We had the basics but more importantly the location
My name is Seán, and I spent my summer in Connolly Hall, Brooklyn with two of my friends and it was nothing short of an amazing experience that really made my J1 in New York City a memorable one. The key reason why I enjoyed living here so much was the location and the excitement and opportunities this gave us to.
We heard of J1Accom through a friend who went last year, and it seemed like everything we were looking for, great location, easy access to a subway and more importantly it was accommodation we could afford, everything seemed to fit perfectly. We were fortunate enough to pre-book and have the peace of mind of finding accommodation before we landed which was a big help, the horror stories we avoided one story for example from other Irish lads and ladies who ended up hours on the subway in the Bronx, they stayed somewhere which could only be described as a cramped crack den.
I’ll start from the beginning, fresh off the plane and meeting with our J1Accom Rep to officially get us checked in was exciting, at this point everything was! We had an apartment with three beds on the 6th floor of the Connolly building with a bathroom and one kitchen. We had no expectations going into the apartment, but it was the parties and friends we had over that made the whole experience worthwhile. The whole floor was Irish and all J1ers, we were able to make friends almost right away, the whole crew went out together and there was no man or woman left behind, Patrick Greene was the J1Accom nightlife Rep and was thoughtful enough to get everybody into the rooftop bars and clubs, this guy did everything it was crazy, clubs, rooftops, boat parties, and my personal favorite bottomless brunch. On our own, we would’ve struggled to get everybody into the same place since there was such a large group of us. This happened the first week before we started our jobs, I was working as a server in Manhattan and transportation into my job was important to me.
Speaking of transportation, did I mention there was a subway station right outside the apartment? I timed it and even on a bad day it took me twenty minutes to get into work (there were a lot of bad days). The subway station was Dekalb Avenue and it served places like Times Square, Cortland Street and loads more.
As a big Foodie too after finishing work, I must have spent most of my wages in DeKalb food market right across from where Connolly hall was. This place had everything if you weren’t bothered cooking, Mexican, BBQ, Sushi, Seafood, and everything sweet imaginable. Now this didn’t happen all the time, we needed food for the apartment and utilities, luckily for us in the same location there was a trader joe’s, which is the Supervalu of America loads of shopping was done here that had everything we needed (even Kerry gold butter when you missed the proper butter). Also, we had Target, this place had everything and there were also bargains on their app that really helped us settle into our apartment.
We here happy where we were, and I hope anybody reading this will find it useful in some way. Looking back now it took so much stress off our shoulders and we had time to enjoy ourselves! We could start work as soon as possible and break out the cans of four loko for only $3! Moral of the story is living in downtown Brooklyn it was never a walk in the park and we did run into our fair share of problems, but life here was so much easier and I don’t think I would’ve found a better place to live.
P.S take advantage of the 2 Bro’s pizza around the corner, $1 proper New York cheese slices is all you need.
Seán McLoone
