Fear City: What scares parents the most when their adult children move to NYC
- Crime is the top concern among out-of-town parents—especially ‘Law & Order’ super fans
- One requested child-proofing including stove knob covers, window guards, and ‘bubble wrap’
Overall crime in NYC was down 6.4 percent in August, the eighth consecutive month it had declined.
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Before I left my Midwestern home for college, my mother asked an administrator of my university’s parent Facebook group two questions: Why were these online helicopter moms so over-involved in their child’s college life? And also, what was the drug and booze scene like?
Her questions revealed a classic conflict for parents: An impulse to protect your child while releasing them into the world. Publicly, my mom thought parents who posted about the departure of their spawn were being excessive. But privately, she shared their fears about her daughter moving out on her own.
She didn’t need to worry quite so much; I shipped out for the suburbs of Boston (home of puritanical liquor laws and clubs that close at 9:30 p.m.). But for parents of New York City college students, fears of drugs, booze, and crime are magnified—often making extra work for the brokers trying to find their children apartments.
“It’s not rocket science—it’s a parent and their kid,” said Karen Kelley, an agent at Compass. “They’re totally anxious and they just want guidance.”
The most common fear is crime, even though NYC is relatively safe, said Adam Berard, a broker at Bohemia Realty. (Overall crime in NYC was down 6.4 percent in August, the eighth consecutive month it had declined.) But non-New Yorkers may have little exposure to NYC outside of a few negative headlines.
“I think the people who have the most trepidation are the people who aren’t familiar with the city,” said Heather Huff, a broker at Bohemia Realty.
Many parents—like mine—fret about their children from afar. Others get involved: helping their children search for apartments, vetoing certain neighborhoods or buildings. Read on for three of the most unusual requests agents have received from overprotective parents (and be sure to check out Brick’s advice on finding an apartment as a student).
Helicopter parents, meet bubble wrap parents
For many students, college is a time to try out new ideas, and that spirit of experimentation often involves alcohol. But one family was so concerned their child would over-imbibe that they demanded their kid’s unit be childproofed, said Olivia Rispoli, an agent at Bond New York who represented the student.
Rispoli said these parents insisted on installing stove knob covers and window guards—a legal requirement for children under the ages of six and 10. Plus, they requested that a ladder in the unit, which led to a small storage space, be removed or bubble wrapped for their adult child’s safety.
They were “concerned that their daughter would bump her head, run into it and knock herself out, or climb up and fall down the ladder after a college party,” Rispoli said. “The client had no say in this decision. It was the parents who set the ground rules, since they were assisting with her rent payments.”
The ladder, however, was permanently installed, so Rispoli got creative. She got the building’s manager to cover it with cushioning so the student couldn’t hurt herself on it.
‘Law & Order’ on the mind
In the 1970s, a group of public safety unions released a pamphlet titled “Welcome to Fear City” to protest Mayor Abraham Beame’s planned layoffs. Sporting a smiling grim reaper on the cover, the pamphlet advised travelers to never leave Manhattan, avoid the subway altogether, and stay off the streets after 6 p.m.
Locals know that today, NYC is far safer than it was 50-plus years ago. But to non-New Yorkers, NYC is often portrayed as both the golden land of massive apartments (as seen on “Friends”) and a city wracked by horrific crimes (as portrayed in “Law & Order”). And some parents take those televised depictions all too seriously.
Danielle Brodnax, a broker at Bond New York, recalled working with the parents of a New York University student back in 2014. This student’s parents were from Iowa, and “equated everything about Manhattan” with the T.V. show “Law & Order,” Brodnax said.
They were so scared they “only wanted her to live on the East Side between 59th Street and 86th Street,” Brodnax said.
That’s a familiar refrain among out-of-state parents, said Amanda Baum, an agent at Corcoran. Non-New Yorkers tend to only know a few neighborhoods of Manhattan—like the Upper East Side, Midtown, and the West Village—and often expect much cheaper prices, she added.
West Coast worrywarts
Parents tend to fixate on specific fears. My mother’s concerns revolved around scammers with fake apartments, murderers lurking in parks, and gun violence. But one family focused on a more mundane fear: heights.
Seth Weisman, an agent with Bond New York, said a client’s mother was concerned her child would get motion sickness from living in a fifth-floor walkup. (Yes, the fifth floor—not the 50th).
“She was so sure that the building would sway enough to cause motion sickness because of an article she read on the Internet,” Weisman said.
Weisman said the family was from Los Angeles, and was also concerned their child could experience motion sickness during an earthquake. NYC did experience a small quake in April this year, and super tall buildings do, occasionally, move a fractional amount with the wind. But this was a walkup, not a penthouse, Weisman noted.
“Long story short, the client was not able to live on the top floor of a fifth-floor walkup of any building,” he said.
