Living Little in New York City
How we live in Manhattan with kids: logistics, small space considerations, and moral quandaries.
I took a two-and-a-half month hiatus from Substack and now I’m returning with a novella only tangentially related to home décor? Call it a rant, call it mom brain, call it grief (my dad passed away expectedly during that period). Whatever the case may be, this one goes out to my fellow committed urban dwellers. If this subject isn’t your cup of tea, rest assured that I will stray less liberally from Pinterest-friendly topics next week. Without further ado:
“You have to wonder about these people who insist on raising their kids in New York. I mean, what are they thinking?” — Kate, ‘The White Lotus,’ Season Three
Any non-born-and-bread New Yorker with kids has faced that daunting response from someone who realizes, yes, you live in the city— gasp! — with children?! You’ve made it back to your suburban hometown for Memorial Day weekend; congratulations. Now, take a sip every time someone asks, “are you going to stay in the city?” The implication being that no one in their right mind would raise children in the concrete jungle you call home. Bonus points if the stranger sitting next to you on the plane decides it’s in good taste to share how they could NEVER live in New York with or without kids. [Look, Karen, I get it.] Whether you’re truly baffled by our life choices, simply voyeuristic (my main MO), or hoping to do it yourself, but intimidated, here’s the skinny on what that home life — the good, the bad, and the ugly — has been like for us, with kids in the preschool era.
Convenience: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times
“…the city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience — if they did they would live elsewhere.” — E. B. White, Here Is New York
New York can be characterized by extremes; the conveniences and inconveniences of New York parenthood perhaps showcase those extremes most sharply. Nearly all of these inconveniences can be sidestepped for a price. Cost of living here is obviously a significant negative. While some do, we do not own a car. The sticker shock of NY private schools is rivaled only by that of NY parking spots. If it’s raining or snowing, we’re IN it, literally. You soon realize that a terrible NY experience is not trying to get a taxi in a thunderstorm, but trying to get a taxi in a thunderstorm and then loading a stroller in the trunk while installing two car seats as children whine and wiggle away from you into oncoming traffic. [Note: you’re not legally required to put your child in a carseat in a taxi here, but that’s its own ride of anxiety.] I assume this is the horror show people imagine our life to be and, shooting you straight, it is on occasion.
“In New York, the street adventures are incredible. There are a thousand stories in a single block. You see the stories in the people’s faces. You hear the songs immediately. Here in Los Angeles, there are less characters because they’re all inside automobiles.” — Joni Mitchell
With that said, I would argue that the convenience of daily New York living with kids is one of the things I love the most. Let’s start with transportation while we’re on it. Our Manhattan neighborhood, like most in the city, is fairly self-contained and that means we can pretty much walk everywhere we need to go. Car seats — this and that (fits-in-your-tote game changer) — are stored on a high shelf and rarely used. Our pediatrician is housed next door. School is two blocks away, as are our church and Central Park (containing a myriad of playgrounds, baseball and soccer practice for my son, music class for my daughter, a zoo, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a carousel, and a castle, among other attractions). Every neighborhood is different, but each has its own smorgasbord of daily necessities that make life possible and quaint within a few minutes’ walk. Walking, and fast, is a core part of the lifestyle — it means we live longer and we interact face-to-face with our community.
When you need to go further, the subway and bus — see one-year-old Francis flirting with a stranger on the M101, below — are peak thrill for kids. Again, no seatbelts necessary. Rainy Saturday morning? My preschooler and I hop on the 6 Train to Grand Central and watch a LIRR train or two depart. Without fail a conductor introduces himself and gifts a ticket pre-punched in a smiley face shape: $2.90 of memorable entertainment. More, you can relatively-reliably get around faster and cheaper on the subway than a car — what’s not to love? Okay, okay, we’ve all read a few nightmare-inducing subway headlines, but statistically speaking it’s safer than the mean streets of St. Louis or San Francisco, where I’ve previously lived and walked sans bodyguard.
Rest assured that what can’t be easily reached on foot can be delivered. While we live within walking of a handful of grocery stores ranging from Citarella to Target, FreshDirect (a delivery-only grocer, that allows you to pick the ripeness of your bananas) keeps us mostly stocked. Many providers from the dry clearer to the pharmacist offer complimentary delivery. As a side note, the best part about our neighborhood is that Zitomer is our local pharmacy — joking, sort of. Shlepping is undeniably, if not proudly, part of New York life. But after vacations where I’ve sampled loading and unloading two toddlers in a car alongside groceries, at this point in life, I’m pretty sure schlepping is a pick your poison scenario.
I will cover apartment living next. Of course, some people here live in homes, and before our latest move I had always lived in small walk-up buildings. While the charm of these options can be very high, the convenience is typically low[er]. Ultimately, we moved into a doorman building with a live-in super and, having never enjoyed these conveniences before, I find them to be the ultimate services regardless of location, from daily maintenance (taking out our trash) to trouble shooting more daunting home repairs and crises (broken HVACs and cockroach sightings).
Small Spaces, Gear, and How to Store It
“We don’t have swimming pools in New York City. We have bathtubs.” — Francis Herbert (my three-year-old son)
File swim lessons under NY inconveniences, unless you’re in the sliver of folks with a pool in their building or, better yet, a second home in the Hamptons? Apartment living is the norm here and that presents some childhood experience constraints. Ultimately, the way I view apartment living with kids is a combination of my preferences and values. On the former, I want to live in New York City and this is what life here is. On the latter, I see our finite cabinets as a healthy boundary for keeping our possessions slim. Cleaning and giving away clothes, toys, and books is something every member of the family must practice. Whenever I wish we had a bit more space for a kids easel or whenever I hear that unasked-for-opinion about my kids’ yard deprivation, I remind myself just how very privileged my children are compared to the average person living on this earth. And, more, how healthy I believe it is not to have an excess of things and, yes, even space (which, by global standards, we have anyway).
Growing up in the square footage offered by the great midwest, a playroom (or two) seemed like the main stage of childhood. Yet, like many in the city, this is a feature that our home does not provide. Deal breaker in your book? Apart from a larger apartment, there are indoor play clubs and even buildings with shared play space. That said, we don’t have these amenities either. For us, apartment life means having fewer toys (toys that truly get used), sharing toys between siblings, and getting creative about toy storage (I dedicated an entire post to this topic). It also means sharing a bathroom and potentially a bedroom. It means being so mindful of space that most high chairs are a tripping hazard. It means indoor voices [cue laughter from my patient neighbors]. It means training babies to sleep with ambient light and noise — something I believe is a true life skill. It also happily means no baby gate because no stairs! And an elevator for all the hauling that is life with little tikes.
There are a few things that I really hate about apartment living and probably the top of the list is being limited to our kitchen (the only bare hardwood space in our place) for those two brutal naked intro-to-potty-training days. A close second is scaffolding, which we’ve had on our building intermittently for nearly two years. Yet, for my kids, construction outside their window, like on the street, is urban whale watching. This is something men working on scaffolding seem to understand and play into, not unlike the NYFD, excavator operators, household repair men and other local celebrity guest stars that punctuate our city life.
“Skyscraper National Park” — Kurt Vonnegut
As exhaustively mentioned, apartment living means no yard. Yay for us that there’s no yard work. However, this is mainly negative as children need to play outside as much as possible. Add to that, we have a dog; getting to green space is our primary pastime. Hudson River Park was our mainstay as downtowners and now it’s Central Park, though there are many smaller playgrounds, promenades, and grassy areas dotting the boroughs and we are on a mission to find them all.
This brings me to gear and — minimalist though I would like to be in this department — we have a lot. While the double stroller has served us well, we have recently converted to the wagon and there’s no going back. This vehicle is especially key with children at the age/size ours are, still needing to be hauled quite a bit, but too big for the ergo dynamics of the Uppababy Vista. The wagon is our most essential item daily, but to be clear we also have travel strollers, scooters (yes, plural), and a balance bike. While we don’t have a real pool, we do have an inflatable baby version, and it’s put in regular rotation on our friends’ roof in the summer months. We also subscribe to the ‘no bad weather, only bad clothes’ philosophy, making a full-body rain and snow suit must-haves.
Enter the unsung hero of apartment living: the stroller closet. To me, this is more essential than a playroom and I would happily sacrifice space in any area of my home to construct one. Suburbanites, think of it as your garage and mudroom combined. The largest luxury of my New York life is that we have not one, but two closets that fit strollers. To be clear, I do not have a walk in closet or ample closet space otherwise — RIP to my bachelorette pad closet. A stroller closet must fit your stroller, but ideally also kids shoes, coats, gloves, hats, sports gear, water toys, picnic essentials (this and that, more urban-living must-haves), and pet supplies. For my kids’ closets, I rely heavily on this, this, and that for organization.
Rats, Grime, Drugs, and Heartbreaking Human Conditions
“When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.” — Fran Lebowitz
I was sitting on my mother’s St. Louis patio at dusk over Easter weekend when two football-sized animals entered the yard. I jumped with disgust at what I assumed were overgrown rats wandering in for the leftovers of our dinner, when I realized they were picture book-perfect cotton tail bunnies. You know you’re a New Yorker when? From the subways to the sidewalks, I have built up a certain dirt tolerance that I never imagined. Take the Manhattan sandbox… yes, that will end up in your baby’s mouth. Like most parents, you will be hard-pressed to find me without WaterWipes on hand, but everyone here has to determine their grit limits and tolerate what they can. I wipe my dog’s paws and [mostly] take off my shoes upon returning home. I try to roll with the rest as “immune system boosters.”
“My hometown New York also has a big heart. It doesn’t like to see itself in that way, but we do come together when need be…” — Anthony Bourdain, 2017 Vogue Interview
That said, I will never develop immunity against the sorrow of coming face-to-face with debilitating addiction, mental illness, and homelessness. The dichotomy of walking past the red carpet of The Carlyle to be met by a three-year-old selling candy on the train platform will always be shocking. Life in New York does not allow you to be blind to the vast inequity, injustice, and overall broken nature of our world. As New York parents, it’s something we must explain again and again to our very young children. It can feel like an impossible task to do this in an age-appropriate way, sensitive to their innocent hearts, yet also honest and educating. I see these moments as an opportunity to cultivate compassion and humility. It took a handful of repetitive conversations for Francis to understand why I gave the banana I was carrying as a snack for him (a snack he had rejected, I might add) to a begging child, but by bedtime he included that child in his prayers.
“You can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
There are a myriad of reasons I believe city living matures the soul, and no, not only because my own neurotic, high-strung personality runs free here among its own kind. Some of the top reasons we chose to raise children in New York includes the diverse community along with exposure to art and culture. There are other benefits that I’ve discovered while parenting — for example, the independence and street smarts cultivated here prove built-in outlets for risky play, something we believe to be valuable for child development. In short, we raise children here because of, not in spite of, what the city offers.
Thankfully every family, parent, partnership, and child is unique and suited to different lifestyles. If this weren’t the case, the world would be so boring. Should you be an urban dweller like us, and Substack tells me over a quarter of you are, hopefully this post hits and you’ll share it. If not, enjoy this glimpse of the energy, excitement, and — dare I say — charm that make our constant construction zone a not-so-terrible option for childrearing.
“Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough” — John Steinbeck
Plus learning to share with all the other kids at the playground!
Well said. Richmond, VA, is not New York City, but we live in a rowhouse there in a historic urban neighborhood and my children — who are all now young adults — are so thankful for their city childhoods. In many ways, the communal nature of it all feels very old-fashioned and offered them a lot of age-appropriate freedom they would not have had had they been raised in a cul-de-sac in the exurbs.