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Berlin and Barcelona


Guest web_norah

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Guest web_norah

this is an interesting piece by Tricia Romano from the Village Voice in NY, it discusses the reasons why many producers and djs are leaving NY and going to Barcelona and Berlin...

read on

THE NEXT BROOKLYNS

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0430/romano.php

Troy Pierce's perfect apartment has a huge glass dome, three bedrooms, and 20-foot ceilings. At $900, it's one of the more expensive and extravagant dwellings he looked at. "It was one of those insane places," he says wistfully.

There's one catch. It's 4,000 miles away, in Berlin. But after many months of mulling the possibility, he, like many other New York DJs and musicians, jumped ship early this year.

Of course, there was the girl he met; that helped. There were also all his friends, most of whom work in the minuscule world of minimal techno, and all of whom moved a few months before he did. "Of the people I hang out with all the time, six of them have moved away," he said in an interview last fall.

What took him so long? Before he left, he admitted, not a little shamefully, that "the only reason I am staying here now is because I have a nice apartment."

So in February, Pierce, a former fashion designer turned DJ, followed the trail of fellow DJs who have left New York in the past year—Dinky, Magda, Dave Turov, Danny Wang—for Berlin. Even before them, Khan, the owner of the specialist 12-inch record store Temple Records, moved to the German city. Temple Records, it should be noted, like at least five other dance music stores in the past few years, has gone out of business.

New York's dance music scene is undergoing a brain drain. DJs and musicians feel constrained by cabaret and smoking laws, the oppressive rental market, and general lack of interest. "Electronic music is in a lull in America," says Stewart Walker, a Boston musician who moved to Berlin last fall. "You're either on the rave circuit or you're starving."

A generation of expats has abandoned a city where the average gig at the local watering hole pays maybe $50 and cab fare, for cities where rent is closer to $400 than $1,200, and apartments are way more spacious than most New York rat holes. DJs get paid hundreds of dollars for a gig, or they can hop on a plane for 100 euros and land in club-friendly Madrid, Paris, or London.

"New York has become prohibitively expensive for people without professional careers," says house-music producer Wang. "A very spacious apartment in Berlin for 400 or 500 euros a month can still be found; in the East Village, $950 for my cramped studio was a steal. Downtown New York now seems overrun with drab NYU students and tacky yuppies from the show Friends."

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Guest pod

While I wouldn't recommend moving to Berlin, I must say I have talked to a lot of people who have moved from NYC to elsewhere for the reasons these guys mentioned and more.

New York is expensive. $1200/month gets you a closet. Nevermind the deposits, broker fees, and so forth.

$1200 elsewhere can set you up real well. $1200 in Miami will get me a place right off of Biscayne with a pool, security, repair service, and gym. That is a 2 bedroom joint too with a "home office" third room. Of course it is a little different on the beach, but not by much.

It is the luck of the draw though, like anywhere else. Some places are expensive ratholes, other places are cheap diamonds in the rough.

And other than the people I know, NYC does seem overrun by depressed college kids, and Friends wannabes.

Miami sucked away a few NYC natives or producers who made their US home in NYC. Danny, Steve Lawler, Vito Lucente (Junior Jack), and a few others have moved down to South Florida or purchased places here.

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Guest web_norah

makes total sense...i am here in NY but realize that not everyone is able to afford the rent of a place in Manhattan.....i dont know if i could do Berlin, having spent a year in Germany as a student, those winters there are pretty harsh if not worse, than NY's ...

Barcelona though :o

mucho amazing city imo

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Guest bcnjunkie

Barcelona real estate is expensive now, (expensive for Spain that is). For 240,000 you can buy a 3 bedroom, living room, kitchen (one bathroom, typical of europe) , balcony, laundry area, and sitting room in a good area (not bad for our standards) and really high ceilings (they must be at least 15') . I have friends that rent something similar to that for $ 1,100.00 total (including electric and water) and cable. Not bad still. I have another friend who bought a really nice studio for about $ 30,000 plus $ 10,000 in renovation for a really nice studio with a huge open terrace (I think the terrace is bigger than studio) really nicely tiled and appointed terrace with a great view of the city and port, plus roof access with 360º city view with mountains in the back and the ocean in the front. For about $ 40,000 grand. The studio must be 450 sq.ft. and the the terrace 500 sq.ft. and from the studio, a huge window opens onto the terrace, it's like living inside and outside at the same time, PHAT !!!.

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