Looking for a new apartment last spring, Justyna Kedra, 28, knew she would never find a place that compared to one she had just left: a big, bright, reasonably priced two-bedroom on Central Park that she had been sharing with a great roommate.
But talking to her brother, Janusz, who was then 17 and living with their father in the Chicago suburbs, she came up with an idea. Sure, the physical loveliness of the last place would be hard to match, but she could still have an amazing roommate. That is, as long as her parents agreed to let her brother move to New York for his senior year of high school.
“It got pretty boring in the suburbs,” said Mr. Kedra, who was more than happy to leave Rosemont, a western suburb of Chicago, a year earlier than expected. Perks like a pool in the backyard had been great when they were children, but over the last few years, since their parents divorced, Mr. Kedra and their father had been rattling around in the family’s dark, antiques-filled house. Their mother, who has remarried, now lives in Poland.
Their parents were open to the plan. “Dad trusts me, and Mom is in Poland,” Ms. Kedra said. The only condition? They wouldn’t bankroll the move.
“They were kind of like, ‘If you want to live in the city together, figure it out,’” said Ms. Kedra, who works in marketing for American Express and is the founder of WE Rule, a start-up for female entrepreneurs. Their parents did agree to offset some of the costs by letting them put the income from a Chicago investment property — $1,200 a month — toward rent, and Ms. Kedra took on some extra clients at her start-up, giving the siblings a budget of $1,400 a room.
That was not, Ms. Kedra soon discovered, enough to live in anything but very cramped quarters on the Upper East Side. And while she knew she would miss being within walking distance of Central Park and the Equinox gym she loved on Lexington and 63rd, Queens seemed like a good compromise.
“I feed off the energy of Manhattan, but my brother likes it chiller,” said Ms. Kedra, who found a $4,200-a-month three-bedroom in Astoria on Craigslist. The siblings moved in last June, and a friend of Ms. Kedra’s rented the third bedroom until recently.
$4,200 | Astoria
Occupation: Ms. Kedra works in marketing for American Express and is the founder of WE Rule, a start-up for female entrepreneurs; Mr. Kedra is a senior at Long Island City High School.
The commute: “People think Astoria is so far away. But if it’s Manhattan, it’s convenient,” said Ms. Kedra. “Compared to other cities, everything is convenient.” Mr. Kedra has a 20-minute walk to school.
Her Equinox gym in Manhattan: “I still go,” Ms. Kedra said. “I do the pool, the sauna, the cold-plunge pool. There’s a sauna crew; everyone knows everyone. The people there went to that gym before it was an Equinox. It’s a squad.”
Because the landlord had been renting the apartment through Airbnb, the space was furnished, even if not exactly to Ms. Kedra’s taste. “It was very mismatched,” she said. “But it’s slowly looking better.”
Still, not having to find furniture was helpful, as it gave them time to focus on other things, including registering for school.
“The deadline was, like, two days after we moved in, which I didn’t know,” Ms. Kedra said. “I’d been scrambling trying to figure out where to live, then we had to scramble to get the transcript, go to a family center in time. Fortunately, there was space.”
Mr. Kedra, who started attending Long Island City High School in the fall, admitted that starting at a new school in a new city for his senior year took some adjustment. “It was weird, but I got used to it,” he said. “High school is high school.”
The main challenge has been the long days, which last from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., because of the New York State requirements he must complete to graduate on time.
Their apartment, although sunny and spacious, is not in the same league as the one on Fifth Avenue that Ms. Kedra had to leave after new owners, who plan to convert the 54-unit building to a condominium, pushed everyone out.
“It was nice, it was so nice. Everyone was, like, ‘This is the nicest apartment I’ve ever seen,’” said Ms. Kedra, who also loved the building’s vibe. Many tenants had lived there for decades, and the old owners, whose other properties were luxury buildings, would hold happy hours on the roof.
“You’d go to do laundry, and they’d be, like, ‘Win free Beyoncé tickets,’” she said. “It was the saddest thing to leave. I was sad, my friends were sad, the super was sad, everyone in the building was sad.”
But she is glad that moving out laid the groundwork for another fantastic experience: getting to live with her brother again. “We’re friends and siblings — it’s great,” Ms. Kedra said.
In the evenings, they eat dinner together, then watch movies or play video games, if work allows.
“Before, I never had anything in the fridge,” Ms. Kedra said. “Now we cook together all the time. Although he says I’m not a good cook.”
Mr. Kedra countered: “We make sandwiches; it always turns out good.”
On the weekends, they take the train into Manhattan to bike around Central Park, go to movies at South Street Seaport or eat noodles at Xi’an Famous Foods on St. Marks Place.
Their decade age difference does mean they have divergent interests, of course. Ms. Kedra loves to get dressed up and go to the Baccarat Hotel; Mr. Kedra prefers the street art at the Bushwick Collective. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Do you want to go to a fund-raiser with me?’” Ms. Kedra said. “And he’s like, ‘What would I do there? Eat dinner?’”
But when it comes to being roommates, they have found that they’re almost always on the same page. They have had a lot of experience sharing space, after all, and they share a strong preference for minimalist décor after growing up with an estate-sale-loving father.
“Our dad loves antiques so much — the house is dark, enormous and filled with German porcelain,” Ms. Kedra said. “We’re the opposite: We’re happy with a bed and a desk.”
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