[bradleyjg]

1980s NYC did not have “the faintest whiff of a city about to take off”. That couple bought property in a crime ridden part of a crime ridden city. Tompkins Square Park was an open air drug market.

The equivalent today is a bad area of Detroit. I’m certain you can find something affordable there today. I doubt it will turn you into a multimillionaire, but if we were having this conversation in 1984 everyone would doubt buying in the East Village would get you anything other than mugged or shot.

[rayiner]

Having grown up in the 1990s in the D.C. suburbs, and visiting family in Queens (recent immigrants) I still reflexively do a double take when new associates at my law firm say they're living in Brooklyn, or in D.C., in Capitol Hill. Like--I know you can afford to live somewhere decent!

[bradleyjg]

There’s a neighborhood in Brooklyn called Bed-Stuy. In Billy Joel’s song about being manic there’s a verse:

“I walked through Bedford Stuy alone / even rode my motorcycle in the rain”

because it was something only a crazy person would do. I can never quite get over the fact that a young coworker of mine was living there with his girlfriend. It is mind blowing.