Manhattan beckons...

Almost a month ago, my boss called me (very seriously) into a conference room. Given where the economy's at, I wondered whether this is one of those meetings everyone dreads (I'm just kidding). He started out (as is his style) quite bluntly: "There's no way to say this other than to ask. Will you be willing to move to New York for a year?".

After the initial relief had passed (that I wasn't being sacked), I promised I'd speak to my wife and give him a quick answer. She was (like she always is) unreachable at home and on her cell-phone, so there was no way to tell her this news till I returned home in the evening. In fact, she'd been trying to get a table at Berkeley's famous Chez Panisse for many months, and that evening we were finally going there to celebrate our 14th anniversary. This topic promised to be meaty enough to keep us busy all evening (after 14 years I have to build an agenda of discussion bullets to occupy 2 hours together).

Thankfully, she was reasonably excited at the thought of living in the New York area. We've both visited New York in the past, and have come to love its energy and vibrancy. We developed deep roots in the Bay Area, having lived in the same zip code for the past 10 years, but we both felt that living in the New York area was probably worth the dislocation this would cause all of us. She insists on staying in the city; I'm not sure we can afford it, but have reluctantly agreed.

If this goes through, it's undoubtedly going to be a very exciting year for us. Walking to the Met! Listening to concerts in Central Park! Opera! Broadway Shows! I thought to myself: "I've got to use this to get into a regular blogging routine and share our experiences with friends." That's the background to this new blog. I hope you enjoy it; I'm going to try to write a new post every Sunday night.

Researching the move

We spent the weekend calling friends and family in the New York area, getting their inputs and researching living and schooling options on the web. By Sunday evening, we had put together the outline of what it would take and it seemed doable (the depressed economy seems to help a great deal - rents are incredibly reasonable, relatively speaking!). I reported back to my boss, and the ball was set in motion.

So here we are, three weeks later, on the verge of our first trip to New York (this week), to look at schools and apartments. We've spent a major part of the intervening time on the web, researching schools (www.greatschools.net seems to be a good resource) and places to stay. Given that we have a kindergarten-going son, we identified schools with a greatschools.net rating of 8, 9 or 10 (out of a possible 10; he currently goes to a school that's rated 10). The New York Department of Education's website gave us a clear idea of each school's "cachement area", so we knew where we were looking for apartments. We called a few of the schools, and were pleasantly surprised by how friendly and welcoming they were. Where's that New York attitude they talk about?

Other web resources, such as the New York Times' Real Estate Classifieds section have been very useful, but Google in particular, has been tremendous. I created a map highlighting each school's cachement area, and then used Google Real Estate search to find places to stay. A broker friend also sent me a list of properties, and I plotted all of them on the same map too. Google street view allowed me to view each neighborhood, and see how far an apartment was from the school and the local subway station. Some good samaritan had even created a map of all squash courts in Manhattan, so by overlaying that map, I could even see which apartments were close to a public squash court!!

We therefore venture forth, as armed as we can be, to give ourselves a reality check. Stay tuned for the post-visit blog post next week!