Adulting, but With Your College Crowd

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/realestate/adulting-instant-community-with-the-college-crowd.html

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When young city dwellers new to New York seek a sense of community, many find it in the familiar faces of their college alumni. Not ready to live on their own and wary of finding a random roommate on the internet, they are creating college, version 2.0.

And while there is no longer a resident adviser living on the hall, some buildings do host organized activities like holiday parties and movie nights that nurture the close-knit vibe these recent graduates seek.

When Sarah Desiderio, 24, an assistant editor at The Tab, a media start-up, realized that moving to New York City was the next logical career step, she immediately looked to her Penn State network.

“When I had just graduated and was looking for a job in New York, it definitely brought me peace of mind knowing that despite taking this intimidating step moving to a new city, I wouldn’t have to do it alone,” she said. “If anything, it was a motivation factor to actually secure a job and get here so that I could live with friends from school.”

Ms. Desiderio was able to secure a four-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, along with fellow 2015 Penn State graduates Demi Orphanos, 23, a leasing specialist at Breaking Ground, a service for the homeless; Maggie Glass, 24, a digital production assistant for NBC’s “Harry,” Harry Connick Jr.’s daytime talk show; and another friend who would eventually move out and make way for a fellow alumna Madeline Heckman, 23, a senior publisher at Mediaplanet. At the time, none of the women were aware that their new neighborhood was considered a “hipster part of Brooklyn.” Instead, they were most excited about having their own washer and dryer and a Walgreens around the corner.

The women split the $4,100-a-month rent based on the size of each bedroom. Ms. Desiderio describes their home as a modified version of life at Penn State: “It’s like we took what we could of college and put it in a jar and brought it with us.” It sounded preferable to Ms. Heckman, who, upon her initial arrival in New York City, was subletting a room in an apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with three male strangers.

“My mom was much happier when I signed a lease with three girls I know that she’s met before,” Ms. Heckman said. “If I’m going out at night they will care to ask me where I am, whereas in the situation before it was like, we don’t know this girl.”

As the four friends have adjusted to their career-centric New York City lifestyle, living together has become much more than an extension of their college days. Their home has become an oasis after putting in long and intense hours at their jobs.

“If you had a really long day or a bad day, or a good day and you want to celebrate, I can’t imagine coming home super excited or super upset and going to my room,” Ms. Glass said. “So it’s cool we can all come sit on the couch, put on a show, open a bottle of wine, or make food or have some popcorn and catch up on our days. We can all comfort or celebrate with each other.”

The women say that things have changed since their college days but that particularly on the weekends, it’s nice to be able to recreate some of their college fun. Tonic East is a favorite bar in Midtown East where they can meet up with other “Penn Staters” to watch college football. But they have also branched out, joining a Glow-in-the-Dark Kickball league that plays in McCarren Park in Williamsburg. It turned out that the activity, suggested by a friend of Ms. Orphanos’s, was a great way to acclimate to their new city, and to branch out from their familiar friend group. Their team, aptly named New Kicks on the Block, were last season’s undefeated champions.

The idea of certain New York City buildings operating as de facto dorms has long been a tradition. Brian McFadden, rentals manager at TripleMint, has placed many tenants in Normandie Court on the Upper East Side — a 1980s building also known as “Dormandie Court,” where landscaped gardens and amenities such as a doorman, gym, laundry and swimming pool give it a “collegiate feel.”

For other young graduates, not only does living with college friends offer a built-in social network, but even the building itself can be pleasantly reminiscent of senior year. Such is the case for Dan Delaney, 27, co-founder and chief technology officer of Players’ Lounge and his three roommates, all graduates of Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

Mr. Delaney — along with Jared Binder, 25, a software developer for Nomura Securities; Casey Gambuti, 25, a technology auditor at Goldman Sachs; and a fourth roommate who preferred to be unidentified — had previously lived together on campus as members of the Chi Psi fraternity.

Their Jersey City high-rise is a bit more sophisticated than frat house living, but some traditions carry over. There is a white board over the couch in the living room for writing random quotes and in-jokes — and on occasion, website coding.

“When you have four of us, there’s always people over, always something going on,” Mr. Gambuti said.

“When we first started living here, we’d bring some beers to the rooftop, bring a guitar out and meet other people doing the same thing,” Mr. Delaney said.

The friends feel no pressure to engineer a social life since the company that owns the building has it built in. “They have a good amount of social events they throw,” Mr. Delaney said. “They threw a party for St. Patrick’s Day, they did one at the end of summer when the pool was closing. A Christmas party. They put movies on. Thursday Night Football on a white screen on the roof. There’s very little reason to leave here.”

When the men first saw an ad for the apartment on Craigslist, with four bedrooms and a rooftop swimming pool for $4,800 a month, they thought it was too good to be true. They also worried about their application being accepted since they were young graduates embarking on their careers. But when they took up residence in July, they quickly realized that the building was full of people just like them. And while Mr. Delaney, Mr. Gambuti and Mr. Binder all commute to work in Manhattan, they prefer life in Jersey City on the other side of the river.

“I was looking at a place like this with a pool in Manhattan,” Mr. Binder said. “It was just under $8,000 for a three-bedroom.”

Even co-workers, who were initially skeptical of his commute back to the Garden State, agree that he has a great setup.

“I told them about the St. Patrick’s Day party and my co-worker said, ‘You’re just going to go back to summer camp over there,’” Mr. Binder said. “He came over this summer and we’d work on the pool deck. He’s from Brooklyn. He was like, ‘Can we work here every day?’ Coming to this building changed his opinion.”

The roommates hope that the new owners who recently bought the building will continue putting up fliers next to the elevators advertising the next community building activity.

When Jamaal Davis, 26, a licensed real estate agent at Citi Habitats, heard that his friend and fellow Morehouse College graduate Terry Anderson, 26, was moving to New York City to work in finance, he immediately knew where to place him.

“Battery Park City would not work for Terry,” said Mr. Davis, who gets a lot of business through the “school pipeline.” He knew his friend and client required a neighborhood that “doesn’t shut down at 6 p.m.”

Mr. Davis also crossed the Financial district and TriBeCa off the list — he saw the neighborhoods as lacking in night life and city views. “I didn’t want to open my window and be looking at a brick wall,” Mr. Anderson said.

Mr. Davis found Mr. Anderson his current apartment — a two-bedroom in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, that he shares with a roommate, Javonie Hodge, 26, a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an investment analyst with TIG Advisors. The men, who became friends while interning at Goldman Sachs, are splitting the $5,300-a-month rent. Their high-rise has become the Thursday through Sunday meeting spot for friends, new and old, no doubt in part because of the stunning views of the city from their living room windows.

Mr. Davis, a native New Yorker, finds himself acting as a sort of guide for recent Morehouse graduates, many of whom are unsure of which neighborhoods they should consider.

The placement was a perfect fit for Mr. Anderson, who required proximity to work, a garage to park his motorcycle and night life. He described the building as “communal,” and he has befriended neighbors who happen to be affiliated with Spelman, the college across the street from Morehouse.

“The neighbors we’re closest with are this couple — the guy taught at Spelman and the wife, I find out she’s from Spelman,” he said.

“Me and Jamaal, we kick back here,” he said. “Super Bowl, we do a big party. Boxing matches. Javonie’s big into basketball. The kickbacks we throw, a lot of people from our colleges come because that’s the network. Morehouse is so small you make one call, and it’ll be a reunion.”

In the East Village, six friends from Notre Dame share a six-bedroom apartment that has given them a sense of continuity and also provided a support network as they embark on their careers.

The apartment, which features a long hallway with doors opening up to individual bedrooms, is the definition of dorm living, right down to the fact that the men tried to put an inflatable hot tub on their private roof deck. (The landlord politely requested it be removed, and they complied).

After two of the friends saw the apartment, they acted immediately, sending the others video of the place and waiting for an affirmative from each potential roommate, knowing that apartments of this size are not easy to come by. “Our lease was shipped from New York to Cleveland, to another suburb of Cleveland, to Chicago, to St. Louis and back to New York,” said T.J. O’Brien, 24.

Their parents acted as guarantors. “The thing everyone’s parents think is you’re going to be living in the city with people you know, and you’re not going to get killed by some random guy on Craigslist,” Mr. O’Brien said.

Mr. O’Brien — along with Greg Duffy, 23; John Planek, 23; Kurt Wemhoener, 24; Matt Pinover, 24; and a sixth friend who declined to be identified — split the $10,000-a-month rent, based on the size of the bedroom.

But the living situation has been about more than just partying — when a neighboring building was on fire, the men quickly alerted one another. “With this many roommates, there’s always a helping hand to be first on the scene,” Mr. O’Brien said. “Right away we knew our stuff’s all right, we’re safe, we’re good.”

And when a water valve broke, flooding the bedroom and all the belongings of one roommate, the men each took the comforters off their beds to try to stop the flow of water.

“That night the heat had to be turned off,” Mr. Pinover said. “It was six guys piled into two beds pushed together. We filled the room with space heaters.

“We were ‘Sesame Street’ for Halloween one year, so I slept in my Cookie Monster costume,” he said, clarifying that it was without the mask.

“Even when your apartment floods, it’s still fun because everyone is cracking jokes,” Mr. O’Brien said.

Evan Rugen, a 22-year-old licensed real estate agent at Citi Habitats, known in his office as the “frat whisperer,” not only rented the Notre Dame graduates their apartment, but he has also become part of their social network. His office is just a few blocks from the graduates’ apartment, and he will often stop by after work.

“It’s the Midwest hospitality,” he said, explaining the group’s appeal. “They’re very welcoming. If you ring the buzzer at 11:30 p.m., you can come up and hang out. We got to New York City around the same time and we’re sort of exploring the city together.”

Mr. O’Brien said: “I think one big thing coming from Notre Dame is that the majority of kids we go to school with went to Chicago after graduation. So the Lincoln Park, Wrigley Field neighborhoods are kind of the big Notre Dame communities. That’s not true of New York so we kind of created our own community here.”