The New York City area is home to nearly 20 million people and 20 trillion cockroaches living together in blissful harmony.
Well over 1 million people alone are packed into the 23 square miles that make up the island of Manhattan. New York is known for high rents, high couture, and of course – high finance.
Every summer, waves of newly-minted investment bankers descend upon the city, snapping up apartments left and right in several of the many neighborhoods and areas in proximity to Wall Street.
Let’s take a walk down NYC’s East Side and survey the typical mistmaker lifestyle in a few of the City’s most banker-heavy nabes:
1. The Murray Hill Bro-Shak
Four banker bros just graduated together from the same frat and all landed jobs in finance in NYC. At first, they considered trying to find an apartment on the Upper East Side, because that’s where the smokeshows on Gossip Girl lived. Then they realized that 90th and York is actually pretty quiet, and man, there are like, so many families up in that area.
Inevitably, like a ten-ton magnet, the wafts of Victoria’s Secret perfume, the blaring tunes of The Boss, and the familiar stank of sweat-n-booze-stained wooden floors attracts these strapping young fist pumpers to the Hill. Armed with fray-brim Duke Lacrosse douchetops, you’ll find the typical inhabitants of a Murray Hill Bro-Shak throwing “totally sick pregames” every Saturday night somewhere around East 34th.
2. The Stuy-Town Single
The fifth bro of the group got in the rental market a little late – as the one guy with a long-term girlfriend in another city, he was the obvious odd man out, and fell behind in the apartment hunting game.
While he still wanted to be close to his college bros and Bar XII, there weren’t any studios or 1-beds available in Bro Shak Country. So he caved in and called the number on the banner ad on the 6 train, and ended up in a small convert in Stuy Town. What he didn’t realize at the time is that he’d stumbled upon a goldmine. Packed with similarly-clueless college grads, this banker bro’s go-to mass text quickly became “Stuy Town then Still Bar!”
Needless to say, the long-term relationship didn't work out - trolling the elevator banks in Stuy Town was just too easy.
3. The East Villager
Below 14th Street, you find young bankers in an identity crisis. Too inexperienced to navigate the trendy yet hit-or-miss LES apartment market, yet savvy enough to avoid the neverending jello-shot parade that dominates life north of 20th, the East Villager decides to settle into an overpriced renovated walkup on lower 2nd Ave.
In stark contrast to his roommate – an old friend who took a decidedly different path in life and works at Generation Records – this young banker suits up every day, slogs past the piss-stained KFC on East 14th, and takes the train from Union Square to his midtown office feeling like a sellout. He chose the East Village because hey – he’s not really a frattastic banker bro. He snags Mudd Coffee and hits the Greenmarket on the weekends. In the evenings, he takes pleasure in trading his pressed shirt and tie for a rumpled flannel. He voted for Obama and might even do it again. But once in awhile, he’ll dig deep into his dresser, throw on a polo, and hit 13th Step. Secretly, he thinks Carly Rae Jepsen is insanely catchy, but don’t tell that to anyone at Knitting Factory.
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