Wish you all the best in the big(ger) city.  As for advice for flying with cats: don’t.  But if you must, drug them.  That way they are less likely to be freaked out by the experience, they’re less likely to need to pee or poop, and there’s nothing cuter than a sleepy cat.  It certainly beats a howling, hissing, freaked out, pissing, scratching beast on board a plane.  Or if you ask around, there might be some truckers who wouldn’t mind a cat or two on a trip from Texas to New York.

You should see me here with my mouth flown open.  Totally didn’t see that one coming!
  Let me know if you want to garden after you settle in; there are some options.

Good luck on your move. I’m in the process of moving from Athens, GA, to New Orleans, so I can relate. I’ve been here almost 10 years and love this little town, but it’s way past time for a change. Still, uprooting your existence and dropping it in the middle of strange, relatively unfamiliar city is awfully daunting, and I’m doing it all by my lonesome. On the upside, though, I don’t have any pets to worry about. Still, it’s an adventure and I can’t wait to go. Give ‘em hell.

Congratulations. I lived in NYC for 10 years during the ‘90s/early oughts, and would move back in a New York min… well, you know. If anyone can handle the tough old town (pssstt: they’re really a bunch of softies), it’s you. Your cats will love it, too.

Wow!  You can hang with Lindsay B. and Jessica V. much more frequently, which sounds pretty cool to me.  And you’re at the center of where much of the world rotates.

If you can make it there, blah blah blah…

When I moved from Pennsylvania to California, I moved a pair of cats.  Since they’d been together for a while, if you can, keep them together.  Take them to your vet before the trip and let the vet know they are traveling. 

If you are on the same flight (alas, I wasn’t—the new job had me go to training in Washington for a week, so my cats lived with my parents in New Jersey before flying on their own) get a direct flight if you can, even if it is a lot more expensive, it is much less traumatic for the cats.

After flight is probably just as important.  Try to schedule this so that you can be there for a few days, as your cats are likely to be both freaked out, and extremely curious about your new place.  Mine were in the “jump at shadows” mode for a while, and having me around to scratch them behind the ears seemed to reassure them a lot.  Mine were resilient, though, and adjusted…  I moved in 1990, and one of the cats lived to 2000, the other to 2004.

Some cat pictures:

http://www.jamesarmstrong.com/Nyssa/
http://www.jamesarmstrong.com/Leela/

And my current cat:

http://www.jamesarmstrong.com/Gremalkin/

Congrats on moving! 

Now onto the cats.  I flew from Florida to Vermont with my cat for a move, which required a connecting flight, and it was completely uneventful.  My cat is an anxious one, too.  Do not give the cats drugs, since the air pressure and altitude messes with cats’ systems.  (At least, that’s what my vet told me when I wanted to get a sedative for him.)  Maybe some Feliway would help, but I didn’t give Miles anything and he was perfectly fine.  I was flying early in the morning, and I decided to stop feeding him at 9 p.m. the night before, and kept water from him after midnight, so he wouldn’t have to pee or poop.  This may have been unnecessary.  Honestly, it was much easier on both of us than the drive we took from Vermont to Virginia a few years later, which involved finding pet-friendly hotels and schlepping a litter box and food and a bed all over the place.

One thing to remember, however, is that when you go through security, you will be required to take the cats out of their carriers and carry them with you through the metal detector.  Basically, they want to xray your carrier but not the cat, which we can all appreciate.  Miles was so distracted by all the new people and surroundings that he just stayed in my arms and stared, and the security folks were nice enough to rush the carrier through so he could get back in.  If you’re worried, think about a harness and leash in case they try to take off.  As for being on the plane, he just sat under the seat in front of me in his carrier, making not a sound. 

Good luck!  I’m sure it will be fine.

Hope you like stupid mustaches!

When I flew with our cat he was fine.  Taking him out for the xray was the only hard part.  He made some small unhappy noises during takeoff and landing, but other than that he just sat there giving me the stink eye.  I guess it helps to know what your cat does when he’s mad or unhappy.  Mine horks, and so yes, there was a minor hork in the back of the carrier on the cab ride home.  Luckily, he’s not an angry pee-er!

As a Texan who became a Brooklynite in ‘02 (and then a Texan again, but that’s a different story), I hope you’ll find your NYC experience as enlightening as I did. Experiencing life in that town really does broaden your perspective on humanity, and shake off the often insulated worldview that Texans (yes, even Austinites) don’t even know they have.

Make no mistake, it’s a tough town in many ways. Its conveniences are often matched by its inconveniences. And in my experience, there is just as much ignorance there as here, but in different areas.

During my nearly 4-year stay in the big city, I sent a series of letters home to my fellow Texans chronicling my adventures. If you’d like a preview of the sort of culture shock you may experience, and some of the things you may not have thought of, it’s up for public consumption:

http://www.thematthewshowarchive.com/Letters/Lettersmain.htm

Good luck, I’ll be very interested to see how your experience goes. Your life will never be the same, I can promise you that.

Good luck! Not necessarily so much music, but lots more food. If you can keep the cats with you and with each other (if they play that way) it shouldn’t be so bad. If they have to travel separately from you, have the hazmat gear ready on the other end. (I’ve been involved with shipping one cat and several dogs, and the results have always been messy.)

Yes Schlep To B’ooklyn Mix

1. Chang, You’re Attractive - US Maple
2. I Surrender, Dear - Benny Goodman
3. Procession Towards Learning Land - XTC
4. Hibiki-Hana-Ma - Iannis Xenakis
5. Mantovani The Mind Reader - American Music Club
6. Hydrozone - U-Ziq
7. Un Cercle Autour Du Soleil - John PArish & PJ Harvey
8. Digital - Ellito Sharp & Soldier String Quartet
9. Vibrate On - Augustus Pablo & Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry
10. Pretty Polly - Dock Boggs

Bonus Congrats & Good Luck Song: Homemade - Sebadoh

Soooo jealous.  Good luck to you.

If you’re up to roadtripping once you settle in, Boston has an awesome music scene.  But food, oh god, food.

Cats—I flew with my cat, it sucked big time for her, and she recovered just fine.

Wow, welcome to Brooklyn.

3letter, that’s cute, but the vet agreed with me that three days in the car is worse than a few hours on the plane, especially for rascally cats.  The only other option is leaving them, and of course, that’s not an option.  But yes, I plan to drug them.  They are rascals.

Drugging cats can be risky.  They don’t always respond as planned and fatalities happen fairly often.  Talk to your vet about the risks.  If you can fly with the cats with you in the cabin, it’s much safer and easier on the cats but book them as far in advance as possible since some airlines only allow a certain number of animals in the cabin per flight.  Talk to the airline about approved carriers well in advance, too, to avoid last minute chaos. 

I just relocated 2 weeks ago.  Both cats protested and yowled for the entire drive but they adjusted quickly to their new digs.  Good luck!

Welcome to Brooklyn!

If you’re carrying your cats with you and putting them under the seat in front (which we did) then even if they yowl, you won’t be able to hear them over the plane noise, most likely. We drugged ours, she was fine. But she also clawed the heck out of my husband when he put his hand in the carrier on the taxi later because she was so disoriented, so maybe don’t do that.

Where in Brooklyn will you be? I would advice you to invest in a nice wheeled cart for laundry if you are going to have to schlep out of your building to wash clothes, and to figure out the route to the Target at the Atlantic stop in Brooklyn.  Watch out for the dudes who want to sell you card swipes at the turnstiles (scam!). And, if you’re in Manhattan near the Flatiron Bldg, if some little guy comes up to you with a story about how he’s a costume designer but left his costumes at his apartment, but needs 30 bucks for a taxi home because he’s got a big show, and oh don’t worry, he’s gay, he’s not scary—that guy has been working his scam for several years. Don’t buy it. (He tried me twice in 2 years!)

Invest in a good small spring-loaded umbrella before you move; for some reason, good umbrellas were hard to find for a reasonable price when we were there. And you will need one. Or four.

Congratulations, you’re going to love it!

Congratulations! I still remember when I moved from Russia to NYC; the first full day I was there, I walked out on the boardwalk (Brighton, natch - it’s where my people go), looked around and fell in love. I would give up my nice house in a New York minute for a chance to live in a cramped, closet-free, old Brooklyn apartment again. Hopefully one day soon…

Oh, and the music! It seems all great bands are coming out of B’ooklyn these days!

I just started thinking about moving in a year or so myself. Good Luck with your move. The only flying with pets experience I have involves sitting next to someone flying with a bird, so I can’t help you much there.

You are smart to move in the winter.  That way, you will see the worst of it first - gray snow, near zero F temps, etc.

You aren’t going to become fixy-riding douchesters of Williamsburg, are you?

Oh, and you should talk to MAJeff about flying with cats ... he just did a big move with Harriet in tow and his dad is a vet.

Boston has an awesome music scene.

Really?  Where?

It seems to have sucked major ever since the college students were age-excluded from the clubs.

My gob, it is smacked.

BOO TO THIS

Austin will miss you ;_;

So I’ve flown my cats from Scotland to New Zealand and from New Zealand to the US. (I lived abroad for a long time.)  What my vet (best vet ever) in the UK said was: 1. no drugs because of the altitude and 2. cats/animals are actually a lot happier in the baggage section because it’s quiet and dark - no lights, no crying babies, no flight attendant trolleys (and YES, the baggage section is pressurized and heated because otherwise all the shit in your luggage would freeze and explode. Think about it!)

On the flight from Scotland to NZ, my two (littermates) were able to travel in the same carrier, which worked well; I lost one cat in NZ so my baby flew from NZ to the US by herself.

As far as food/water goes, no food, but you can get little plastic trays (with a funnel) that can be used to pour water in without opening the cage. (Not describing this well, but the same concept as a hamster bottle feeder.) So if you, or they, have any stopovers, they can get water.  No food, but they are carnivores and can handle a fast for 24 hours or so. line the cages with shredded newspaper.

Check airline regulations and timing - most airlines have different rules (I think there’s a pet-only airline now, actually) and some airlines won’t fly animals at certain times of the year because of the too hot or too cold temps on the ground.  You are not going to have to deal with all the vaccination and inspection crap I had to deal with because of the international stuff, but they may still need to go through some kind of veterinary hurdle, so start researching now.

If you can’t get on the same flight as the cats, I recommend boarding the cats with a kennel that’s experienced at doing airport transportation and having them send the cats to you a couple of days after you arrive, so you can get settled.

My world-traveler is still with us, by the way, despite an auto-immune disease that threatens her life.  She’s tiny, 5 pounds, and will be 10 this april.  What with the traveling and the auto-immune problems, I estimate that I’m averaging about $1000/year for each year of her life.  Totally worth it.

We’re moving to the family-friendly suburban-ish haven known as Park Slope.  We heard about how family it is, but I think New Yorkers have a different definition of what a lot of kids looks like than Texans.  It’s about the same for us.  And no, we didn’t even look in Williamsburg.  Everyone I know who’s lived there has said nasty things about it.  We’re probably too old.

Also, I will never ride a fixie, but I will say I have a lot of friends who do, and they are very nice people.  And remember, people who engage in ugly stereotypes about hipsters may think it’s funny, but it smells a little like the envious anger aimed at bohemians and hippies from eras past.

I can see why a vet might say that, but my cats are incredibly clingy, and being separated from me would make them die from fear.

My cousin used to live in Park Slope.  Nice neighborhood.  Brooklyn is a great place- for a Californian like me, it felt much more homelike than Manhattan.  It felt almost like an east coast San Francisco.

I have to second the flying recommendations from caradb.  The airlines are incredibly picky about when and how pets can fly, and they all have slightly different policies.  Some don’t allow for passenger compartment pets, some do.

We moved our two cats from Boston to Seattle 5 yrs ago, and I concur w/ .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). We flew them as “freight,” which didn’t traumatize them any more than being stuffed under a seat and kept us from having to listen to their incessant mewling for 5 hours. Each airline has different regulations (yes to the hot/cold restriction, so check the reg for that and watch the weather), but generally you need a carrier for each big enough for it to stand up in and a vet check-up certificate. We didn’t fly the same day as them so we dropped them off at the freight counter, but if you’re flying with them you may just be able to check them in at the ticket counter - either way beats dragging them through the security stage show. As I recall the “ticket” was about $100 or so for each.

One difference from caradb - instead of putting newspaper in the carrier we used old towels that we had slept with, so they’d have something relatively comfortable that had our smell on it. Not really sure if that helped (they hate carriers regardless: carrier = vet, you know), but it made us feel better at least.

Congrats on the move, and good luck!

Don’t underestimate the level of kid-ity (kidliness? kiderosity?) in Park Slope. They are like cockroaches—you see one? That means 3 are hiding.

And try not to gasp the first time someone shows up with a 2 year old at the bar. OY.

Nonetheless, bonne chance! Everyone should live in New York sometime. (Not everyone needs to stay, but still.)

Well, what?  2 year olds at the bar are common in Irish pubs.  I have some video of a local tribe of musicians jamming out in Doolin and a little girl dancing to it - at 10:30 pm.

Amanda, I think you will know what I mean shortly.  Some areas of Boston are infested with the self-absorbed fixed-gear crowd ... and us veteran cyclists despise their self-important endangerment of others probably more than anyone else.  You can spot them by their assumption that riding such a bike makes them competent cyclists, although I will lend them a hand up when they spill because they don’t know how to properly shift weight to dodge a pothole.

It isn’t the fixy part - it is the entitled douchester part that is the problem.

Well, what?  2 year olds at the bar are common in Irish pubs.

This really doesn’t happen much off of the East Coast, I’m promising you. (Wisconsin is another beast entirely…but that’s still like 13, 14 year olds…not toddlers.) And Chicago lacks neither children nor Irish pubs, but the two just don’t mix after the lunch hour. I think there are even city/state laws against it.

I got used to it when I lived out there, but it was initially a serious culture shock.

(er, “out there” = NYC and environs)

My son has lived in Park Slope for 2 years and loves it. Great food everywhere.  Good luck.

Awwww! I’m sad that our little city is losing one of the good ones, but am very happy for you. I hope that you have some time to eat all of the Tex-Mex and drink all of the Lonestar you can. Good luck with the move!

On the plane, listen to “A New Career in a New Town” by David Bowie. Get excited—you’re going to have a lot of fun. Your cats will be fine.

And no, we didn’t even look in Williamsburg.  Everyone I know who’s lived there has said nasty things about it.  We’re probably too old.

I’m really not sure age is an issue, but everyone I’ve known who has lived in Williamsburg has complained of soaring rent/real-estate prices because of rapid development of “luxury condos” and the “infestation of trustafarians” and/or kids whose wealthy parents fully subsidize all their living expenses from afar so they can “live independently”.  Most of those friends have since moved away because of those soaring prices.

As for the music scene, I had the pleasure of attending the November 5 Powerhouse Books Reception for the Release of their book Sound Kapital and here’s some clips of the live performances from 3 Beijing Underground acts:

Carsick Cars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRKznQXtBn4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koq-G8Ose4k

PK-14:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7j2wdyOvEM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKGh5jz4oc

Xiao He:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsab-sQ3_Xg

If you have a chance, you may want to catch their last performances in the US in the NYC area.  Schedule from their label’s blogsite:

http://www.maybemars.com/

I rode a fixie for years and insist that I am not a douchester or an asswipe. They’re just easy to build is all, and fun as hell to ride. I always had a front break, also. Most of my friends who ride fixies are nervous, self-deprecating sweethearts. For whatever reason there are a certain number of macho douchebags who run red lights and so on, but they’re in the minority, in my opinion. Fixies are just fun to ride!

Congrats! Might this be useful:  Pet Airways?  It may be way too expensive/silly, but worth a look. I don’t have a cat now but remember that driving with my former cat was always traumatizing.

Check with the airline before you plan on drugging your cats. Often they will not permit animals on board if they look like they’ve been drugged in any way (I assume to avoid the liability for the extra risks involved to the animal).

Hooray!  Welcome to Brooklyn!

As a fellow southern transplant who’s been here for 9 years now, I’d be happy to offer any advice or support you might be looking for.

Re the neighborhood discussion - I’d look at the apartment you’ve just rented as a starter apartment.  It can be really hard to decide, from across the country, which NYC neighborhood is the best fit for you.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t settle in (or that you won’t luck out and find that the Slope is what you were looking for), but just keep in mind that there’s an upside to the fact that most New Yorkers rent. 

Also, I live in Clinton Hill, and I have to say it is the best neighborhood in New York City, hands down.  So there.

Oh Jenny, I agree that fixed-gear bikes can be a whole pile of fun ... unfortunately, we have a plague of people who paid $1,000 for a factory built model and then think it gives them license to ignore anything they think is in their way, despite their lacking cycling skills and absent good sense.

These are not the same people who order the parts, get their hands wicked greasy, and convert their (dad’s) old 12 speed here - I’m talking rolling entitlement worthy of a republican youth convention on wheels.  Which may be where the money is coming from ... maybe it’s a “fashion accessory for a pampered snowflake student/young adult” thing.

Well, What?, I was talking “in Ireland, it isn’t uncommon to see children in the pubs”.  I suspect that that is why you see them in NYC and certain neighborhoods of Boston, too.

Also, it’s not the number of families in the Slope that’s the issue - it’s the quasi-suburban My Kids Are Special Snowflakes And You Must Cater Your Life To Them attitude that drives me crazy sometimes.  Stay at home dads “unschooling” the kids by having the dry-goods clerk at Sahadi’s* serve his kids every kind of olive, nut, and dried fruit, even though there’s a line of 20 people waiting to make a purchase.  Strollers four deep blocking the way to the bar.  Don’t even get me started on parking and luxury SUV’s (though of course plenty of people without kids drive those). 

* YOU MUST GO TO SAHADI’S.  SRSLY.  Heaven, that place.  It’s actually on Atlantic Ave and not in Park Slope proper, but still.  I’ve been known to schlep groceries home from there to Clinton Hill, which is further away.

“suspect that that is why you see them in NYC”

No, it’s more of a sense that your children are special and deserve to go everywhere adults go.  Or perhaps that you have an unalienable right to do whatever you want, whether you have kids in tow or not.  Not so much a European attitude towards alcohol. 

I do, however, love the bars which are frequented by dogs.  A pint of stout and a sociable puppy are two great tastes that taste great together.

I’m chuckling a bit at the fixie stuff. I worked at the UMASS Amherst Bike Co-op (Oh noes! Secret identity revealed!) for a couple of years, up until the end of last year, so I ran with a lot of that crowd despite not bothering with one myself (I like multiple gears). It’s true that we got a lot of jackasses in there, but there was really no correlation between number of gears and jackassitude, or, for that matter, hipness and jackassitude. There’s just a certain group of people, whether on fixed gears or not, who thought it was just super-fun to ride really fast through campus while dodging around people trying to get to class. If you’ve ever been to UMASS, you know it gets REAL crowded during passing times. Plenty of these guys had been riding BMX for years and had plenty of skill; it didn’t matter, they all managed to hit someone at least once in this time. The problem was that they were assholes.

I just think that the skill thing is really overblown (sorry, Ms. Kate). Yes, urban bicycling does have a learning curve and does require skills, but frankly, bike handling isn’t really one of them. It’s perfectly possible for a very green rider to avoid mishap by not riding like a jackass. Likewise, a skilled rider riding like an asshole puts his/herself and others at risk irrespective of their ability to ride smoothly over potholes.

Anyway, I’m not just a scruffy hip kid - not that I’m actually hip - on a bike, I’m also a bike racer (yes, one of THOSE weirdos), so I know the ins and outs of all kinds of cycling groups. Again, a real mix of people. There are some really nice people (the roadie crowd, being mostly composed of older people, tends to be more responsible and respectful of others when riding than the younger BMX/fixie group, but I attribute that to maturity more than anything else), and some real assholes. Same with the fixie kids. Even the irresponsible ones are often nothing more than irresponsible. Nice people who need some educating.

That’s a really long-winded way to say that the bike thing is nothing worth worrying about. NYC is not my style, but I bet you’ll have a wicked fun time there. I can tell you that I think I would rather be in NYC than Nashville, but here I am! Moving for the sake of fun and an interesting change is an awesome thing to be able to do. Have fun!

Bringing kids to bars is not uncommon in Texas, believe it or not. We even let people drink around pregnant women.

I would advice you to invest in a nice wheeled cart for laundry if you are going to have to schlep out of your building to wash clothes,

These are also good for grocery runs and anytime you have a lot of bulky stuff to move somewhere in walking/public transit distance.  Though my advice about laundry is that most of the Drop Off Service laundries (do these exist anywhere but New York?) are only nominally more expensive than any laundromat.  And the added expense is well worth the time and energy saved.  Especially if the laundry isn’t even in your building.

figure out the route to the Target at the Atlantic stop in Brooklyn.

Ew, why?  Seriously, there is very little in New York City that you have to go to Target to buy.  Their prices also aren’t significantly better than what’s on offer elsewhere.  Though if for some reason you’re in some sort of emergency and must go there, the Atlantic/Pacific subway terminal is the easiest place to find in all of Brooklyn.  If you have to make a special effort to figure out how to get there, you’re not going to last long in this city.

Watch out for the dudes who want to sell you card swipes at the turnstiles (scam!).

This has largely been done away with - I haven’t seen anyone trying to sell a swipe in at least a year or two.  Though it’s actually not a scam per se, it’s just illegal and a waste of your time.

And, if you’re in Manhattan near the Flatiron Bldg, if some little guy comes up to you with a story about how he’s a costume designer but left his costumes at his apartment, but needs 30 bucks for a taxi home because he’s got a big show, and oh don’t worry, he’s gay, he’s not scary—that guy has been working his scam for several years. Don’t buy it. (He tried me twice in 2 years!)

Anyone in New York who walks up to you and has a sob story about how they need money right now for some kind of emergency reason which is of course entirely happenstance and not their fault at all is a panhandler.  Panhandling is, again, not a scam per se, but you needn’t feel sorry for them or compelled to give anything.  The most common one in my experience is someone who supposedly just got released from the hospital and has no money and lost their house keys and various and sundry assorted minor tragedies.  Often played nowhere near any hospital, of course. 

There is nothing particularly wrong or dangerous about giving to a panhandler, by the way.  You should just be aware that this is what’s going on, and not feel too compelled to be moved by sad stories.

Invest in a good small spring-loaded umbrella before you move; for some reason, good umbrellas were hard to find for a reasonable price when we were there. And you will need one. Or four. </i>

Ugh, forget the umbrella part.

Though i find perfectly good umbrellas just as easy to find here as anywhere else. There are also the semi-disposable variety which will immediately appear for sale on any heavily trafficked street the instant the first rain drop falls from the sky.  Ah, capitalism.

I dislike the “my child is a special snowflake” crap, but I’ve come not to care if kids are everywhere, as long as they and their parents behave.

Well, What?, I was talking “in Ireland, it isn’t uncommon to see children in the pubs”.  I suspect that that is why you see them in NYC and certain neighborhoods of Boston, too.

Ms. Kate—I get that you were referring to Ireland. But I’m a little boggled at the implication that Chicago lacks Irish people and/or Irish pubs (real Irish pubs, not kitschy faux ones) We have shit-tons of both, but no kids in bars.

But given Amanda’s retort—defeat, I admit it. The Midwest is uniquely absurd and Puritanical. I apologize for my unnecessary warning.

[crawls back into hole made of corn and religion]

Not too snarky, Linnaeus. I presumed too much based on the oft-mentioned similarity between Chicago and Austin—that they are both tiny islands of sane, adrift in giant seas of crazy.

Which is true, but I should have known that the insanity composition is different.

Austin’s loss, our gain.

One more smidge of advice, though you may already know:

Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn is a Park Slope based blog.  Most of the other (nominally) gentrified neighborhoods have their own blogs as well.  This is a great way to find out both newbie things like which restaurants are good and where the greenmarket is as well as old-timer things like what’s going on in the neighborhood this weekend and how much the brownstone down the street sold for.

There is nothing particularly wrong or dangerous about giving to a panhandler, by the way.  You should just be aware that this is what’s going on, and not feel too compelled to be moved by sad stories.

I suppose this is for the education of other commenters and not necessarily Amanda’s. I mean, I’m sure she’s been exposed to panhandling before. Austin isn’t some rural village…

I’m not privy to the inside world of older panhandlers, but my gf did panhandling in her time as a street kid and it’s not always as bad as people think (i.e. for drugs and alcohol). The group of punk kids she squatted at mostly did it for rent and food money. They’d each take a corner, relay each other so there’d always be someone out there while the tired ones can get some rest… then divvy up the cash. She herself was never dependant on panhandling but when she had to get out of the house because her mother was acting up, and was staying with her friends, it just made sense to her to help out pay part of the rent…

I suppose this is for the education of other commenters and not necessarily Amanda’s. I mean, I’m sure she’s been exposed to panhandling before. Austin isn’t some rural village…

It was more a counter to the commenter I was quoting.  Being fed a sob story in hopes that you’ll hand over some cash is not “a scam”.  It’s just panhandling.  You’re not going to be dragged into an alleyway and raped, or have your kidneys sold on the black market. 

In addition to needing to be vigilant about this sort of thing when one lives here, one also needs to be laid back about the fact that it happens, and for the most part it’s not hurting you.  You can get your back up about it as a tourist, but you will become a calloused shell of your former self if you allow yourself to get all worked up about that stuff full time.

I’m simultaneously sad and jealous that you’re leaving. Austin (perhaps Texas, in general, more so) could always use more punk rock feminists, especially if they’ve released kick ass books. On a side note, whenever I get ticked off about the misogynistic men I work with, I think about “Swimsuit Issue”, and it makes me think about your book…and then I smirk a little and come out of my rage blackout.   I’ve been wanting to move to New York since I graduated from UT in May 08, but it’s incredibly daunting. Plus, I’m settled in here, I have crazy stereotypes about living in NYC like everyone’s apartment is a closet, etc. Also, I have a cat. So, I empathize on that with you. I hope the air pressure changes don’t hurt their little ears too much/ make them go crazy. Good luck. Let us know how it is not to be blue in a red state.

I actually got panhandled less in New York than in Austin.  Austin is one of the big homeless cities in the country, because it’s warm and fairly liberal, and we have a big new homeless shelter.  Also, we got the last group of people to escape Katrina (since Houston was all full up), and since it was the last sweep, it was a lot of homeless people.  I don’t generally mind it, since the annoyance factor is more than balanced by feeling better about living in a town where the homeless are harassed less than elsewhere.  But no, panhandlers don’t startle me.  I usually get panhandled 10 or more times a week.

Word - I’ve had way more aggressive panhandling in Portland, OR than I have ever seen in Boston or NYC.

Park Slope is indeed quite nice.  Wmsburg is far too self-consciously “trendy” and consequently absurdly gentrified / overpriced, but it DOES have the best record stores (at least, it did 4 yrs ago when I lived there).

and PS, the Contortions are AMAZING. and that song is a James Brown cover, no less!

Ha, it’s probably for the best that I have to travel to go to record stores.  I have a tendency to spend money I don’t have, especially money that I won’t have after paying for traveling and getting an NYC apartment.

Opoponax—I should have caveated, it’s been about 3 years since we were there—funny that the swipers are gone.

Re Target, all I know is, after buying crappy way overpriced minor appliances/household goods at dusty little hardware stores, I became a fan of Le Target (which was new at the time, and Kmart was all the way in the city). I am big on mom n’ pop where books, food, etc concerned, but got ripped off too much for household stuff by those little stores. Didn’t do my shopping in Park Slope, could be better there.

I’m *still* mad about leaving my favorite blue umbrella on the train and having to use the nasty little black ones you got on the street, that lasted maybe two storms and sliced up your fingers. And were ugly.  And not being able to find one as nice for what we could afford, since we were always semi-broke.

I’d say you have to watch out more for scammers in New York, than run-of-the-mill panhandlers.  There was one guy around Union Square who would ask if you had a dollar for four quarters, which in retrospect is a weird request.  Why would someone need reverse change?  But if he asked for change for a dollar, most people could honestly say they don’t have any.  So, of course, once you whip out a dollar bill, he’ll ask you if he can just have it.  It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he’s still there eight years later.

There was also a guy in the East Village who would ask you to sponsor an AIDS baby.  He had no documentation or information about what exactly you’re sponsoring.  Babies in the U.S.?  In Africa (which would make more sense)?  How can it only cost $8 to care for an HIV-positive child?  He didn’t like questions and he got extremely angry at people not generous enough to “save” a baby.

And actually, on the topic of street annoyances, people selling shit (and I don’t mean street vendors) are far more annoying and intrusive than any panhandlers.  When you go into Manhattan, be prepared to fend off multitudes of people shilling for charities (some legit and some not so legit), comedy clubs, salons, and so on.

Being fed a sob story in hopes that you’ll hand over some cash is not “a scam”.  It’s just panhandling…

In addition to needing to be vigilant about this sort of thing when one lives here, one also needs to be laid back about the fact that it happens, and for the most part it’s not hurting you.

I have to disagree over it just being panhandling.  It depends what you mean by sob story.  If the panhandler wants to tell you his/her hard luck tale, then, yes, that’s just panhandling.  If the scammer is telling you he/she is raising money for charity or is delivering food to the orphans and his delivery van has run out of gas, that’s a scam.  I rarely give money to panhandlers, but I appreciate those who are honest about what they want and don’t waste my time with lies.

I also seriously disagree that it’s not hurting me.  It hurts everyone.  The more scammers in particular waste the time and patience of passersby, the more passersby refuse to stop and interact with other people.  The other day a guy just wanted to ask me directions.  I almost passed him by because I assumed he wanted money and I didn’t want to deal with it.  And I can’t tell you how many times that happened to ME (people just ignored me on the street) when I lived in New York.  That’s the inevitable price of living in a city, but it’s not harmless.

As a long time Prospect Heights resident, (next neighborhood to Park slope) I would also recommend the food coop.  Yes, it can be annoying, but it works and the organic food is amazing.  I don’t think Park Slope is suburban-ish, its still the city.  Welcome! KJS

Amanda, Park Slope is beautiful and you’ll have such easy access to so many cultural institutions! Good on you for avoiding Williamsburg - and not because of the “hipsters” (you’re right, a lot of the moaning and complaining about hipsters is down to jealous). But paying 3K to live in the most toxic neighborhood in probably all of NYC is craziness.  I think there’s even a hazardous/nuclear waste storage facility still operating there.

Well, Texas can just fucking secede now, for all I care.  Hope all goes well for you two.

Augh! I can’t believe I moved all the way from San Francisco to Austin and now you’re leaving before I even got to meet you!

If you’re planning on taking them in the cabin with you, talk to your air carrier ASAP. You may have to make reservations, pay fees, and use approved carriers. You will need a special certificate from your vet that they have examined the cat and it is healthy etc. Whether or not to give drugs depends on the cat. Our half-Siamese with an attitude needed them, and tolerated them well; our sweet hand-raised tuxedo didn’t need them.

Don’t check the cats for godsake. I’ve heard nothing but horror stories.

MKK

Oh, also, the proprietors of the Making Like Blog, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden used to live in Park Slope and still live close by. I bet they’d love to hear from you!

MKK

Moving from Austin to New York is dumb.  Kiss all the good barbecue and mexican food goodbye.  You won’t find a bit of it on the east coast.

I have to disagree over it just being panhandling.  It depends what you mean by sob story.  If the panhandler wants to tell you his/her hard luck tale, then, yes, that’s just panhandling.  If the scammer is telling you he/she is raising money for charity or is delivering food to the orphans and his delivery van has run out of gas, that’s a scam.  I rarely give money to panhandlers, but I appreciate those who are honest about what they want and don’t waste my time with lies.

Aside from the “I’m selling candy for my basketball team” street hawker trope (still not sure whether this one is legit or not), they’re generally making up a hard luck story so as to convince someone to give money who otherwise wouldn’t be moved by a simple spare change request.  The frequency I hear the same two or three stories implies to me that it’s a pitch - there’s no way that many people are getting discharged from hospitals miles from home with nowhere to go and no help (especially since they always seem to need a lot more money than subway fare or a cup of coffee). 

I also seriously disagree that it’s not hurting me.  It hurts everyone.  The more scammers in particular waste the time and patience of passersby, the more passersby refuse to stop and interact with other people.

1.  When you live in a huge city, you just don’t have time to worry about every last instance of sketchy quality of life violations.  The panhandlers usually stay out of my way and don’t hurt anyone (in an actual material sense) - thus I’m more inclined to sympathize with them than I am with subway preachers or street hawkers who set up shop in the bike lane, or other people who are actively inconveniencing me or endangering people.

2.  It’s a huge city.  NOTHING is going to cause people to interact with each other on the street.  If I had to chat with everyone I passed on the street every day, I would never actually make it into the office.  There are 8 million of us here.  We don’t have time for small talk.  And, no, the existence of street noise and distractions don’t prevent us from having real human interactions when the mood strikes us.

Re the Williamsburg vs. Park Slope thing - you guys do realize that Park Slope is every bit as gentrified as Williamsburg, if not moreso, and in a much more self-consciously bougie way, right?  The difference is that Park Slope gentrified in the 80’s and 90’s, whereas there are people under age 50 who still live in Brooklyn who actually lived through the last throes of Williamsburg’s gentrification. 

Rents are comparable between the two areas, as well - the difference is the architecture more than anything else.

got ripped off too much for household stuff by those little stores.

Firstly, there are plenty of places to go in between Target and shady little glorified bodegas.  New York has IKEA, and Bed/Bath/Beyond, and Home Depot, and all the rest.  Not to mention plenty of reputable local chains like PC Richard’s (anyone remember Nobody Beats The Wiz?). 

And then, of course, in terms of the small random stores, yeah, you have to kind of check it out and see which places are reputable.  The hardware store around the corner from my house is a shithole staffed by drunks, where nobody knows anything and it’s a complete crapshoot as to whether they’ll have what you want and whether it will be anything worth buying.  There’s another hardware store on the other side of the neighborhood run by this amazing feminist pillar of the community who will custom order things for you and carries all the good brands.  You just have to learn this stuff by doing your time in the neighborhood.  It’s the same way with anything cookie cutter: Chinese takeout, pizza joints, dive bars, bodegas.  You get a sense of which places are reputable, and which places are a mess.

Brookyn, huh? I’m getting an anxiety attack just thinking about it.  Guess I’ll never understand the attraction of highly urbanized areas, but I hope the move goes smoothly.

P.S. *shudder*

Mazel Tov!  I have no doubt you and Marc are going to love it.

I’m also quite jealous.  It’s heartbreaking for me to go back now, because even though I feel like I’m truly home whenever I’m there, I know the difficulties of the cost of living (I grew up in a 2 room apt. with my mom on the Upper East Side that was rent controlled: max rent the entire time we were there was about $450), and because I know in my heart that my life here in Chicago is pretty fucking amazing.

With that in mind, here’s the song that keeps going through my head:  James Murphy’s bittersweet love letter:

New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down

But you’re still the one pool where I’d happily drown

I know it is proper and nice to wish you congratulations and all… but… while I wish you well, please take some other words to heart. I can’t help but feel a bit of saddness that our culture is losing a a vital and prominent voice that emanates from the non-coast. The whole “center” vs. “periphery” thing in American culture is still so critical in upsetting ideas of what this country stands for, in terms of where “civilization” resides and where the supposed dumbfuck anti-culture festers. Seriously, think of all the voices that rise to the top of our cultural world… where do they come from? How many from a non-coastal location? Not many. Yours was one of a very little few. And now…. it too will be… up there.

I know you won’t and can’t lose your Texanity, but please, don’t for a second hesitate to point out how, as you inescapably will encounter with those who seem to profess otherwise, life and higher culture doesn’t begin and end in NY, no matter how coasties almost continuously effuse.

Texas, and indeed all of middle America, mourns just a little bit, even as we wish you the very best.

Re the Williamsburg vs. Park Slope thing - you guys do realize that Park Slope is every bit as gentrified as Williamsburg, if not moreso, and in a much more self-consciously bougie way, right?  The difference is that Park Slope gentrified in the 80’s and 90’s, whereas there are people under age 50 who still live in Brooklyn who actually lived through the last throes of Williamsburg’s gentrification.

Park Slope was already well-gentrified by junior high/high school in the late 1980s/early ‘90s.  Every classmate from Park Slope were highly socio-economically privileged….though quite progressive-left progressive.  Some of them/their fellow neighbors in fact do fit the typical student profile at my undergrad college in both of those respects. 

Williamsburg was considered a highly industrialized area with high populations of Orthodox Jews living alongside a small increasing groups of artists/musicians moving out of the village due to the gentrification/NYU expansion occurring there.  Gentrification of Williamsburg really started in earnest long after I left NYC for college in the mid-1990s.  It certainly wasn’t regarded as THE place to be if one was a college kid/young adult whose upper/upper-middle class family/trust fund was such that spending $2000+/month for an apartment was an expense too trifling to be concerned about.

I lived in Williamsburg for my most of my time in NYC (2000-2007). It was a really fantastic place when I first got there and looking back I loved Williamsburg circa 2001 more then any place in NYC ever. It felt like NYC’s last great artist/music community, which it arguably was although I have heard Bed Sty is getting interesting as of late. But Williamsburg quickly fell apart in a really depressing way. Less amazing insane loft parties, cutting edge style, art and music and more tourists and Manhattan people looking to latch onto the scene and get some cheaper rent. Soon most of the people that made it so exciting weren’t able to afford to live there anymore (or anywhere in NYC for that matter) I still think that Williamsburg/Greenpoint probably has some of NYC’s better bars and some terrific places to eat. Some of the galleries are also really good.
Park Slope is totally beautiful. But yeah, it’s super bougie. But most of NYC is at this point anyway. You will be close to the park and other interesting neighborhoods in Brooklyn. (Getting to Williamsburg from Park Slope is kind of a pain. There are buses but I think its almost as fast to take a train into Manhattan and then grab the L, J, M, or Z back into Brooklyn again.)
I don’t miss NYC at all. Just my friends, the museums and galleries. But I grew up right outside of the city and never really felt that I left home when I lived there. My new home here in SF continues to surprise and delight me. And not living in an unheated Williamsburg loft during a NYC winter is really, really nice. I do miss perogies so much though! And San Franciscans can’t seem to be able to make a proper slice of thin crust pizza.
James White and The Blacks are an excellent. I really love “Contort Yourself”. ESG are another great post-punk, dancey group from the Bronx from around the same time, really classic NYC stuff.

Also, the really terrific Liquid Liquid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSJ5eqVNnO0&feature=related

My best advice for traveling with cats is way too late to help now, but travel with your cats (or dogs) as much as you can when they are young.  When my cat was still a kitten, we drove all over Florida with her (my mom’s house is almost four hours away from my partner’s parent’s house and both are almost four hours away from latter’s vacation home) and she had almost no problem when we started taking her on plane trips.  She flies with us at least once a year and, while she doesn’t like getting in the Sherpa bag, she is perfectly happy once she is in it.  Security at the airport terrifies her, but other than that she quietly keeps an eye on at least one of us or sleeps the whole time.  She is normally a loud, obnoxious, spoiled terror but she is a very good (very quiet) traveler.  After we check-in with her, most of the time she goes unnoticed by airline employees.  (We have had security personnel let me go through the ID check with her and then stopped my partner to ask where the pet listed on his ticket is and flight attendants only notice her when we are getting off the plane.)  Non-stop flights are very good and you really do have to call your airline (there are strict limits on how many pets per flight that make scheduling complicated).

Flying with cats, from my one time experience, is easier than driving with cats. There’s special cubbyholes, as I recall, and the airline attendants will get them installed there, check on them in flight, and make sure they are restored when you’re ready to disembark. The cat had howled throughout the entire car trip but I didn’t hear any fuss in flight. (We inherited my father-in-law’s cat when he died. The other brothers knew nothing of cats and wanted to put her to sleep to spare her the grief. Pshaw! Spikette wasn’t allowed to stay in our rental unfortunately, but spent many years in my parents’ home, and never forgot she’d been our cat for a while.)

If you want to try and drug the cats, I strongly suggest you test it out before the flight.  My brother and his then-wife found out the hard way that my niece gets hyper if you give her Benadryl (the most common child-drugging choice for flying).  They gave it to her on the flight to Chicago (four hours) and had to deal with four solid hours of screaming and crying.  They didn’t give her anything on the flight home and she was perfectly fine.

So see if your vet will give you one dose to try out at home so you can see how it affects the kitties so you don’t discover after you start your trip that they have a bad reaction to the drug.  Maybe give it to them and then take them for a ride in the car to try and simulate the experience.

Also be prepared for the possibility that as excited as you are about your move to NYC, you may in fact have a tough time for your first year or so even if you ultimately end up loving the city and staying there forever. It takes getting used to for most everyone and that first year can be quite challenging. Its worth it to soldier through that year’s tough times to really find out if the city is right for you or to just see what you can learn from it. This was true for myself and most of my friends who live or have lived in NYC, whether they grew up in rural areas, suburban ones, or other urban ones and whether they grew up in the US or abroad.

I’ve only flown with my cat once, but it worked out pretty well. The vet told me to give him a children’s Benadryl before the flight to make him sleep, but he didn’t respond well to it - it just made him disoriented and probably more pissed then he would have been otherwise. If you want to dope them with something, maybe it’d be a good idea to try it on a random afternoon pre-flight, just to see how they’d react.

I took the cat with me on the plane, because sending him as cargo made me too nervous. And yes to getting a leash/collar for getting through the metal detector, but I’ve never gotten through security so quickly; I think the security folks were terrified they’d have to chase him down if he got away from me.