insiders know ...

[october 2024 roommates]

SO, roomiematch.com's The Bronx roommate rundown:

The Bronx is home to about 1.3 million residents, living in the only NYC borough on the mainland of the US. (Meaning, not on an island.)

BX is divided in half by the Bronx River and Jerome Avenue. The subways go north to south, which doesn't work as well for cross-Bronx travel. Especially since drivers on the Cross-Bronx Expressway often consider it misnamed, as it frequently slows to a standstill.

But like the rest of NYC, most residents don't own cars, and even those that do probably take public transport more often, saving the car for trips outside the city. With the traffic jams and the subway situation, many Bronxites would rather ride a bike. Many Bronx streets feature separated bikeways. You and your roommates might be happier on a bike or walking as well.

In more transport news, The Bronx is more or less known to the rest of America for elevated trains through graffiti. To some, the graffiti looks dangerous. It's not, but still try not to ride an empty train car. There are conductors, select their car whenever your train is mostly deserted.

Are we saying that for the South Bronx? Indeed!

But we're saying that for all of NYC. Moving with the herd is more safe, while public but deserted late at night and you're all alone could be less. You and your roommates will never be wrong to heed that advice, in The Bronx or anywhere in NYC.

The South Bronx is also known for hip hop and hip hop culture, kicked off here in 1973. At a birthday party, on Sedgwick Avenue. Probably! (It's controversial, but we're going with definitely probably.)

So are we stereotyping The Bronx as geographically mostly graffiti?

Nope! What The Bronx mostly really is, still geographically speaking? PARKS!

Plural parks, or park space in general. About 20% of the whole borough, permanently officially publicly parks!

You've got Crotona Park, with its very deep pool, trees, ducks, and tennis.

There's Pelham Bay, which is three times the size of Central Park! You could go birdwatching, hiking along 13 miles of shoreline, picnicking, or horseback riding!

Or visit Van Cortlandt Park, with America's oldest golf course. Also a brook, a forest, a large freshwater lake, cricket, and horseback riding again.

So all that green seriously competes with the graffiti.

You could even practice your rhyming and rapping in multiple lovely parks riding through the green on your horse.

Perhaps a ride-along rap, including some Bronxites in your neighborhood? It's civically encouraged.

The rest of the The Bronx roommate lowdown:

• The Bronx is 42 square miles.
• northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City
• only borough located on the mainland, not primarily on an island
• high temperatures in summer with frequent freezes in winter
• majority Hispanic
• home to Fordham University, Manhattan College, three campuses of the City University of New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the United States Merchant Marine Academy
• If an ATM in a bodega or deli or convenience mart looks a little "fly-by-night," leave it alone. Please note: We're not trying to libel anyone's bodega! But thefts have been reported from an unusually large number of bank machines in The Bronx, always challenging to determine where the thefts ultimately originated (often the ownership of the ATM is not the same as the store in which it sat).
  
  SO: We'd recommend inserting your bank/ATM card plus password exclusively into machines owned and operated by your same bank. This could mean withdrawing all your cash from one of your bank's locations during the day, which would be more clever too.
  
  If you can't easily tell who's responsible for an ATM, there's probably a not-very-nice reason for that. A not nice reason which will ultimately mean don't count on anyone from the mystery machine returning any unauthorized withdrawals.

After you're settled down, you and your roommates should experience The Bronx's:

• New York Botanical Garden: There's a PlantTracker and plant experts. The Bronx Green-Up is a community gardening outreach program.
• Edgar Allan Poe Cottage: The small wooden house where he lived the last three years of his life. Sadly, he moved to Baltimore after his wife Virginia died of tuberculosis, here. You and your roommates could go on a guided tour.
• Bronx Zoo: Over 6000 animals. From Jungleworld to Tiger Mountain. There's also a Mouse House and a Wild Asia Monorail. Sometimes they have an adults-only "brew at the zoo" where they pass out beer, wine, and cider and let you look at the sea lions all night. After hours parties are on and off though, so doublecheck your details before departing.

Here's the official Bronx newsroom, on their official .gov.

Notes

1.   The non-traditional roommate rent average for this city we've experienced over the last 3 years. We can't predict future rental availability, because we're neither in control of any rental market nor psychic, sorry!

But in most cities most of the time, the recent and relatively recent past are the best predictors.


2.   This idea came from smartasset.com's ranking of what a roommate saves you in 50 cities. They ranked where roommates will save you the most money, based on the average cost of a 1BR as opposed to a 2BR ÷ 2. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the city, the more you can save, but the savings are significant in all larger metros. So we got the data for the rest of our cities from Zumper too.

This is really the minimum you could save, as you could live with more than one roommate, split more services, share food or other supplies, etc. More sharing tends to lead to more savings too, as per our roommate roadmap.

As per the rest of the description at the top of this page, we're calling this "traditional" roommate rent.


3.   From zumper.com.


4.   Directly quoted from the Trust for Public Land's parkland rating system.

"The ParkScore index awards each city up to 100 points for acreage based on the average of two equally weighted measures: median park size and parkland as a percentage of city area. Factoring park acreage into each city’s ParkScore rating helps account for the importance of larger “destination parks” that serve many users who live farther than ten minutes’ walking distance."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual ParkScore, nature lovers might like to see all roommate cities ranked for parkland.


5.   Directly quoted from Walk Score's Cities and Neighborhoods Ranking. They've ranked "more than 2,800 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods so you can find a walkable home or apartment."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual Walk Score, dedicated pedestrians might like to see all roommate cities ranked for walkability.


6.   From various lists here on our own best roommate cities.