When lifelong Brooklynite Christopher Ketcham wrote for the Daily News last week about giving up on New York and moving to a small town in Colorado where “rent is low, life is relaxed and the landscapes are wild and beautiful,” he struck quite a chord.
Thousands of comments poured in as people shared the piece. Again and again, current and former New Yorkers ticked off the same frustrations: The outrageously high cost of living here, the long hours working and commuting, and the cost in time and dollars of educating kids.
Many of those who have left — including dedicated New Yorkers with deep roots here — detailed how sweet their lives were outside the Apple. The News asked nine of these ex-Gothamites to share their stories about why they’d left and what they’d gained by leaving. We ignore them at the city’s peril.
The family man: Donovan Hohn, author, 42, Ann Arbor, Mich.
I moved to New York in 1996 because of my then girlfriend, now wife. She lived there because her Italian ancestors had moved there almost a century before I did. They got off the boat and stayed. Their descendants never left the city, and very few of them even left Greenwich Village. They were born at St. Vincent’s, married at St. Joseph’s and then died at St. Vincent’s.
My in-laws, an actor and architect, were able in 1970s New York to pursue careers in the arts while providing their children with a secure home. My wife grew up in the midst of a large extended family, in walking distance from grandparents and cousins. We wanted our children to grow up that way, too. Our sons are — were? would have been? — fifth-generation New Yorkers.
Two years ago, we moved to Ann Arbor. The sacrifices required to raise children in New York had grown, for us, too great. Here, we own a two-bedroom house (three if you count my office in the basement) for less than we would have paid to buy a small studio in an outer borough. Our mortgage comes to about half what a two-bedroom rents for in Windsor Terrace. We have a fireplace, a vegetable garden, equity. And with the house, we bought our kids an education. Our neighborhood public schools, primary and secondary, are first rate. We won’t be competing for spots in magnet schools, or wishing we could afford private schools or entering into lotteries for in-district seats in overcrowded classrooms.
Still, we miss New York, my wife especially. New York for her was never that bright dynamo you moved to, moth-like, after college. It was an ancestral home. The Village was a village. Now that it’s a gated community with invisible gates, we can’t move back to the New York she misses, even if we could afford to.
The survivalist: Jodie Fletcher, 33, freelance writer, Manistee, Mich.
My mortgage is less than $450 a month. To live in a house. That I own. With a yard. That I don’t have to share with anyone else. Minutes away from the nicest beach I’ve ever seen. And that for a third of what I was paying to rent a roach-infested one-bedroom in Inwood seven years ago when I, to the complete bafflement of everyone I know, put all my belongings in a Penske truck and moved to northern Michigan.
I can’t imagine still working the number of hours required just to get by in New York. The cost of living here has allowed me to live on my own terms, which happen to include an outrageous amount of free time. I’ll admit, I could write thousands of words describing the things I miss about the city. But those people and places are all there when I come to visit (unless they’ve been priced out of their homes or locations and replaced by the endless supply of trust-funded hipsters and corporate chains).
And in case of the worst, not that I’m expecting it, I’m a couple of blocks away from one of the largest sources of fresh water on the planet. The area is agriculturally rich, the rivers are teeming with fish, there are a lot of people who shoot deer and wild turkeys and would willingly barter the meat, and everywhere you turn someone is brewing beer or fermenting wine.
The Brooklyn boy: Dave Amato, 36, computer network support specialist, West Reading, Pa.
I was born and raised in Bensonhurst. My mom’s still there and my sister’s in Queens. I moved here with my girlfriend — now my wife — in 2004, when I was 27. I was able to buy a three-bed, one-bath rowhouse, a smaller version of the ones you see in Brooklyn, for us and our two dogs. The mortgage is $410 a month — and I own it.
The neighborhood has that small-town feel that Bay Ridge did before the gentrification. The kids play ball in the street, and we know all our neighbors. My wife’s from Utah originally, and she loves it here. It’s a slower life. There’s no real hustle and bustle and it takes 10 minutes to go anywhere, including work. A traffic jam is six cars at a stop light.
It’s sad to say, but the New York I remember is gone. I use to look back and want to go home until I drove into Brooklyn one weekend and realized that it wasn’t home anymore. Everything, and I mean everything, had changed. Blocks that I walked up and down for 25 years were unrecognizable. The mom-and-pop stores were gone. My friends’ homes, too — replaced by tacky little apartment buildings.
The Flatbush girl: Phara Paulemon, 41, registered nurse, Ottawa
I came to New York with my family from Haiti in 1979, when I was around six years old. We lived on Lincoln Road and Flatbush Ave. My parents still live there, in the apartment I grew up in. I got my nursing degree in Brooklyn. Left in 2004 and moved to Atlanta with my now ex-husband, and when that didn’t work out, I remarried and moved to Ottawa three years ago.
I was back in August for my brother’s wedding, and the city had really changed. It’s not easy to sleep through the noise. The rents are outrageous, and I spent the whole time just moving my car from one side of the street to the other. Everything is so expensive now. I asked my dad, if we moved back, where would I live? How would I survive?
There’s a huge movement of people who used to live in Manhattan into Flatbush now. When I grew up, there were very few Caucasian tenants in our building. Now, you see many of them, and new businesses too.
I miss New York, but I live in a whole 3-bedroom, 2-bath house for $1,300 a month — and that includes parking. Kids here go to Catholic school for free; it’s a choice, as opposed to having to pay for parochial school in New York. The health-care system has its issues, but I can go to the doctor without worrying about insurance co-pays and I’m not afraid that if I really need major surgery I’ll be stuck with a huge bill.
The romantic: Billy Sandora-Nastyn, 30, graphic designer, Buffalo
Growing up on Long Island I realized early on that there was no easy way around New York City, figuratively or literally. I managed to bypass it for college, but felt I had to return there to build my career. I spent seven years in Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, landed my ideal job and met my now-husband, Pat, a transplant from Pittsburgh who had three years of NYC on me. We both had successful careers in fashion and media and thought, “We could live here forever.”
After we married, we starting looking ahead and quickly realized that things like owning a home and starting a family were never going to be financially realistic in New York. Still, we wanted the convenience, culture and excitement of city life.
That’s when Buffalo beckoned. It’s a place where we could purchase a beautiful urban home, be part of a vibrant community and maybe even open a business of our own. We had been hearing about how it was bursting with growth and revitalization. All it took was an easy-to-make list of pros and cons over a glass of bourbon for us to decide.
Six months later, we couldn’t have chosen a more welcoming place to live. We found a city that will nurture our life goals and in return, lets us help Buffalo grow.
The creative entrepreneur: Staceyjoy Elkin, 56, knitwear designer, Detroit
New York has become a place where a person like me — artistic and entrepreneurial, who has run successful businesses but without deep pockets — can’t thrive anymore.
My brother has lived in Detroit for years. When I visited and saw the giant Joe Louis fist statue downtown, I knew this was my kind of town. In the abandoned storefronts and houses, I saw possibility and opportunity — two things now lacking in Brooklyn, where in 15 years I was priced out of six apartments and two boutiques.
In June, I packed two cats, two dogs and my knitting machines into a U-Haul, and moved into an adorable two-story 1930s bungalow. Rent: $525 a month. I drive a PT Cruiser and no longer have to haul heavy stuff around in a granny cart on the subway.
People are relaxed and so, so kind. Cars carefully steer around bicyclists and pedestrians, even stop so people can cross the street. The first time someone did this for me, I was flabbergasted.
On almost every block you’ll find one person who voluntarily keeps abandoned houses’ lawns mowed and free of dumped garbage so the block doesn’t go completely to hell. I love them. They’re my people.
The Firefighter: Don Arias, 57, TV host and retired Air Force Lt. Colonel, Panama City, Fla.
I was born and raised in Staten Island. My dad bought a house when I was in third grade on a GI home loan, and my parents raised six kids there. They’re still there. Back when I was a firefighter, I was also a reserve officer in the Air Force and had an opportunity to go back on active duty for a four-year tour. My kids were little then and my wife was a school teacher, and every time there was a fire in New York she’d get all worried. We were losing more firemen then, often three at a time. So I took a leave of absence and moved to Florida.
When I got here, everything was so much cheaper, and my quality of life immediately doubled. I was no longer a tax and toll victim, didn’t have to commute into the city over the bridge, and my wife didn’t have to work anymore.
After four years, I wanted to stay with the Air Force and extend my leave, but the FDNY said I either had to come back or retire. I said, what the hell do I want to go back into that rat race for?
I live in a 3,200-square-foot house on an acre of land on a lake for less than you can buy an apartment for in New York. And we don’t have snow here.
All my retired firemen friends have moved out of the city. Some went upstate, some to New Jersey and a lot are down south.
The Queens couple: Lindsey Alexander, 32, editor, and Sal Borriello, 32, cabinet maker, Chapel Hill, N.C.
Lindsey: Before I moved back to my hometown, the term “quality of life” was nebulous to me. People who had moved elsewhere would talk about it, but I didn’t really get it. I do now. We pay the same each month to live in a historic farmhouse on six acres as I did for my tiny Brooklyn apartment.
My husband, who was born and raised in Queens, and never lived outside New York until moving here last year, loves it. He has the woodshop he always wanted, and we’re raising eight chickens. (The eggs are unbelievable.) A trip to the grocery store doesn’t take up half our Saturday. We’re not losing hours of our lives to mysterious subway delays.
Sal: Besides Flushing, there’s nothing left in New York. You used to be able to eat well. Bagels? I can think of maybe two places worth going to. Pizza is a joke; sure, there’s a dozen great brick-oven fancy places, but if you just want a good slice? Pastrami, oh poor pastrami. There are what? Two places. I used to drive around on weekends hitting three, sometimes four boroughs desperate to find a glimmer of quality pastrami, only to meet only corned beef gone bad. Now, I make my own pastrami.
I lived in an apartment on top of a noisy hipster bar. My upstairs neighbors turned their place into an Airbnb flophouse. What am I supposed to miss, tourists?
Lindsey: We still stress about money sometimes, but not in the same up-at-night-worrying way. Living here gives us the freedom to choose our next step together; a freedom we didn’t have, and could hardly imagine, in New York, where just getting through the day stretched us to the physical, financial and emotional limit.
