Our lease expires at the end of March. And we’ve decided that we really don’t want to live in Jersey City or anywhere else in New Jersey. Without even trying, I could fill page upon page with all the things that are wrong with New Jersey — starting with the taxis that don’t take credit cards. We’ve been considering both New York and Connecticut as future residences for the North East branch of the Watkins clan.
We drove up to Connecticut again yesterday. Specifically, we visited South Norwalk and Stratford. S. Norwalk is a smallish historic district that looks to be in the early stages of urban redevelopment. There are quite a few restaurants, a bar or two and an horrifically overpriced coffee shop in the neighbourhood. In walking around the SoNo (the local name for South Norwalk) area, we spied a theatre that hosts The Director’s View Film Festival and also seems to be associated with a film post production company. In addition to the restaurants, there is a micro-brewery in the area.
We looked at a nice apartment in the old Corset Factory for the princely sum of $1400 per month. Of course, this would be a savings of just over $1100 on our current rent. The apartment is only 4 to 5 blocks from the Metro North train station, which makes it about 60 minutes by train from Grand Central. My total commute into Manhattan would be about 1.5 hours. Long, but endurable.
On the way home, we drove through Westport and Darien, which we both agreed looked a lot nicer than either Stratford or Norwalk; but both are considerably more expensive and don’t seem to have many apartments available.
We haven’t rented anything yet; and the clock is ticking away…