 2020
I moved to NYC a year ago, and now that I’ve had to move somewhere that feels almost like the exact opposite of the city… I’ve been dreaming about the next time I can move to the city and reminiscing on the mistakes I’ve made and how I’d do it better next time. So for anyone else hoping to eventually make their way to the big apple whenever the United States doesn’t feel like a giant petri dish, here we go!
When I started trying to find an apartment in NYC, I was doing it remotely from Texas which is very difficult, to say the least. But I knew a lot of people who found their first apartment that way so, I heeded their advice and I got into all the Facebook groups and started searching. The problem with living in New York right out of college is that you can rarely afford to live in an apartment by yourself… you need roommates. But looking at websites like Zillow, StreetEasy or ApartmentFinder only show available full apartments and then it’s up to you to find the roommates to help fill it. I didn’t know a ton of people looking to move to NYC with me when I was trying to make the move so, I just searched out rooms that people needed filled, which is where the Facebook groups came in handy.
In college I got really lucky. I filled out the roommate matching quiz and asked for someone outside of my major and I ended up with the math major of my dreams as my roommate (Love you, Kalynn)! I ended up living with her for 3 years in college and it WOULD have been 4 if I hadn’t joined a sorority and moved into a sorority house for a year. I realize that I was a blessed one in the minority with my roommate selection in college. Finding roommates remote without a quiz that people check for compatibility is a total crap shoot… In New York, I was having so many FaceTime interviews with people to try and be a new roommate with an apartment of 2 or 3 people already and if there was the possibility that they had a “friend” who was interested in moving with them… that most likely meant it was going to be virtually impossible for me to move into the extra room. Which makes sense! I trust someone I know before some random girl reaching out via facebook messenger… But that made the search even more desperate.
The next problem with being the desperate one looking for place is that I may go into “interviews” with the apartment mates proving that I am a good roommate… but they don’t have to prove that they are good roommates. They are the ones with the housing that I need. So then it becomes an, “I need them more than they need me” scenerio. Which isn’t necessarily true, because they don’t want to have to pay for an extra room… AND when there isn’t a friend in competition with you to move into this cheap(er) apartment in a great location and the 2 people already living there don’t have a friend or connection to move in there… That can also be questionable. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be bad. But finding cheap housing in NYC is questionable in the first place!
I also didn’t really learn until I had already moved into the city that I REALLY should have tried to learn the subway system BEFORE I arrived. I had visited the city once and was well aware of how the 1 train basically ran the entirety of Manhattan and when my first apartment was about a 7 minute walk from a 1-train station I thought I had hit the jackpot! But then I arrived and realized that the better train to get to my job was going to be the D express train which was maybe a 15 minute walk away which wasn’t terrible. Then my second apartment was a 2 minute walk away from the 1 train (which was amazing) and even BETTER was 2 stop transfer to the 2/3 express lines… which meant that when I wanted to go to an audition early in the morning not only was I 5 train stops and a shorter walk closer to Midtown… I also could easily hop on a train that skipped multiple stops and ended right in Midtown. Now, I didn’t quite understand express trains until I moved there and got comfortable with the train systems but when I learned about that, I went from patiently sitting on one train and waiting until I got to the stop that it showed on my phone map — to a train hopping, station skipping, city adventurer! It made commuting a little less hopeless. With that in mind, I know people say when they are apartment hunting in NYC that it is all about, “Location, location, location!” But I say more than anything, it better be a “location” close to multiple working train lines! You want back-up trains when they decide that during the holidays the Red line (1, 2 and 3 trains) will be running every 20 minutes due to work on the tracks and then stop running at 10 pm… then you BETTER be near another line for the time being. Cause if you think you’re justing going to “Uber instead…” You better ask for some Uber gift cards from Santa this Christmas!
Also, I’m gonna say it. Living in New Jersey isn’t that bad of an idea. I know… I said it! When I first was making plans to move to NYC I was advised to live in the city. Queens over Jersey… BROOKLYN over Jersey… But after living there, I have met so many people that have lived in more than one of the Burroughs and are now choosing to move to Jersey City or Hoboken because it’s cheaper to live there and pay an extra commuter train pass than to try to live in the Burroughs.
Money… It’s true, you can’t make money to live in New York until you are IN New York… You often get paid at your job similar to the cost of living so until you’re making at least 15 an hour somewhere that the cost of living is way less than NYC, then the phrase, “saving up to move to NYC” is a little hopeless. It’s expensive. Saving is NEVER a bad idea but if “saving up” is the main thing holding you back from making the move, it shouldn’t be. If you live somewhere that you need a car and you own a car… sell your car before moving. Save on insurance. Public transit is cheaper and the only way to really travel in the city. Now this idea sort of backfired on me because I didn’t realize I’d be sent back out of the city due to a global pandemic and back into a world in which I need a car to travel but, it was a sound idea until then!
Money 2.0. – If you don’t have savings or can’t sell a car or something of the like and can’t transfer into a job in NYC immediately DO NOT go into debt by moving to NYC. You will have enough money to live there once you start working but if you are working part time and also pursuing a dream like I was when I moved, it will be extremely difficult to pay off debts until you are much more established and likely the debt will keep piling up. Unless you are planning to work multiple jobs and put your passions on hold and work 80 hour weeks, it won’t work to your advantage. I didn’t move to NYC to work and grind in something that wasn’t my passion and I’ve seen firsthand lots of people choose to work non-stop in NYC with the hopes that they will eventually be out of debt and can have enough money to work less hours at the survival job to finally also audition. This also becomes significantly easier if you are already in an actor’s union because making it to auditions takes way less time when you’re equity. So, this advice is less-so important. I don’t want to discourage my non-union friends from making the big move, because it’s exactly what I did and I found a lot of value in the learning experience that it brought me!
Most of my blogs are a testament to both the joys and the hardships of living in NYC. If it is your dream, do it! And honestly, it’s starting to get cheaper, if that’s what’s holding you back. I know a global pandemic is not the ideal time to move but it is the perfect time to reflect on your goals and dreams and see if you’re in the place you want to be. I know NYC will be there when I’m ready to go back and it’ll be stronger than ever, and so will I.
XOXO,
Texas Jess
P.S. Episode 6 of my series came out last night and if you haven’t been keeping up, you can watch this playlist of them all in order, each episode is between 2-4 minutes long so it’s a quick watch! You can watch here!
Jessica Tanner 
Leave a comment