At the request of my old friend Deborah, who lives in Aruba, this column about the standard of living in NY.
The standard of living in NY
On the list of the most expensive cities in the world, New York is in 5th place. So it is not the most expensive city in the world, but the Big Apple is without a doubt number 1 in America when it comes to a high standard of living. A holiday here is quite affordable, especially if you come from Europe you get value for your euros, but as my mother said Kon libi nanga kon tan a no sem*. Life is certainly not cheap these days, with rising oil prices and thus inflation.
Living
Besides the fact that you can live in New York, you will also have no problem finding an apartment. Of course, it depends on where in New York you are looking for a place, but in general the apartments are more spacious than in Amsterdam and the price varies from place to place.
While a reasonable one-bedroom apartment starts at around $1,200 in Brooklyn, that's the price for a studio in Manhattan. That's an apartment without a bedroom and usually half the size of one in Brooklyn.
A big advantage is that you don't have to spend months looking for a home. Apartments here go from hand to hand every month. You really don't have to worry about finding an apartment.
To give you an idea. When I first came to America I still had Amsterdam in mind where it was almost impossible to have a house within a month. My husband, then my boyfriend, and I lived together in Boston and I took a few weekends to look at houses in New York. Within three weeks we had a fairly spacious Brownstone with a bedroom, front room, kitchen and bathroom. Brownstones are those old houses made of big old brown bricks. Luckily for us it was also on the ground floor with a garden.
A frizzy hair day in our 1st home in Brooklyn
Groceries
What really surprised me at first was that the local supermarket simply had Bakeljauw, the same dried “Batjauw” as in Suriname. The range of the supermarkets is namely focused on the local resident. Where I thought we lived in a black neighborhood, I could tell from the range that there were also many Latin Americans living in the area. On every corner there was a restaurant where you could get Bacalao with cassava as well as yellow rice with stewed chicken. Of course, these eateries are next to the usual well-known American McDonalds.
My girlfriend who lived in Manhattan at the time complained about the lack of supermarkets. She paid three times as much for fruit that was three times less in quality. In Manhattan you hardly have to leave the house to do your shopping. The convenience stores are literally at the foot of almost every apartment building. It remains America, everything revolves around convenience, but you also pay for it. These nice, not well-stocked convenience stores are usually much more expensive. Recently there were price comparisons on the radio and where you pay $3 to $4 for a pack of Budweiser beer in the supermarket, the price in such a luxury store was $13. Imagine.
China Town
Although I am certainly not dissatisfied with the assortment of my supermarket, I prefer to buy vegetables, fruit and tea in China Town. The selection is great. Where in the average American supermarket you can choose between Broccoli, Courgette and a few other vegetables, in China Town you see leafy vegetables of which you do not even know the name. I have tried almost all of them and they are all tasty if you fry them briefly with some oil, garlic and salt. They often also have the vegetables that we know from Suriname such as Sopropo, 
Kouseband and bok choy. But what really freaks me out are the types of fruit. They recently had Gujaves. Gujaves! The same type that grew in our garden when I lived in Wageiningen Suriname. Normally these cost $3.50 per pound and you pay $5 per Gujave or something. Now in the summer they were $1. I immediately bought 5 and they were gone almost immediately. Delicious! I also eat myself sick on Lychees, grapes, whatever the season has to offer. Towards the end of the summer they have those life-sized Pomegranates. They are always 3 for $5 and I am already looking forward to those fruits. As a Surinamese who grew up between Manja, Gujave, Cherries, Apple and Pomeranian trees, I remain a true fruit eater.
Transport
A car in Manhattan is out of the question. I don't know anyone in Manhattan with a car. Yet there must be car owners living there because in Inwood, which is at the end of Manhattan, there are a lot of cars parked in the evening.
Besides being expensive to own a car, it is also extremely inconvenient. During the day, driving and parking in Manhattan is a punishment. You would rather walk. Not for everyone, even Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is a multi-millionaire, takes the subway. It is simply not possible to do it by car.
Outside of Manhattan, in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn a car is handy, although parking is becoming increasingly difficult. Buying a car is not too expensive. The prices are much lower than in the Netherlands, but the insurance is abominably high. Especially for foreigners, whose insurance companies assume that we do not have enough driving experience. As a non-American, car insurance will cost you about $300 to $400 per month.
The metro is reasonably affordable, but it is also becoming more expensive. In a few years, the price of a ticket has increased from 1.50 to 2.00. That doesn't seem like much, but those 2 dollars can really add up. A one-day pass that was $4 3 years ago now costs $7.50. Such a one-day pass is useful if you are going to use the train at least 4 times a day. You can also use this "One day Fun Pass" on the bus. You have to be quick, because it looks like the price will go up again this year.
People here speak more of train or subway than of metro. The ratio is also different than in the Netherlands, for example. Where the train from Amsterdam to Utrecht takes about half an hour, you go by metro from Manhattan to Brooklyn or from Brooklyn to Queens. You could compare this with a trip from Amsterdam city center to Amsterdam South or something like that. The idea is the same but the distances here are much greater.
To play sports
For a basic fee of around $40 per month you can become a member of NYSC (New York Sports Club) or Bally's Fitness, the largest sports club chains with facilities in various states such as Washington, New Jersey and Boston. The equipment, which is usually top of the line, is always strategically placed in front of a large glass window. Besides being an effective display for many passers-by, it is also convenient for the athlete. While you are sweating on a treadmill or a bike you can enjoy the view that the city has to offer. If you don't feel like it, you can choose between different TV channels that are built into the equipment. So you won't get bored. Even exercising is made easy for you.
Photos of our club. To heal my injury I wanted to swim 3 times a week. That's why I chose a gym with a pool. Luckily they also have a sauna and a Turkish bath. I really have nothing to complain about my gym except that the chlorine water didn't do my hair any good.
Each club has its own program with Yoga, Aerobic, Spinning and other classes at set times. The basic fee provides access to the equipment during non-busy peak hours. If you want to follow these classes, you can pay a little more monthly or pay per class.
Some clubs are more luxurious than others, but most of them include clean towels, shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. That saves you lugging things around. Your sports bag is much lighter. Some clubs even offer the possibility to wash your sports clothes. You simply leave your sports clothes behind and the next day you can pick them up washed and ironed. Of course, you also pay extra for this.
Eating out
In New York you can eat delicious food whether you have little or a lot of money to spend. Besides the famous $1 satay in China Town you can easily get a taco for under $5. For those who have a bit more to spend there are the $500 per cover restaurants. For a 'regular' burger I would refer this group to DB Bistro. There you pay $50 for the most famous and most expensive hamburger in the US but you also get truffles in your burger. I don't know if it is tasty. Besides the fact that I am not such a hamburger freak, I am also not a millionaire by a long shot.
My favorite dish changes every few months and so does my favorite place to eat, but I don't think you can go wrong with Thai, Chinese or Japanese.
Going out
Every day of the week at every hour there is something to do in New York and there is something for everyone. For $10 you can catch a movie of your choice. In addition to the larger cinemas there are at least 20 smaller ones where independent (self-produced) films from all over the world are shown. These can sometimes be more interesting than the predictable blockbusters. The most recent "indie" movie I saw was "Take out" about the life of an illegal Chinese immigrant in Manhattan. Reasonably good story, pretty good actors, but the recording itself could have been a bit better in quality. The nice thing is that you can ask questions to the makers of the film afterwards. See the trailer here: http://takeoutthemovie.com/trailer.html
Besides films there is a range of live music, musicals, dance, theatre and opera. There really isn't enough time to do it all. The last opera I saw was Margaret Garner last September. A story based on reality inspired by the book Beloved by Tony Morrison. Gospels were beautifully performed in opera form, but it was actually about quite heavy history. Margaret was a slave who was accused by her owner in 1850 of murdering the children he had fathered with her. It became a historically complicated trial. Should she be tried for murder or destruction of property?
The dark decor, the sensitive expression and the singing dragged the audience from one emotion to the next in a silent and packed hall. We didn't have the best seats, but my girlfriend and I enjoyed it immensely for a reasonable ticket price of $40 per person.