Why I moved to NYC from Chicago: To start a private therapy practice for the LGBTQ+ community
- She and her partner left a $1,600 two bedroom for a $4,000 two bedroom in Prospect Lefferts Garden
Dr. Kerry McBroome's new two-bedroom apartment is small, but she's happy with amenities like a dishwasher, laundry, and gym in the building. And it has enough natural light for all her houseplants.
When Dr. Kerry McBroome and her partner decided to leave Chicago to be closer to her family, her goal was to start a private therapy practice in Brooklyn geared towards the LGBTQ+ community. They had to downsize and rid of many possessions but they’re thrilled with their neighborhood. Here’s Kerry’s story as told to Kelly Kreth.
I grew up on a farm in Connecticut and eventually moved to Chicago for a job. I’m a psychologist and most recently I worked at Chicago DBT Institute. I was living in Andersonville in a two-bedroom rental for $1,600 a month.
The apartment had lots of built-ins, like a gorgeous hutch in the dining room, and my favorite part of the apartment was the bay window. Living there felt very much like having arrived in classic Chicago.
There were great LGBTQ-friendly places in the area. I was two blocks over from a black-owned lesbian bar called Nobody’s Darling, and right by the main street of the neighborhood, Clark Street. Gay for Good is a great volunteering group, Bachata Social was wonderful for dancing, and North Halsted Street was known for fun gay bars.
[Editor's Note: Brick Underground's series The Newcomers features first-person accounts about why a renter or buyer decided to take a chance on NYC and live here now.]
Chicago is a city of foodies, and Hopleaf on Clark Street is the best of the best for mussels.
There’s a vintage market on the street in the summer I look forward to all year. That’s where I met my partner and where we had the greatest first date of all time.
Wanted: A two bedroom with a great kitchen for $4,000
In June 2023 I decided to move to NYC to be closer to family and fortunately my girlfriend’s job has a location in New York. I got licensed to practice as a psychologist in New York and my plan was to start up my own private practice.
The type of therapy I do, dialectical behavior therapy, is part of the field of behavioral therapy, which is very white and very straight. It is a struggle to find a behavioral therapist who fully understands being LGBTQ+. I designed my therapy practice for queer people, by queer people, based in DBT principles combined with a social justice lens. It’s called Full Focus Therapy.
My partner and I wanted to be in Crown Heights or Prospect Lefferts Garden, and we wanted a two bedroom so we’d have a work-from-home space. We also needed a dishwasher and a great kitchen; my partner is an excellent cook. Our budget was $4,000.
We looked for listings on StreetEasy, Craigslist, and Apartments.com. We contacted Yosef Friedman, an agent at EXR NY, then flew in for the weekend to find a place. Overall, we viewed 11 apartments that we tracked in a very long color-coded spreadsheet and followed up with an impossible number of phone calls.
There was no playing it cool once we walked into what would become “our” building in Prospect Lefferts Garden. We had just come from looking at a fourth-floor walk-up and so there may have been some excited squealing when we discovered our building had an elevator! We filled out the application while huddled on a stoop nearby.
Maximalists downsize to move to NYC
Our apartment in NYC is much smaller than the Chicago place, so we donated and sold a good deal of furniture. We’re both maximalists; picking what to keep and then hauling it cross-country was a very fraught process, although it did trauma-bond our two cats. We rented a U-Haul, filled it with our remaining furniture, and drove it from Chicago to NYC over two days.
How she likes her new place
Even though our new two-bedroom apartment is small, it has better amenities than we had before, like a dishwasher, laundry, and gym in the building. And it has enough natural light for our jungle of houseplants. The heated floor in the bathroom was a total surprise—our cats love it—so now to get to the sink we must step over at least one stretched-out cat.
The apartment has an extra-deep tub, and I envision soaking in it on a cold January night. I’ve been good about starting every morning with my yoga in our building’s gym. Best of all, the place fit our budget perfectly.
What she loves about her new neighborhood
We love our area. The best day we had so far was taking a 10-minute bike ride to Prospect Park to eat lobster at Smorgasburg. We’re close to Brooklyn’s Little Caribbean neighborhood so we get to have great Haitian food and love the people on the corner in the summer selling coconuts and “natural juices!”
One difference we notice is that Andersonville in Chicago is covered in rainbow flags, and the queer community in PLG is less immediately visible.
Some places we love: Ciao Bella coffee shop does a poetry night, vegan Caribbean food at Aunts et Uncles is amazing and we enjoy basking in the energy of the crowd at The Rogers Garden. For groceries we switched to Aldi’s and Key Foods for the bargains.
I work from home but my partner takes the subway now—the 2 train goes right to her job. We did keep one car because we love going on road trips. NYC is a much better starting place for road trips than Chicago.
While we still miss our community in Chicago badly, we hope to stay in Brooklyn. Thankfully lots of our friends from the Midwest have visited and the funniest response we got was, “Where is all your stuff?” I guess we didn’t realize how much we had to get rid of to move.
We think it was a great decision to move to NYC. Being close to family and being able to be present for little gatherings is nourishing to my homesick heart.
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