I found a job that I am interested in applying for in NYC. It would be a good opportunity for me with the ability to advance, unlike my current job. However, I’m wondering if living in or around NYC is compatible with somebody that also likes to ride several times a week? I have visions of spending all my free time commuting… And what’s the point of having a better job if I can’t bring my pony with me! :lol:
I know little about NYC, but I’d start with looking in to where the job’s located, where I could potentially live, where my horse could potentially live, and all the traveling that’d be involved. Would you have a vehicle or would you be taking transit? How much would you be earning vs. how much would rent, board, etc cost you? Definitely things to consider before applying for the job.
I’m assuming that you wouldn’t want to forgo riding for any long period of time, I totally sympathize. You mention your job has little room for growth, so if the job in NYC isn’t a strong candidate if you can’t swing bringing the horse, are there positions in more horse-friendly areas you could look in to?
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These earlier threads may be helpful:
https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/eventing/330928-looking-for-eventing-stable-near-nyc
https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/hunter-jumper/300838-hunter-jumper-barns-near-nyc-recommendations
https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/hunter-jumper/285751-what-are-the-best-barns-near-nyc
https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/dressage/314984-boarding-outside-of-nyc
https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/hunter-jumper/310261-looking-for-a-hunter-barn-to-train-show-with-in-nyc-area
I used to commute from Essex County NJ to midtown. About 80-90 min by bus or car / PATH train, so not too awful (for a big city commute). Or look down near Highlands NJ at the shore-- there’s a Seastreak ferry that gets you to Manhattan in like 40 minutes. Lots of nice places to live, and board your horse, down there.
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Depends on how much you like commuting. I spent one summer between my second and third year of uni working as an intern in NYC, with the horse boarded in Staten Island. I could easily spend more than an hour sitting in traffic, and that was on weekends. During the week, I used to watch traffic piling up on the Brooklyn Bridge from my office window and think, no way.
son is in NYC, rarely ever sees a horse, usually only when asked to play some polo with his friends but as he said he wasn’t there for the horses … he has earned enough to retire at 29 if he desired.
Having been a New Yorker for most of my life, this I can tell you:
Commute time --by car-- to any barn north of the city for example (say Westchester) will be better if you live way up town and on the west side. Point being, you want to be as close as possible to your ‘way’ of getting out of the city. It can be a gridlock nightmare trying to get crosstown, north or south if you live at the opposite end or smack in the middle of Manhattan.
FYI – rush hour starts at 3:00 and can last until 9:00. There are those times when it’s a breeze, but that’s rare.
Do NOT board on Long Island IF you live in Manhattan and plan to drive. Traffic is impossible.
Keeping a car in Manhattan is also tough, financially. Consider your garage payment as a mortgage payment. I never investigated keeping a car in a garage outside of the city – but that’s a possibility too.
You could also rent a ZipCar and train is great – but obviously you’ll need a way to get from train to barn and back again.
Best solution is to live outside Manhattan, bedroom community half way between barn and train station. Easy commute to barn, easy commute to train station to get into city.
With careful planning, working in NYC and having a horse can be done.
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Its in lower Manhattan. Looks to be in or near China town area seeing as how all the signs are in english and in Chinese… :eek: I had to do a double and triple check to make sure that google earth was showing me New York!
Part of the appeal of this job to me is that it is working for a company that produces dog products, which is a subject matter I am totally on board with, and I could also actually bring my dog to work with me. Plus, I am at a point in my life where I could use a change of scenery, even if only for a couple of years before coming back.
Just based upon their Glass Door data, I would be making about 72k a year, which I know might not get me very fair in NYC. My brother and SIL lived there for a couple of years while they taught at NYU. I’m trying to get info out of them, but it can be like pulling teeth. I know they paid something like $1800 for a studio apartment, but I am not 100% sure where in NYC they lived.
Hmm, maybe I should find a place to keep my horse, and then find a place to live. :lol:
How much does board cost? Would a commute from say Stanton Island to lower Manhattan be insane? Looks like there are quite a few barns on Stanton Island, though none of them list boarding cost on their websites.
I was just playing around on Google maps a few days back and ended up looking at boarding/lesson stables on Long Island. I was surprised by how many there were. Looking at lots of web pages I saw little in the way of cost information, but they are are out there.
Any sort of commute in the NYC area will be long and expensive. That’s the nature of the beast. The stables were mostly towards the east end of the Island, but not all. I suspect the closer in you are the higher will be the cost of living as well as the cost of riding.
It looks like you can do what you want to do but it will come at a high cost (in dollars and time).
G.
Boarding costs vary according to location, discipline, level of care, size of facility/amenities – pasture availability, etc. You can end up paying more than $1200 a month vs $600 a month.
In the past I haven’t heard ‘good things’ about barns in Staten Island, but since I’ve been out of the ‘boarding stable loop’ for quite some time, things might have changed for the better there. Not an insane commute by car if you live close to Verrazano Bridge – but still not an easy one.
Yes, you should FIRST find a place for your horse – then a place to live. And don’t forget, a boarding stable can look very appealing on paper, but in reality is just the opposite. DO visit places in person.
$72k is not much for NYC living. You’ll have to make a lot of sacrifices, depending on where you’d be living. The further from the city you live will be lower cost, but that means you could have one hell of a commute to work. I also wouldn’t base too much on Glassdoor. They have my salary overestimated by $20k.
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Before making a move, I would closely look at the cost.
For about two years I lived in NJ and commuted to NYC on NJ Transit. I am not sure what the cost of a train ticket it now, but for a monthly pass in NYC at the time it was over $400 plus parking (about $5 a day). It can obviously be less than this, depending on where you are taking the train from, but definitely a cost you want to look at if you plan to commute either to the city or out of the city to the barn. I have also heard that having a car garaged in NYC is insanely expensive (also several hundred dollars a month) but don’t have personal experience with that.
I kept my horse in Bedminster, NJ - leaving work at 5:00 I would typically get to the barn at around 7:15 give or take 15 minutes. However, I worked close to Penn Station (about a 10 minute walk) and the train station in NJ was pretty close to the barn - both +. If you have to travel far to the bus or train station this could be longer.
Bedminster is in Somerset County, NJ - its not super close to NYC, but its reasonable. It was as close as I could get to get the amenities that I wanted at a price I could afford. However, I was still paying $1,150 for basic board and this was a few years ago - this is a lot to me. While there may be some exceptions, typically, the closer you get to NYC, the more expensive the board is. I can’t comment on barns in the suburbs of NY, but I would expect the same to be true.
So if you are looking at this job strictly from a cost perspective, ie you are going to make more money, just make sure you really are coming out ahead. It’s certainly not cheap to live in NYC, but its not cheap to work there either!
(and sorry, not trying to be a debbie downer or rain on your parade - it is doable of course - but when I saw the draw for you was more money, I thought that I should just point out the added expenses that maybe incurred).
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And if you are buying a home, don’t overlook property taxes when doing your analysis. They can be absolutely staggering in communities within commuting distance of NYC. My friend in Montclair has a cute but old 3-BR home on a tiny lot, doubt it’s more than 60x200ft, and he pays >18k yr in property taxes.
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Another thing to factor in is the high cost of living in NYC. I lived there for 7 years. The salary range you are considering offered me not much more than a hand-to-mouth existence, living in an outer borough, with no horse.
A $70K salary outside of NYC does not translate to the same quality of life as a $70K lifestyle in NYC.
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My cousin and her husband live in NYC and have a car, but in order to afford to store it they have it quite far away from their home. I believe it takes them up to an hour just to get to where the car is kept.
Carefully calculate before you decide to do this - the increase in salary may not actually be enough to keep up with the increased costs of housing, commuting, boarding, and everything else in NYC (even food costs more, etc) at which point you have to decide if the possibility of advancement in the job is enough that you’d actually be willing to deal with a tighter budget for a while.
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As I mentioned before, I know little about NYC, but I have heard apartment rentals are expensive :sadsmile: Near where I live, there’s a similar rental housing issue with costs being so high. It can be tricky finding a place, too, that allows pets. I don’t know if NYC is similar, or if the rental market is more pet friendly.
Lots of users have given you some more insight. If you can sort out a monthly budget that’d swing your costs of living and the horse, and you’re still keen, my suggestion would be to go to NYC on a quick trip. Funds and time constraints may not allow for it, but if they do, I’d go there for a couple of days and get an in-person lay of the land. Go to the neighbourhoods you could potentially afford living in, maybe see if you can take some barn tours, and head to the area the work office is in.
It may only be a couple of years, and it could be a fantastic experience. But between the long commutes and costs, it may be more trouble than it’s worth.
It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but it’s doable.
Danacat knows of what she speaks - it’s getting in/out of the city that’s a real bear, so think about living on the outskirts of the city closer to the barn. Jersey City, for example, is an easy train ride to work downtown and also an easy drive to the excellent horse country of NJ. I’m less familiar with north of the city, but living somewhere like White Plains and boarding farther north in Westchester or Dutchess County is a similar set up. The other big benefit of this is that your rent and your parking will be way cheaper than living in Manhattan or most parts of Brooklyn.
Another thing to think about - if you think you’ll want to ride before or after work, ask barns about their hours and general barn traffic at that time. Are they cool with you coming at 5 am or at 8 pm? Will you be the only one there? I quickly discovered riding alone at night scares the blazes out of me, even with staff on property - but I don’t mind being alone in the AM at all.
The rent and board in Westchester county is not really going to be cheaper than any other upscale bedroom community within commuting distance of Manhattan. Westchester is notoriously high end and expensive.
My guess is the salary is commensurate with the increased cost of living and would work out to be the same or less money as the current position. And that salary isn’t portable, for example if you do it for a few years and then move to Podunk, Idaho they are not going to pay you $72k just because that’s what you made in NYC.
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No, it was more tongue in cheek of saying that while the job is a good opportunity for me, I also don’t want a job that would mean I wouldn’t be able to still enjoy my horse.
A quick glance of apartments in Manhattan lets me know that there would be nooo way that I would be able to live there. A studio seemed to average about $3000 a month. In Stanton Island I was able to find some decent 1 bedrooms that allow pets for around $1700. However, I wonder if the commute from there to lower Manhattan is just going to be a bear.
I understand that 70k in NYC is probably like 40K where I live, in the midwest in an area with a low cost of living. Around here the very nicest barns are around $450 a month. Occasionally I will come across an ad for one that is more, but those ones usually include weekly training rides and/or lessons in their boarding packages.
This may be a totally crazy idea, but this job is kind of a dream job for me, closely followed by work for somebody like SmartPak or Dover.
