i prefer brooklyn but it probably depends a lot on what you like to do. when i lived in BK, my whole life was there. lived there, worked there and mostly socialized there and downtown manhattan. i lived in north brooklyn so getting to the village or the LES was easy, and there were several ways to get there. i also lived in brooklyn for like 15 years, so i was pretty settled.

i’ve lived in JC for 4 years. i work out in the suburbs and my friends are mostly still in BK so it’s a trek to get there. but if i was working in manhattan i might not mind so much living here. i’m also old now (44) so i don’t know.

it’s not hard to get to manhattan from here but i find the inability to go a different way frustrating. like in bed stuy, if one train got delayed i could take a different train to a similar place, or take the bus. i took the bus a lot in brooklyn, sometimes short distances just cause of the weather or whatever, but the buses in JC just aren’t going where i’m going often enough for me to use them. you can even walk from manhattan to brooklyn which is not an option for JC.

anyway, i find that if the path is delayed or just not coming for a while, the only other option i have to get home is taking a cab.

so far as stuff to do, i don’t go out much these days, and it might be more a function of time than place, but brooklyn always had all these weird little things going on, like tiny film screenings in a loft or punk shows in someone’s kitchen. there are at least 2 spots in not too deep BK where you can just rent a space to some screenprinting which is the sort of thing i haven’t seen at all here.

that’s been my experience. i think if i worked in jersey city or manhattan even i’d like it more/feel more grounded here but brooklyn was a great place for me when i was there.

edited because every time i try to write lived ducking autocorrect wrote loved.