Where are the young gay guys and gals moving to

Too expensive for gays? How could that be?

tommy: we have several gay male couples, and one lesbian couple, in our building on 157th st. they tend to be couples, as far as I can tell. maybe the singles still live downtown with roommates? but, just my anecdotal imput. i have 2 kids and 1 on the way so i'm not exactly wired into any scene. maybe others will have more input. but, overall, there is a definite gay scene up here but seems to be the late twenties on up crowd.

haha i was waiting for this tommy based on your "young artists" posts

assume you're a LL (like me) looking for gentrifying areas, and gays are usually the first predictor with our clean yet slutty ways and such, which has a direct correlation to growing equity?

Astoria already has a strong base for gays given that's where those priced out of Chelsea/Hell's Kitchen usually flock to first.. so I'll say you missed the boat there..

also Hell's Kitchen has superseded Chelsea as the "it" spot for us homos to go out (hence Astoria's purple blossom due to the proximity to HK for play and Theatre/office for midtown work) vs still cheap (relative) FiDi which is close to Chelsea but a trek to HK..

whereas once HK was preferred as the scene to get away from the overly trendy Chelsea scene, the role has reversed with the success of Club 57/Industry/ and that new gay dive on 53rd-ish(?) and 9th, but I don't go out as much so I'm not sure what's what anymore to a point..

Grove street (JC) is gayer than Hoboken where the frat culture still permeates and makes some gays lonely, and while I don't go there often after coming back from a play date I was kinda amazed how many people were eating outside as I always pegged the Grove street area growth as 'forced,' but now you see people bypassing Newport for its sterile environ (despite closer commute) for Grove's space, eats, and butts.

You can already see effects of pricing out happening at Grove as new devs pop up the "Gold Coast" of Jersey in once dumps (arguably still) Union City/Guttenberg/West NY/Weehawken and further north for those who prefer a car and generally more established by Edgewater/Fort Lee but by no means near anywhere HK's population..

small but growing community in Jersey City Paulus Hook area, for homos tied to Wall Street/WS West, or some of the new media companies now dominating downtown as the Path is quick fairly quick from there.

In Manhattan.. the West Side.. wash/ham heights as express trains make it easy to get to the mecca of HK..

I wanna say Ave D also, but most of the growth there are from artists/hipsters who haven't realized that they're actually gay yet...

Chelsea isn't too expensive. It's too over. Clinton (Hell's Kitchen) took over from Chelsea for younger gay guys years ago. Now there's more of a presence in the boros than ever -- especially places like Williamsburg and Astoria/LIC.

I think part of what we're seeing is also a sort of "diaspora" of the gay people who 30 years ago elected a to live more among one another in more defined areas: First GV, then the migration north to Chelsea, then Clinton. As gay is more "mainstream" and less outre, the desire for tight enclaves diminishes. In NYC where gay is more assimilated into the general city-scape than arguably anywhere in America, the gay "ghetto" life begins to fade apparently.

"Chelsea isn't too expensive. It's too over."

No, its too expensive. If young gays could afford a brand new doorman bldg near the highline they would take it in a heartbeat over west 42nd.

Lots and lots of gay males in East Harlem.

We live in Chelsea but never, ever go out there. The action is all in Hell's Kitchen.

We love Chelsea for a variety of reasons and did not want to leave. (OK, I confess, if I could afford the West Village, I'd live there.... as probably would everyone else in our brownstone co-op on a tree-lined WV-lookalike street).

We gave some thought to the West 40s. It varies block to block, but there are some that look and feel like Chelsea at a discounted price. At least for what we were looking at, it was easily 15% cheaper. Even though HK felt like a better investment over the long haul, in the end, we decided we'd rather live in a neighborhood we know we love v. one in which we'd be waiting for it to change.

"No, its too expensive. If young gays could afford a brand new doorman bldg near the highline they would take it in a heartbeat over west 42nd."

Yup. When the youngins get priced out, they go elsewhere... and the old followers follow...

And the action moves on when expensive retail can pay expensive rents, and the clubs can't...

Definitely uptown! I play in a gay men's sport league, and a lot of us live in Hamilton/Washington/Hudson Heights. These nabes are on the A express line so its super easy to go to Chelsea/HK. The west side of Broadway tends to have the gay couples, while the cheaper east side has more of the gay singles.

When I walk up and down 8th Avenue in Chelsea, I get much more of a feel of a gay neighborhood (albeit less than it used to be) than when I walk up and down 9th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen. I agree that the newer, fresher bars have been opening up in Hell's Kitchen, but curious as to whether posters here feel that Hell's Kitchen has already "overtaken" Chelsea as NYC's primary gay neighborhood (other than the nightlife options) On a different note, I find that, not unlike Chelsea, the housing stock in Hell's Kitchen leaves something to be desired if you want to live in a doorman building. Unless I'm mistaken, unless you start edging towards the Hudson River, there are very few modestly priced doorman buildings, i.e., less expensive than The Link of 52nd Street, in "central" Hell's Kitchen. Any thoughts on all of this - which area is the primary gayborhood? Any modestly-priced doorman coops/condos in "central" Hell's Kitchen?

Brooklyn: http://nypost.com/2013/12/10/brooklyn-declared-lesbian-capital-by-boro-president/

OK....they aren't flocking to the UES, but I will say that I was surprised about how many gay couples live in my building. The UES is relatively cheap east of 3rd. It will never be hip, but there are lots of older gays living comfortable, quiet, lives in UES. Not all gays want to hang out in gay bars and pose. Some want to be near Central Park and enjoy a quieter life. The 6 goes right down to the East Village you want a hipper vibe for an evening.