Until recently, my knowledge of New York City was limited to souvenirs and landmarks. As a tourist I visited Brooklyn, saw the Empire State Building and bought a Yankees hat, but I never experienced what it’s really like to be a New Yorker.

I was 10 the first time I went to the city with my family. I remember sitting next to my mom in the upper balcony of a dark theater, watching Savion Glover tap dance in his Broadway debut, Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk. I came back to New York in high school and stayed in Brooklyn with a native, and for the first time, experienced the city through her day-to-day routine. I remember walking for hours to eat at a restaurant that offered condoms instead of the usual after dinner breath mint. My two-week visit was just a taste of the city and not the whole story.

I’m graduating in May and will finally have the opportunity to choose where I want to live, but moving to New York seems like a giant leap from living in Lawrence. I wanted to find out what it’s like to live in New York City, so I decided to ask some KU graduates about their life in the city that never sleeps.

Life in the Burg

Colin Rhoads, 2008 graduate, moved to Brooklyn in July to pursue a career in digital advertising. Rhoads is a media planner for Moxie Interactive in West Village.

The company produces digital media, such as pop-up ads and banners, to get consumers to interact with a client’s brand. Rhoads was interested in digital marketing because he believes online marketing is the future of advertising.

Rhoads knew someone who worked for Moxie Interactive through a mutual friend.

“Finding a job is really about who you know and what connections are available to you. It was for me, at least,” Rhoads says. “I stayed in New York for an entire spring break doing interviews, but I wouldn’t have had those interviews if I didn’t know someone working for the company,” Rhoads says.

Rhoads lives in Williamsburg, a thriving art community that attracts young people. The neighborhood is filled with dive bars, art-supply stores, dress shops and restaurants. One of his favorite spots is Barcade, a bar lined with vintage arcade games with a rotating list of more than 20 microbrews and many local beers on tap. For lunch, Rhoads prefers the restaurant, Silent H, which offers bánh mì, a popular Vietnamese sandwich. For dinner outings, he enjoys DuMont, a casual and cheap restaurant that serves everything from tamarind-braised ribs to macaroni and cheese.

For young professionals, Williamsburg is an alternative to living in Manhattan. There’s a sense of community, and rent is not ridiculously expensive.

“A good tag line for Williamsburg is ‘where grit meets glamour,’ because that’s exactly what it is,” Rhoads says. “On the exterior it looks gritty and edgy, but there’s more fashionistas walking the streets and cool restaurants on every corner than you’ll find in a lot of areas of Manhattan.”

The community is infamous for its music scene, which unites people with similar tastes and styles. Rhoads has found a community consisting of KU alumni. He goes to the Village Pourhouse in East Village or Millholand’s in Williamsburg to watch KU football and basketball games with fellow Jayhawks. Rhoads also runs into several KU alumni around the city showing their school spirit.

“The other day I saw a guy with a Jayhawk keychain hanging from his briefcase. I inevitably called him out, and shortly followed the salutation with a high-five before we parted ways,” he says.

Rhoads knew he wanted to live in New York before he got a job with Moxie Interactive. He liked that there was such an eclectic group of people with different cultures, styles and personalities.

“This island is bound by water so you can only build up—not out—so there’s no gated suburban communities,” Rhoads says. “It doesn’t matter if you live in a building with a concierge in Central Park West, you’re still rubbing elbows with the street meat vendors and bodega clerks on the corner when you leave the building.”

School at NYU

Gianna Ida, a 2008 graduate, moved to the city for New York University’s food studies program, in which she studies urban food distribution systems. The program explores foodways and culinary history as well as cultural and economic examinations of food.

All of the classes are in the evening so students can have the opportunity for internships during the day.

“I only have class three days a week, and otherwise I either have tons of free time or I’m running all over the city tutoring, my job,” she says.

Ida lives in South Park Slope, a neighborhood in Brooklyn with a mix of young professionals, Hispanic families and elderly Polish immigrants. Most people live in three-story row houses with little front patios and gates. It has a great mix of local businesses and hardly any chain stores. Ida says she can get everything she needs within a three-block radius of her apartment.

On her way to the subway, Ida stops at a Spanish bakery for a snack before heading into Manhattan. Her ride to NYU takes about 30 minutes, and if she’s running late she can take a cab to the school. Ida says taking the subway can be a gamble. It can take you anywhere in the city, but you can never be sure how long it will take.

“For me, traveling to Central Park takes as long as a drive to Kansas City. I never would have driven an hour to go to a park before, but the perception of travel is different here,” she says. “You have to plan ample time to get anywhere, and you have to learn how to set limitations for yourself.”

Ida, also a designer, makes time to attend fashion shows. During the most recent Fashion Week, she attended three fashion shows, including Vera Wang’s in Bryant Park.

“Her show was incredible. I had chills the entire time,” she says.

Ida was one of five finalists in last year’s Project Runway competition at KU. She designed a menswear outfit in black and white including a pair of shorts, vest and shirt. Another design was a pocketed high-waisted skirt with a yellow hooded blouse.

“Fashion in New York is magical, but frustrating. Inspiration and opportunities to design are limitless here, but unfortunately money, time and space are not,” Ida says. “My room is the size of a walk-in closet, so I haven’t even been able to set up my sewing machine yet.”

Adjusting to a smaller living space is one of many difficulties that some newcomers face. The thrill of arriving in New York is often tempered by the sinking realization of what an alienating place the city can be. The dauntingly high cost of living and the subway maze can make city life a battle.

“It definitely takes a certain personality to live in the city, but it’s something you can develop while you’re living here,” Ida says. “The city will abuse you daily, and unless you can learn how to overcome it, you’re continually overwhelmed.”

Dance in the city

Morgan Forgarty, 2007 graduate, moved to New York City with her roommate from college. They went to the city without jobs or a place to live so they settled at the YMCA for a couple of weeks while they searched for apartments.

Forgarty and her roommate found an apartment on Martin Luther King Blvd. in Harlem. She lives two blocks away from the historic Apollo Theater and Bill Clinton’s office. Her neighborhood is bustling with street vendors selling fruit, Italian ice, flowers, socks and knock-off designer hand bags. Street artists paint pictures of African-American people, hoping to sell their art to pedestrians. Outside Forgarty’s apartment are several book vendors selling literature on African-American history and culture.

“When my brother came to visit, he said Harlem looked like Sesame Street,” Forgarty says. I guess he was referring to the brick apartment buildings and the diversity of my neighborhood.”

Forgarty says she is so distracted by the streets vendors, she hardly notices the commercial stores in her area.

Forgarty lives in Harlem because it’s cheap, spacious and it’s an easy commute to Manhattan. At night, she waits tables at Tabla, a restaurant in Manhattan. During the day she rehearses with the professional dance company, Notes in Motion.

Forgarty says moving to New York to dance was very difficult because she found herself distracted by everything the city has to offer.

“I came with one thing in mind—I wanted to create dance. But there was so much going on around me it was very hard to point myself in one direction,” Forgarty says. “I wanted to experience everything the city has to offer all at once. It’s been a year and I still have so much more to discover.”