Woodside vs briarwood

That's hard to answer without more info on you, and without knowing what you consider the pros and cons, but my immediate and enthusiastic answer would be Woodside.

Briarwood is WAY out there, and I'd insist on a house w/garage and backyard if I lived there ... not an apartment.

Woodside has been slowly and fairly quietly been increasing in popularity among young people who are priced out of Manhattan. It also has much better proximity to all kinds of eating, dining, etc. -- both of the Queens variety and the Manhattan variety.

Thank you alan,

the woodside building is right next to BQE on 41st Ave near the top of the over path. and briarwood location is on the 84th drive.

I do understand the convenient from woodside to NYC. Asking price is also big difference. I wonder

1. If i have kids in the next 5-10 years which neighborhood has better school district.
2. If i plan to move after 5-10 years, which neighborhood will have a better resale value base on current market trend.

Thanks all

I'm rather biased towards Woodside since I grew up there on 51st Street. To this day I'm sorry I moved out back in the 80's. Woodside is a great place to live with easy access to NYC via the awesome 7 Line, great restaurants and convenient walking distance to an abundance of local shopping. And folks from Woodside are uniquely friendly; we Woodsiders talk about that a lot but we don't really know why that is.

Briarwood has a more "suburban" feel to it than Woodside. Transportation is convenient but certainly a longer commute to Manhattan. Not as much available in terms of local shopping and restaurants.

When you say "asking price is also a big difference" I'm not sure if that means Woodside price is higher or the other way around. If Woodside price is higher, that's simply a function of the first three rules of real estate: Location, location, location.

For more specific information about these great Queens towns I'd recommend City-Data.com

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I don't know anything about Briarwood schools and my info on Woodside goes back many years but a friend sent her daughter to school there and was very disappointed. Not to sound racist or xenophobic but her daughter was one of very few native English speakers in the school. It was like a mini-UN, diversity on steroids. In some ways an amazing experience and she got to meet people she would never meet and learn about first hand about different cultures and life experiences that hopefully will stay with her forever, but the teachers were so distracted by the needs of these ESL (and sometimes new cultural immersion) students that my friend's daughter received zero attention. At that time most of the area's Irish-American and immigrant Irish families sent their kids to Catholic school (as did many assimilated Latinos) so that element was completely missing from the public schools despite being prominent in the neighborhood and my friend's daughter was teased extensively for her blonde hair and blue eyes. As I said, this information is quite dated but if school is important to you and you are thinking public I would look beyond the numbers at how your child would fit in and receive attention from school resources.

Having lived in Briarwood for the past 7 years here's my experience with commuting to Manhattan.

One of the pluses with the Briarwood subway stop is that it's serviced by the F train, which runs express on Queens Boulevard. The E train runs weeknights after 9PM and all weekend. I think being an express train makes a world of difference with regards to crowd control and transfer time. By the way, there's a police station in the subway like the one you see in Union Square.

On a good day (ie, no delays), which is 95% of the time, it takes about 45-50 minutes door-to-door for me to reach my office off the 23rd St stop. Granted I live 2 blocks from the subway and my office is 4 blocks...The train ride itself is like 40 minutes. That might sound like a long time for some, but I just use the time to catch up on podcasts.

Another plus about the commute is that it's close enough to the start/end of the train line that when you step on the train during the AM rush there's plenty of breathing room and oftentimes a seat or two available...for me, not having to start my day in a crowded train is a huge plus. I mean it does get crowded along the way, but at least you have your pick of where you want to stand.

As far as resale goes, I think it depends on which side of Main street you live. Briarwood is divided by Main St. where the more desirable area (at least to me) is the western side with Hoover-Manton Park, the library, and Molloy HS. The shops are on the eastern side, which is a bit more sketchy though not unsafe. I think the area is attractive enough for its convenience and low-key, safe environment that selling in a few years shouldn't be a problem. I think word-of-mouth is picking up for this little known 'hood.