Introducing The Neighborhood NYC...
Introducing The Neighborhood NYC...
location ✅
Hello friends,
I have exciting news to share. The Neighborhood NYC will be based in East Williamsburg around the Morgan Avenue L stop 😁
Why there?
Simply: The Morgan Neighborhood is at the frontier of culture in New York City.
The Neighborhood is based in the most generative, interesting location in NYC, while also being as close to Manhattan as possible to enable an easy commute.
The Morgan Neighborhood has the freedom and creative expression of Bushwick, which we’re just west of, and access to the amenities of Williamsburg, which we’re just east of.
The rent is affordable (by New York standards), yet we’re on the all-time best train line, which means commuting into Manhattan is a breeze.
The low prices mean that people can afford large apartments (by New York standards) which allows neighbors to host frequently and thus makes the neighborhood feel cozier. I currently live in this neighborhood; on an average weekend night in my current building one neighbor is hosting a concert of professional musicians, another an art gallery, and a third a birthday party.
During my interviews with y’all, you said that you love New York City because it’s dynamic, and because it’s a hodgepodge of people in tech and the arts and everything in between. For those of you who recently arrived from San Francisco, you were often looking for more diversity than a strictly-tech city can offer. As one young man who had raised a large round put it: “Price matters to me because it says a lot about how the neighborhood is designed. If you price non-tech people out then it’s not going to be a neighborhood I want to live in.”
Ultimately, some of the nicer neighborhoods we originally considered meant making a tradeoff between being at the center of weird and interesting culture, which often emerges from people who have a lot of free time enabled by low rent, and being in a nice-feeling but stagnant neighborhood.
What are the Tradeoffs?
The Morgan Neighborhood historically hasn’t been as well taken care of as some of the nicer neighborhoods we considered. There’s trash along some of the streets. Some trees are overgrown with weeds. Some of the buildings have careless graffiti tags (though much of our neighborhood’s graffiti is distinctive and beautiful). It’s also in the North Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone, which means big trucks drive through.
I was torn by these trade-offs until a partnership emerged with Maximum New York that convinced me that the less seemly aspects of the Morgan Neighborhood are an opportunity, not a disadvantage.
MNY had been looking for a location to allow its students and graduates to practice government and civics from the ground up. Together with MNY, we have made improvements to the neighborhood.
We are working on adding trash cans to our street, and we also reached out to the Department of Transportation to add a new stop sign at the beginning of our downtown area, where cars often pass through at high speeds; they are conducting a traffic study by early 2023 to determine whether we need one (we think we do).
We’ve connected with our local city councilor’s office, and they’ve introduced us to local community groups and non-profits who can help us meet our goals. Through that connection, some MNY graduates and I now serve as budget delegates for our council district. That means we help determine the outcome of $1M of community funding that will be deployed in our district next May.
We’ve also started a community group for our local park, and are pursuing funding via local non-profits (it turns out that the NYC park ecosystem is robust and very functional!). We’ve also submitted a budget proposal for larger park infrastructure changes, with the help of our city councilor’s staff.
There’s a lot more to come; if you’re interested in civics, you should undoubtedly live in the Neighborhood — DM me, and let’s chat.
The Vision
So what is the Neighborhood?
In the near term: the Neighborhood is what happens when you combine the serendipity of a college campus, the co-creation of Burning Man, the agency of Silicon Valley, the vigor of a Midwestern high school track coach, and the culture of New York City.
You’ll live within walking distance of some of the most playful, creative, and competent people you know. On any given night there might be salons, breathwork, hackathons, political work, jam sessions, talks, musical productions, co-working sessions — and living rooms and third spaces filled with interesting conversations into the night.
The long-term vision of the Neighborhood is that it will be the best place in the city to raise healthy, high-agency kids. New York City is an amazing place for older kids and teenagers — the subway gives them independence long before they turn sixteen, and they have access to more opportunities than they could get anywhere else in America.
However, raising young kids in New York City is tough. Small homes are taxing on both children and parents.
Kids don’t always seem free to be kids here. There are too many dangers, or so people think, and thus the culture can be constraining. Friends of mine have a 4-year-old, whom they are raising to be very independent. He sometimes runs down the sidewalk far ahead of his parents, but then strangers get scared and yell at him, and when they identify his parents they yell at them too.
However, there are some kids who get to be kids. Kids who run down the streets together in groups, riding scooters and playing. The kids I’m thinking of are…Hasidic Jewish kids — and they live just down the street (in Williamsburg). There are a number of Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods in New York City where families seem to enjoy the trust and freedom of suburbia with the conveniences of a city. This is enabled by co-locating around shared infrastructure with values-aligned people — by having more caring, cooperative eyes on the street.
I believe we can create this type of neighborhood environment, without orthodoxy. Imagine a co-owned multi-family building with a solarpunk school and coworking space (think Montessori x MIT Media Lab x Aristotle x Chobani). Our kids will grow up in an environment that is human scale, with short commutes, cooperative education/mentorship, and tons of trust.
What’s Next?
The Neighborhood will formally launch in March 2023. In the meantime, the next few months will be focused on creating more co-living houses within the Neighborhood, to help kickstart a thriving culture. A few houses exist here already: a Maximum New York house, The Lightning Society, and Fractal. We’re also opening an arts house this month (there are still rooms available starting December 1; DM me ASAP if interested).
If the idea of starting a co-living house intrigues you, I’m hosting an information session on Thursday, December 1. I will help you every step of the way, from gathering friends, to finding a unit, to figuring out finances, to creating a thriving culture.
More to come — I’m excited!
Priya
P.S. If any of this interests you, DM me.
The L line, which is one of three highest frequency trains in the city. Trains leave every 3 minutes during the morning rush hour, and every 5 minutes at noon.