New York
How a Global Researcher Lives on $110,000 in Long Island City
How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Weixun Hu enjoys what might sound like the ultimate professional perk. New Yorkers pay some of the country’s highest taxes on their income, more than $12,000 on average per person between state and local governments. But Mr. Hu’s income tax this year? $0.
That’s because Mr. Hu, 32, who was born in Guangzhou, China, conducts social development research at an international organization, where most employees are exempt from national income taxes or reimbursed for the cost. His gross and net income are one in the same; he earns roughly $110,000 after his insurance and pension contributions.
Mr. Hu became one of New York City’s 3.1 million foreign-born residents nearly three years ago, after reassignment from a post in Bangkok in the summer of 2023. But he quickly ran into a hurdle: finding an apartment with no credit history, no tax returns and no one to co-sign a lease.
“It sounds very cool that you don’t pay taxes,” Mr. Hu said. “It also creates a lot of problems.”
He discovered that many of his co-workers landed in a handful of pricey residential developments including Stuyvesant Town. Yet renting there felt worlds apart from Thailand’s capital city, where a luxury studio in a high-rise condo with a rooftop infinity pool and premium gym might run $600 per month.
So he found a studio in Long Island City, Queens, where he has in-unit laundry and falls asleep to the sound of waves hitting the shore near Hunters Point South. His employer subsidizes $700 of his $3,900 rent, and utilities and internet cost about $150 monthly.
“It’s much better value compared to renting in Manhattan,” he said.
Saving for Tomorrow
A good deal of young adults in New York City don’t know how to drive, and expect to remain renters for most of their lives. Not Mr. Hu.
He puts away $2,000 or so a month into a high-yield savings account, aspiring to buy a car. His sights are set on a Mazda CX-5. But he expects he’ll need to pay upfront in cash, another consequence of lacking a credit or tax history — and it’ll take about three more years to build up enough.
Eventually, he wants to own a home. “I know most people in New York City don’t care,” he said. “But for me, it’s very important.”
Mr. Hu also supports his parents in their retirement, sending about $3,000 every three months. As their only child, he feels both a sense of guilt for living about 8,000 miles from home — and an obligation to pay them back for their sacrifices.
“People will say, ‘Oh, you’re single. You don’t have a wife. You don’t have kids,’” he said. “‘So all your money is yours.’”
“And I’m like, ‘Excuse me, my parents are still alive.’”
In other ways, though, Mr. Hu fits the profile of an everyday bachelor: He rarely cooks meals at home. “My oven is basically storage space.”
Rather, he searches for affordable deals on Too Good To Go, a popular app where restaurants sell excess food at a discounted price. His No. 1 spot is Chinese Musician in Greenpoint, which offers a three-course meal for $9.
Sometimes, Mr. Hu does the $16 tonkotsu ramen at Nishida Sho-ten on 49th Street for lunch, an $8 lamb over rice meal for dinner from the halal truck in front of Bellevue Hospital or a hot dog for $3.25 from Gray’s Papaya. He’ll swing by the Dollar General in Astoria to stock up on his favorite drink, Coca-Cola Orange Cream.
And he saves up for an upscale dining experience every couple of months. He recently feasted at the Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulud’s steakhouse, La Tête d’Or, where he spent roughly $300 and ordered what he called the standout filet mignon.
The Lions Over the Knicks
For any sports buff, it’s an incredible time to live in New York City.
But for Mr. Hu, ticket prices to see the Knicks play at Madison Square Garden felt “a little bit off-putting” — and that was even before their championship run. So he started religiously following basketball at Columbia, going to games that often run $10 to $12 on the Morningside Heights campus.
Yankees games, where a 400-level seat might run $45, are a no; he opts to watch the Columbia Lions up close at Robertson Field in Inwood without charge.
He is willing to spend up to about $300 on some singular sports showdowns. He can still recall how Kylian Mbappé flew down the field at MetLife Stadium during a Real Madrid match against Borussia Dortmund last summer.
Typically, though, he elects for low- or no-cost events like this spring’s edition of the Madison Avenue Gallery Walk.
And he regularly joins free lectures at the Asia Society, where he has a complimentary membership through his employer, and at local universities like N.Y.U., where he’s met the minds behind two of his favorite video games, The Elder Scrolls and Monument Valley.
A Sense of Wanderlust
Ever since Mr. Hu can recall, he’s felt a magnetic pull to experience the world. And few things embody such a yearning as aviation.
He sometimes goes to Canarsie to watch planes land at Kennedy International Airport, studying the way pilots pull up the nose of their aircrafts and slow the descent before touching down. He’s even found others who share his passion on walks in the neighborhood.
And traveling draws him even closer to his hobby.
He spent $4,400 on a trip to Guangzhou last June to fly for the first time in an Airbus A380, the only full-length double-deck aircraft in the world. Qatar Airways is one of the few airlines that still has an active fleet — so Mr. Hu arranged his trip by way of Doha.
“Some people treat it as bragging,” he said. “But no, it’s just to admire such an incredible machine that’s very rare to be seen these days.”
“It’s a weird, niche hobby, but I’m happy spending my money on it.”
As a young man living in his seventh country — after Belgium, China, Italy, Poland, Thailand and the United Kingdom — he appreciates that as “a foreigner in this city, you don’t have to worry about whether you stand out.”
He’s relished exploring from Crown Heights to Jackson Heights, taking the train to a random stop and popping into bodegas to chat up the owners. He considers Staten Island — and its Chinese Scholar’s Garden in Snug Harbor where adult admission costs $5 — to be a hidden gem.
And when he boarded the U.S.S. Bataan during a past Fleet Week, he felt obliged to tell a Marine that he was Chinese. “He said: ‘Oh, no worries at all. Everybody can be an American’.”
“To be honest, I still don’t think it’s a value option for the money,” Mr. Hu said of New York City. “But there’s something so unique, and I think it’s that inclusiveness.”
“You don’t need to go to the world,” he said. “The world comes to you.”
We are talking to New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save.
Professor Sanjay Reddy had been bluntly critical for years about how his university, the New School in New York City, managed its finances. He had thought that his status as a tenured professor of economics would protect him.
It didn’t.
He was laid off in June, along with 18 other New School professors, nine of whom also had tenure. The layoffs are part of an ongoing restructuring at the New School that administrators have said will rescue it from a crisis ignited by shrinking enrollment and crippling deficits. Sixty-eight staff members were also let go. Dozens of additional faculty members have left through buyouts and early retirements, which has shrunk the full-time faculty to 387 professors from 430 a year ago.
The dismissals represent the latest round of turmoil at the downtown Manhattan institution, which was founded as the New School for Social Research in 1919 by progressive professors as an alternative to traditional universities. The New School, which has about 8,500 students, has long struggled with finances, but its latest solution, some professors say, puts its legacy and future as a social science research institution at risk.
The firing of professors amid a larger reorganization has become increasingly common at American universities, particularly since the coronavirus pandemic, said Deepa Das Acevedo, a law professor at Emory University and author of “The War on Tenure.”
Universities, she said, are increasingly acting like other employers, finding “complicated and sometimes pretextual reasons” to fire employees, even those with tenure.
“What we’re seeing at the New School is emblematic of the rising pressures on higher education as a labor market and as an industry,” she said.
The New School’s handling of the layoffs has raised questions among hundreds of prominent professors around the United States and world. They wrote a letter calling on administrators to be more transparent about how the decisions were made.
Professor Reddy’s case is “particularly concerning,” said the letter; Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning Columbia University economist, is the lead signatory. “The criteria used in selecting faculty and staff for termination have not been adequately explained to the wider academic community,” the letter said.
Professor Reddy, 55, stands out because he was the only economics professor to be terminated. His department is not among the roughly two dozen programs being closed or redesigned. In The New York Times and elsewhere, Professor Reddy had repeatedly been quoted as blaming the university’s financial woes on administrative bloat and bad real estate deals, challenging the official line that the defining problem was a faculty that cost too much.
“I felt, and this was probably naïve and misguided, that I should be able to use tenure in this way,” he said in an interview. “This is what tenure is for. It’s within my professional competence as an economist.”
He was stunned, he said, when he was given two options: step down by July 1 and sign a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for 11 months’ severance, or be terminated, with his last day in December. He chose the latter.
Richard Kessler, the New School’s provost, declined to comment on Professor Reddy’s situation, citing privacy rules. But he said that the university had determined that the economics department, which has nine full-time faculty members, “has more teaching capacity than we have need for.”
He defended the layoff decisions as a whole. About 30 additional professors at the university who could have been laid off, he said, were found new positions instead.
“It was a remarkably extensive, and I feel, without any qualifications whatsoever, thoughtful process,” he said.
Paul Kottman, a tenured comparative literature scholar and the chair of the master’s program in liberal studies at the New School, was also terminated. He was asked to continue leading his program until his last day in December. The program, he said, had just received praise in a review process, as did his leadership of it.
The layoffs could set a dangerous precedent, Dr. Kottman said, particularly because they are happening in the center of New York City at an institution known for its commitment to academic freedom. “If my tenured position didn’t protect me, then who does it protect?” he said.
In an interview, Mr. Kessler said that the New School felt it had the right to fire tenured employees, even if their department or program wasn’t ending, because it was reorganizing the entire institution.
Before July 1, the New School consisted of four colleges. Now, Parsons School of Design and the College of Performing Arts have become a single, arts-focused college. A second college merges the New School for Social Research, which is the academic graduate school, and the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, the undergraduate college.
The new structure is designed to reduce costs and increase collaboration, said Mr. Kessler, a musician who was formerly the dean of the performing arts school.
There’s disagreement over whether such a restructuring permits the broad firing of tenured professors. The American Association of University Professors, a nonprofit organization, has shaped the national norms of tenure since 1940. It holds that tenured professors, unless they are being fired for cause, should be let go only in the case of a financial emergency, and only as part of the elimination of their academic program or department.
“A bureaucratic restructuring that leads to the selective elimination of faculty members really puts academic freedom in jeopardy,” said Mark Criley, a senior program officer in the association’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance. It particularly imperils professors “who have displeased administrators or trustees or donors,” he said.
But tenure norms are not laws, and the New School said it was abiding by its faculty handbook, which states that tenured faculty may be let go if there are “serious financial considerations or curricular change(s)” that require the university “to discontinue an academic department/program or college/school.”
Professor Reddy, who has been a faculty member for 17 years, disputed that interpretation. “They’ve used a very innovative and elastic legal theory, a heroic legal theory, you might say, to justify this,” he said.
Nearly all of the terminated faculty members were at the New School for Social Research and at Eugene Lang, because they have had larger enrollment declines than the arts-focused schools, Mr. Kessler said. The university has also paused nearly all Ph.D. admissions, which most affects the social research graduate school.
The History Department is among the most affected: Three professors were laid off, and two are taking early retirement under pressure, said Jeremy Varon, one of the retiring professors. Five professors will remain — “not enough to competently deliver a curriculum,” Professor Varon said.
Mr. Kessler said the cuts reflected that the university had already shifted toward art and design. Between 70 and 80 percent of students are coming to the New School “for some form of design education or creative education,” mostly at Parsons, he said.
Yet most tenured and full-time professors, who are more expensive to the university, work in the social sciences and liberal arts. Parsons, by contrast, relies heavily on part-time adjunct instructors.
“At some point in time, any organization has to take steps to bring the expenses in line with the revenues and also figure out how to plan for the future and essentially invest in strength,” Mr. Kessler said.
Koray Caliskan, a sociologist at Parsons who teaches strategic design and management, saw the restructuring in a positive light. The social sciences, he said, aren’t being lost at Parsons, because they are part of the curriculum for design students. The sweeping redesign of the colleges, he added, could open the way for innovative new doctoral programs.
But Judith Friedlander, a former New School dean and the author of a history of the institution, described the restructuring as a frontal attack on the university’s progressive, social research core.
“It no longer represents what this institution stood for and was about,” she said.
Midtown Manhattan is known for many things: packed sidewalks, Broadway theaters, the commercial cacophony that is Times Square. It is, as a rule, a neighborhood I try to steer clear of unless I am seeing a show, or being paid to be in our newsroom.
But this bustling corridor at the sweaty heart of New York City is also home to a surprising number of great bookstores. These literary oases offer a respite from the clamor of the streets — places to escape the madding crowds for a browse, maybe pick up a sweet treat and recharge before you plunge back into the fray, with your next great read in hand.
Whether you’re a tourist visiting New York or a local looking for a lunch-break escape, we’ve put together a mini walking tour that shows off the neighborhood at its bookish best. You could make a day of it and visit all seven spots in an afternoon, or keep this as a running to-do list to check off this summer. (And if you’re craving more literary adventures, I’ve got good news! Midtown is just the beginning: We have itineraries for other New York neighborhoods coming your way soon.)
Estimated walking time: 40 minutes, 1.7 miles
1 McNally Jackson (Rockefeller Center)
An independent stalwart with something for everyone.
Founded in 2004, McNally Jackson is one of the pillars of New York’s independent bookstore scene. From its original storefront in NoLIta (now shuttered, and replaced by a SoHo flagship a few blocks away), the store has expanded across the boroughs to its current five locations, including this roomy outpost at Rockefeller Center, which opened in 2022.
With a wide selection of genres — including an annex full of children’s books — McNally Jackson has something for the whole family, whether you want the latest best seller or are on the hunt for a classic or an overlooked gem. The stores are known for their unusual filing system: Fiction (on the second floor) is divided by the authors’ country or region of origin, with additional, more traditional genre-themed sections for fans of romance, fantasy, mysteries and more.
Sitting by a transit hub at the top of Midtown, it’s a great first port of call to get your bearings before embarking on your literary quest. Pick up a tote bag to hold all the great finds you’ll uncover on the stops to come! (If you take a peek above the register, you’ll see cardboard cutouts of Walt Whitman, Toni Morrison and Marcel Proust modeling your options.)
1 Rockefeller Plaza, 212-925-2134, mcnallyjackson.com
Open daily from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
No restroom available
2 Bookoff
Go treasure-hunting in their extensive used book section.
A cardboard cutout of the cheerily bulbous cartoon figure YomuYomu welcomes you to Bookoff, an American outpost of a popular Japanese used bookstore chain (the mascot’s name comes from the verb “yomu,” which means “to read”). This jam-packed resale emporium holds everything from collectible figurines to gaming consoles, CDs and DVDs to cassette tapes and vinyl. But most of the literary offerings are up on the second floor, in the huge used book section.
You could easily while away several hours digging through Bookoff’s shelves. Prices are as low as $1, and you can find some great treasures, especially on the racks of (now sadly discontinued) mass market paperbacks.
And when you’re done reading, you can always come back! Bookoff buys used books and other media, too.
49 West 45th Street, 212-685-1410, bookoffusa.com
Open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
No restroom available
3 Kinokuniya
Japanese books and snacks with a view of Bryant Park.
Another American location of a Japanese bookseller, this store boasts three stories of books and bookish goodies (plus the most adorable tiny shopping baskets I’ve ever seen).
The first floor has a wide selection of fiction, nonfiction, children’s books and cookbooks, with a particular (but not exclusive) emphasis on Japanese culture and writers, such as the mystery author Yukito Ayatsuji and Toshikazu Kawaguchi, a beloved purveyor of the comforting East Asian subgenre known as “healing fiction.” In the basement, you’ll find Japanese language books, paper craft supplies and oodles of merch; Studio Ghibli gets its own section, guarded by a giant stuffed Totoro. And the second floor is largely devoted to manga.
Before you leave, make sure you check out the column of staff favorites, located on the first floor, which embody the store’s mission statement: “Read books. Meet people.”
1073 6th Avenue, 212-869-1700, usa.kinokuniya.com
Open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Restroom available on the first floor
The best part of Kinokuniya is actually not the great selection of books: It’s the in-store cafe, located on the second floor, which offers a delicious array of Japanese goodies. Grab an onigiri or a fruit sandwich and an iced milk tea and enjoy them with a view of Bryant Park.
1073 6th Avenue, 2nd Floor, 212-764-6785, tomiznyc.com
Open Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
4 Midtown Comics
A nerd’s paradise hidden in plain sight.
Blink and you might miss this mecca of fandom, whose purple awning is wedged between an empanada counter and a sandwich shop. But up the Spider-Man-bedecked stairs lies a two-story treasure trove of comics and graphic novels.
The first floor has a wide array of new releases, as well as a selection of magazines, children’s books and novels (mainly fantasy, sci-fi and horror, in keeping with the nerdy theme). Superman stands guard by the stairs, which lead to back issues and a colorful apparel and action figure section.
200 West 40th Street, 212-302-8192, midtowncomics.com
Open Monday and Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
No restroom available
5 The Drama Book Shop
A distinguished theatrical gem steps from Broadway.
The 109-year-old Drama Book Shop nearly had to leave the stage in 2019 after being hit with the horrible one-two punch of a burst pipe and a steep rent increase. Luckily, four men (all associated with the hit musical “Hamilton”) stepped in to give the store a second act: the show’s composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda; its director, Thomas Kail; its lead producer, Jeffrey Seller; and the owner of its Broadway home, James L. Nederlander.
The store’s new iteration — designed by David Korins, the “Hamilton” set designer — opened in 2021, one block south of the original location. The warmly lit, wood-paneled space is full of handsome leather banquettes and cozy corners where someone might be scribbling the next great American musical. Just steps from Broadway, the whole store is a homage to that business we call show, with a wide selection of plays and librettos as well as books on craft and design and a biography section with potential source material. (It is also the only store on this list to have been honored with a Tony Award.)
The most striking feature is the serpentine book sculpture that winds from the front table into the rafters; there’s also a charming, miniature crochet version in a display case by the register. And if you’re in need of a pick-me-up, the coffee bar offers pastries and drinks, some of which are Broadway-themed (see: the Carolee Carmello, a salted caramel and toasted marshmallow latte as brassy as the broad herself).
266 West 39th Street, 212-944-0595, dramabookshop.com
Open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Restroom available
6 Bryant Park Outdoor Reading Room
Curl up with a great book under the trees.
You’ve wound your way through the streets. You’ve stocked up on books. Now all you need is somewhere great to read them. If the weather is accommodating, your best option is Bryant Park, where you can pull up a metal chair in the shade of the London Plane trees and rest your feet from all that browsing.
There’s even a section of the park specifically dedicated to the written word: Head to the 42nd Street side to find the Bryant Park Reading Room, which from April to October offers plenty of umbrellas, seating and reading material in case you forgot — or just aren’t in the mood for — your own. Their racks have books for all ages, along with newspapers and magazines, all of which you’re free to borrow while in the designated area.
The Reading Room also hosts story hours, writing workshops, puzzle meet-ups and other literary confabs throughout the summer and into early fall.
42nd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, 212-768-4242, bryantpark.org
Open daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Restroom available (They’re some of the best public ones in the city!)
7 The New York Public Library
Escape the heat, and get your holiday shopping done early.
Too hot, rainy or oppressively humid to read outside? You’re in luck: The flagship branch of the New York Public Library is right next door. Say hello to its leonine guards, Patience and Fortitude, as you head up the stone steps.
Once inside, you can browse the exhibits; this summer, as America celebrates its 250th birthday, they include letters by Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton and a copy of the Declaration of Independence printed in 1776. You can snag a spot in one of the reading rooms, many of which — including the Rose Main Reading Room, one of the most stunning places in New York City to find yourself with a book and an hour to kill — are open to the public.
And if your bookstore itch hasn’t been fully scratched, head to the huge shop on the first floor, which is full of books (many of them, appropriately, New York-themed) and literary trinkets. It’s a great spot to pick up some gifts for your loved ones, or for yourself, while supporting the N.Y.P.L.
476 5th Avenue, 917-275-6975, nypl.org
Open Monday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Thursday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed on Sunday.
Restroom available
If it’s happy hour by the time you end your crawl, head to the 14th floor of the Library Hotel to toast a bookish day well spent. Alongside upscale pub fare, the rooftop bar’s menu includes many appropriately punny cocktails, including the habanero-infused Spicy Romance, a hellfire-colored Dante’s Inferno and Tequila Mockingbird, a ginger-spiked spin on a margarita.
299 Madison Avenue, 14th Floor, 212-204-5498, bookmarkslounge.com
Open daily from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. (kitchen closes at 9:30 p.m.)
Restroom available
When people meet Tramell Tillman, they expect him to be like Seth Milchick, the cheerfully menacing manager he plays on the Apple TV thriller “Severance.”
“After people get to know me, they’ll say, ‘Oh, my God, you’re so nice,’” said Mr. Tillman, 41, who won an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in a drama series last year. “They’re surprised I’m not the scary, authoritative guy we see in ‘Severance.’”
Mr. Tillman got the chance to show off that charisma opposite Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” last year, and he made his Broadway debut in the 2019 production of “The Great Society.” This month, he will star as a character named Bill in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.”
He recently spent a Tuesday with The New York Times as he shopped for furniture in Hell’s Kitchen and danced through Chelsea.
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