Living in Greenpoint Pros and Cons

Moving to New York is one of my best decisions ever. I left my cool advertising job in Istanbul and moved to New York after my boyfriend located here. That’s a quite love story which you can read here. But I am talking about living in Greenpoint with pros and cons.

It has been 7 years since I moved to New York. And things changed a lot in my life both professionally and privately. I am a mom now.

I’ve never thought that I am going to leave my awesome Upper East Side apartment and move to Brooklyn one day. But I changed a lot. I long for neighbourhood vibes more than 7/24 sirens all around the city. I want to have a cosy chat with my pharmacist at the corner of Greenpoint and Manhattan. (I do have that relationship with my pharmacist now :))

Living in Greenpoint Pros and Cons

So I want to start my list with my favourite Pros.

living in greenpoint pros and cons

Jungle Print Camisole: Asos (very similar) | White culotte: Asos | Bag: Danse Lente | Pumps: Ralph Lauren | Vintage Sunglasses: Asos | Layered Necklace: Baublebar

living in greenpoint pros and cons

Closeness

When you live in the neighbourhood like Greenpoint you have this closeness to everything. You have a bakery at the corner (Charlotte on Manhattan Ave), your favourite coffee shop (Norman Restaurant), the best brunch place (Five Leaves or Magador) etc. I’ve never felt the same when I used to live UES. You have all these great places to spend your whole day but at the same time you are still very close to Manhattan (I mean relatively when you compare with other neighbourhoods in the city.)

living in greenpoint pros and cons

People

Don’t get me wrong but UES is old people town. I know the neighbourhood change a lot since we moved to Brooklyn but It was like that when I lived there and I am pretty sure that It is still dominantly old people lives there. But Greenpoint and Williamsburg area are the best to meet and talk to young like-minded people. My biggest styling inspiration comes from L train actually. Everybody is super cool in that train. 4-5-6 trains are the worst in terms of getting your inspiration from the crowd of the subway.

living in greenpoint pros and cons

Space

It’s more likely to find the bigger apartment in Brooklyn. This is one of the problems about Manhattan. Apartments are so tiny and they are really old. In these last two-three years, there are so many new constructions and renovated the building in Greenpoint, Williams burg area. And It’s more likely to find a 2 bedroom apartment with a reasonable rent.

How about Cons of living in Greenpoint?

Feeling Too Safe

When you start to live in Brooklyn, you don’t want to travel Manhattan as much as you do. You start to feel like Manhattan is this crazy place and you don’t want to deal with all these craziness around. Brooklyn’s safe feeling makes you stuck with your small environment. Before I travelled to Turkey, I stayed in Chinatown for 5 days. It was the nicest place even though It’s a little bit chaotic. All the nicest places are steps away from the street we stayed in. Suddenly I feel, I missed Manhattan so much. This is why I don’t like being stuck in Brooklyn all the time and I blame Brooklyn itself.

Gentrification

This is one of the biggest issues about Williamsburg and Greenpoint. I mean Greenpoint still manage to keep its authentic self but Gentrification is inevitable.  For months, you can lose your favourite coffee shops to the biggest companies like Starbucks.

Is that weird that I couldn’t find any other cons about Greenpoint? I hope you enjoy my Living in Greenpoint Pros and Cons.