Live in Larchmont or Harlem?

I grew up in Larchmont. The house my parents bought for $17,000 is now valued at $1.23 million. There are no real estate bargains there today. Plus it is a much longer commute to the East Village. The schools are very good, but your daughter is years away from that being a concern.

I would think that anything above 96th street, Harlem or the other neighborhoods like Inwood would make much more sense. You have very good public transportation also. But there are no steals there either. My niece and her husband had a miniscule one bdrm apartment in Inwood and paid a lot of money for what they were getting.

No way of living above the shop, so to speak? No room for digs at the restaurant?

Welcome to Fluther. I don’t think Larchmont gets you anything at this time. either. If you have found a nice place in Harlem, I’d go for it. @gailcalled pointed out the commute; being able to take the A train to work and drop your daughter off at daycare. And your daughter won’t be exhausted from the long travel time.

Larchmont would be great if you worked in Westchester or CT, but to have to commute to NYC with a baby would be stressful. I would say go to Harlem and get into the scene there.

I used to go out with a guy who lived in Inwood, and even the commute from there to lower Manhattan is a bit long for many.

An 8 month old baby will do fine as long as you are doing fine and not overly stressed. Which of the two areas – suburban or lively urban – is right for you, taking into consideration your commute?

That’s a no-brainer for me. Stay in the City. Smaller commute. Better culture. Better politics.

I assume you are an East Village kind of person if you own a business there. Apologies to my friend @gailcalled, but Larchmont is not the kind of place you would fit in, unless you come from a wealthy background. Larchmont is known for the “Larchmont lockjaw” which is to say, they talk with their teeth touching and they sound like upper crust Brits. Or they sound like they are tryint to sound like upper crust Brits.

When I canvassed up there, it was some of the toughest turf ever. But then, rich people don’t want to support progressive causes and they don’t like uppity college kids on their door steps asking them to support the equal rights amendment.

So, no, no, no. I would stay as far away from Larchmont as I could. Harlem is so much better, and apparently, it’s getting to be a pretty racially mixed area. The architecture is pretty cool. There’s a lot of great stuff going on there. And believe me, you do not want to spend any more of your time commuting than you absolutely have to. You are in NY, so people think less of an hour commute, but to me, a half hour commute is the outside edge, and that’s only if it’s a bicycle commute. Otherwise, 20 mins is the max for me.

Good luck.

Growing up in Larchmont, we called it “Locust Valley lockjaw. It is certainly, by and large, an affluent commuting community.

@wundayatta: I did suggest that anything above 96th street made more sense than Larchmont.