San Francisco guide to New York neighborhoods

So you’re moving from San Francisco to New York. You liked your cute neighborhood and tasty burritos and you hope to replicate this existence somewhere in the Big Apple. Well kiddo, that’s impossible. Everyone knows there is no such thing as a good burrito in NYC.

This was the fate of a friend of mine a few weeks back. When she described her desires to a broker, this broker responded with, “you’ll probably like Williamsburg.” So this friend gets in the broker’s car and heads over a bridge to another part of town. Her reaction, later over email: “I expected it to be cute. Williamsburg is not cute.” Yes, Williamsburg is definitely not cute. It’s sort of like the Mission, and I’m sure almost anyone from SF would agree that the Mission is also not cute.

In response to this unfortunate misconception, I have constructed the San Franciscan’s guide to New York neighborhoods1. What follows is a socio-cultural mapping between cities, from my perspective. The fact that Murray Hill and the Marina are connected is entirely related to the number of white, greek-lettered hats you would find there.

San Francisco vs. New York
San Francisco vs. Manhattan

San Francisco New York
Financial District Midtown
North Beach Little Italy
Chinatown Chinatown
Union Square Soho
Soma Tribeca
Potrero Brooklyn Heights
Dogpatch Red Hook
Civic Center Civic Center
Hayes Valley Chelsea
Western Addition Carroll Gardens
Pacific Heights Upper East Side
Noe Valley Upper West Side
Marina Murray Hill
Haight Ashbury East Village
Castro West Village
Mission Williamsburg
Lower Haight Lower East Side
Russian Hill Park Slope
Fisherman’s Wharf South St. Seaport
Treasure Island Roosevelt Island
Sunset Brooklyn
The Richmond Queens
Berkeley Morningside Heights
Golden Gate Park Central Park
Tenderloin Wherever Giuliani put it
Stanford Princeton
Marin Westchester

1.   Of course there’s a lot of need for improvement. I would personally love to see similar guides made for every pair of cities (”I’m an Atlantan in Chicago. Where’s Little Five Points?”), but that’s a big task for one person with limited knowledge. ↩

February 1, 2007 #
108 comments

94 Comments

  1. justin
    Posted February 1, 2007 at 4:15 pm | Permalink

    I live in Red Hook.

  2. NY/SF
    Posted February 1, 2007 at 5:06 pm | Permalink

    I like the Richmond-Queens analogy, but I think someone from The Richmond would be a bit overwhelmed by Queens in its entirely.

    Hells Kitchen (which is still there) is the proper analogue to the Tenderloin.

    Can we find a place to fit-in the Bronx (Hunters Point?) and Harlem? (Fillmore/Western Addition) And how about Staten Island (Treasure Island)?

  3. Ben Clemens
    Posted February 1, 2007 at 5:27 pm | Permalink

    I think Richmond = Long Is. City. Hells Kitchen is waaay too nice of a neighborhood these days to be comparable to the tenderloin (Hell’s kitchen had 202 robberies last year, while Tenderloin is tracking at about 40 per month). I would say that West Oakland is a good sister to the Bronx. Harlem is just unique I think. The Filmore/WA could have a good companion in the Delancy St. area. Angel Is. = Governors Island. Ellis Island = Treasure Is. Staten Is. = Walnut Creek.

  4. Erik Kastner
    Posted February 1, 2007 at 7:54 pm | Permalink

    I wanted to write an app to do this - but I’m trying to actually finish projects instead of starting a million ones that never go anywhere.
    I did play around with some Active Record models - totally not tested ;)

    class City :neighborhood, :foreign_key => “parent_neighborhood_id”
    end

    class Initial

  5. Erik Kastner
    Posted February 1, 2007 at 7:55 pm | Permalink

    and that didn’t work at all… here’s a pastie of it.
    http://pastie.caboo.se/37381

  6. Roland
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 9:44 am | Permalink

    Shouldn’t matches have a neighborhood_id instead of a city_id?

  7. cameron
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 9:48 am | Permalink

    Oh. My. God. The thought of shipping all of our trash to Walnut Creek via ferry makes me laugh out loud. Seriously, I’m rolling on the floor laughing at all those families and the look on their faces when giant mounds of trash start showing up.

  8. DC1974
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 9:59 am | Permalink

    Walnut Creek is too nice to be compared to Staten Island — I’d say Staten Island is more San Leandro or Union City. And Oakland is more Jersey City.

  9. BJ Clark
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 10:08 am | Permalink

    What about Knob Hill?

  10. Timon
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 10:30 am | Permalink

    Tenderloin - Rikers Island
    Humboldt - Vermont
    Nob Hill - Rainbow Room

  11. evan
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 10:49 am | Permalink

    hell’s kitchen is the tenderloin? you must be smoking the same stuff all those folks the tenderloin are. at this point, no where in NYC even comes close to the tenderloin, aside from perhaps the A-train around 4:30am.

  12. Eric
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 11:14 am | Permalink

    That list is a bit flawed. You can’t just compared one place to the entire borough of Queens or Brooklyn. Park Slope is a NICE Brooklyn neighborhood, expensive, cute… But there’s also Bed-Stuy and Brownsville — which is disgusting. Queens, you got nice areas like Astoria, and then places like Jamaica, Queens…

  13. frisky?
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 11:17 am | Permalink

    Hmm… Hayes Valley is more Greenich Village than Chelsea IMHO. Also: I live in Pacific Heights and its anything but Upper East Side. Other than that - I think you got most of ‘em right. :-)

  14. Jimbo
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 11:18 am | Permalink

    I like Williamsburg, the part surrounding Bedford near the JMZ. But yeah, the rest of Williamsburg can feel like Mission meets “Streets of Fire” inhabited by Hassidics of every stripe.

    Another thing, coffee — my goodness, if the beautiful residents of NY would stop drowning their coffee with milk and sugar they would be able to taste how icky their coffee is. Final thing, single ply toilet paper — what the hell? Why does everyone I run into in NY (rich and poor, surgeon to poet) use the stuff?

  15. dahlia
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 11:24 am | Permalink

    also, the civic center comparison isn’t quite right - if i remember correctly, the civic center in SF was filled mostly with homeless on the off hours, while the civic center in ny (which is the first time i’ve ever heard of city hall area called civic center) is much nicer on the weekends. more like the nice part of the financial district.

    and i always thought rockridge was more of a park slope comparison.

  16. Manlio
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 11:27 am | Permalink

    The only good tenderloin comparison i can think of is far east alphabet city, like avenues C and D, from 14th st all the way down to the LES. but even that doesn’t match the Tenderloin for sheer sketchiness.

  17. ham
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    dhalia… you’re right, no one in NYC calls it Civic Center… usually just City Hall… though, interestingly, I’m pretty sure there’s a exit sign on either the FDR or the BQE that refers to it as Civc Center.

  18. Beth
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 12:12 pm | Permalink

    Park Slope is SO Noe Valley. I remember thinking that when I first laid eyes on Noe Valley ten years ago. I haven’t been to SF in some time, so maybe Russian Hill has changed, but from what I remember about Noe Valley was white lesbians (the people who inspired the neighborhood’s affectionate nickname, “Snowy Vulva”) and/or sensitive yuppie couples, pushing sport utility strollers, and lots of overpriced but delicious and cozy places to eat and drink coffee and buy organic food.

  19. Sean
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 1:12 pm | Permalink

    Although both are north of their respective cities, I don’t think that MarinWestchester makes the best association. I’d go with MarinLong Island instead.

  20. cameron
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 2:15 pm | Permalink

    I actually had the Park Slope/Noe Valley alignment originally as well (for sheer number of strollers and leashes), but was convinced by a friend that Park Slope was a little too gritty in parts for the comparison.

  21. jordan
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 2:32 pm | Permalink

    Awesome!
    Bayview = Harlem.
    Excelsior = whatever neighborhood the working class minority families being pushed out of williamsburg are moving to.
    south san francisco = industrial corridor of north central nj.
    oakland = newark
    SF needs a Hoboken (like I need a punch in the face).

  22. CREO
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 2:44 pm | Permalink

    What about the San Bruno & the Peninsula?
    It would be the Bay Area’s New Jersey…..
    Presidio=Gateway NRA
    East Village=Duboce Triangle
    San Jose=Connecticut
    OAKLAND=BROOKLYN

  23. Bay Area native
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 3:26 pm | Permalink

    As a Bay Area native (exact location withheld to protect the innocent) who permanently moved to NYC 8 years ago, it always amazes me how people around the country compare/contrast their cities with NYC (and other places). But in NYC itself, no one really does that. I guess if you live in the greatest city in the world, you don’t have to define your home in terms of someplace else (e.g., “Buenos Aires is the Paris of Latin America”).

  24. cameron
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 3:39 pm | Permalink

    Bay Area Native: you can do the same thing with my alma mater:

    SF → NYC
    MIT → Harvard

  25. bambalina
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 4:07 pm | Permalink

    i agree–this is awesome!
    noe valley is definitely more park slope than upper west side
    harlem is oakland
    washington heights=mission

  26. Bay Area native
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 4:34 pm | Permalink

    Cameron, that’s actually what made me notice how people define something in terms of something else as a way of “trading up” whatever is connected to them. Years ago, a woman was bragging to me about some special university program she was accepted into, and she described it as “the Harvard of the South.” It just struck me that, if you have to define yourself by reference to something else, you ain’t all that. I mean, do people at Harvard run around saying “We’re the [fill in the blank university] of the Northeast?” I doubt it. Harvard is Harvard. Period. No need to associate Harvard with anything else. It stands quite nicely on its own.

  27. recent transplantee
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 4:49 pm | Permalink

    bambalina

    you are exactly right! My husband and I recently moved to NYC from SF and we were looking for a neighborhood that was small and walkable where we would run into other people we knew in the neighborhood. But we also wanted a large space that was affordable. We chose Washington Heights and it definitely reminds us of the Mission–esp. East of Broadway. West of Broadway reminds us of the Bernal Heights section near the Mission. Not quite as gentrified yet, but getting there

  28. recent transplantee
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 4:51 pm | Permalink

    correction:

    not 100% gentrified, but judging from the number of bugaboos around, will be soon.

  29. Scott Mercer
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 5:13 pm | Permalink

    Well, hell, I’ll throw another monkey wrench in the works here, since I worked on this for half an hour.

    Here is my equivalency chart of San Francisco to Los Angeles neighborhoods, which is probably useless, since nobody from San Francisco would even consider moving to Los Angeles. But here it is anyway:

    Financial District Financial District
    North Beach No equivalent
    (Little Italy taken over by Chinatown)
    Chinatown Chinatown/San Gabriel Valley
    Union Square Rodeo Drive (Beverly Hills)
    Soma Historic Core
    Portrero Echo Park
    Dogpatch Lincoln Heights
    Civic Center Civic Center
    Hayes Valley Silver Lake
    Western Addition West Adams/ Leimert Park
    Pacific Heights Beverly Hills
    Noe Valley Los Feliz
    Marina Marina del Rey
    Haight-Ashbury Hollywood
    Castro West Hollywood
    Mission Boyle Heights
    Lower Haight eastern West Hollywood
    Russian Hill Brentwood
    Fisherman’s Wharf San Pedro
    Treasure Island Santa Catalina
    (bit of a stretch but it’s our only island)
    Sunset Santa Monica
    The Richmond West L.A.
    Berkeley Pasadena
    Golden Gate Park Griffith Park
    Tenderloin Central City East (aka Skid Row)
    Stanford USC
    Marin Rancho Palos Verdes
    The East Bay The San Fernando Valley

  30. B
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 7:24 pm | Permalink

    Tenderloin = Bushwick.

    Possibly parts of the Boogie Down.

    Oh yeah Eric - parts of Jamaica Queens are nice.

    The F train
    (www.savecara.com)

  31. Raine
    Posted February 2, 2007 at 9:06 pm | Permalink

    Little Five Points in Chicago?
    You’re looking to hang around the “Punkin’ Donuts” at Clark and Belmont.

    Not as many aging hippies, and no missionaries handing out breakfast on Sunday..other than that, it’s the same.

    Missing both cities :(

  32. The Rhetorical Letter Writer
    Posted February 3, 2007 at 7:39 am | Permalink

    Dear Cameron,

    Well done! I moved from Western Addition to Carroll Gardens about three weeks ago. You nailed it, holmes.

    Sincerely,

    The Rhetorical Letter Writer

  33. cameron
    Posted February 3, 2007 at 10:33 am | Permalink

    Thanks Scott, I’m hoping to work out a few more cities, and LA is one I’m not very familiar with. And knowing both Chicago and Atlanta, you’re exactly right. Clark and Belmont, near the Army Surplus store, is exactly L5P.

  34. rebar
    Posted February 3, 2007 at 8:04 pm | Permalink

    it would be interesting to see cost of living comparisons for each of these neighborhoods… we moved from potrero hill to murray hill… we see blue haired old ladies with little dogs on park ave… the marina crowd doesn’t usually stray past 3rd ave

  35. queens transplant
    Posted February 3, 2007 at 9:15 pm | Permalink

    I’d say Pac Heights = 10021 and Russian Hill = 10028, both Upper East Side but one a little more bluehaired than the other. But Russian Hill has too few strollers to be Park Slope.

    Instead, I’d say Noe Valley is equal parts Upper West Side and Park Slope, and Bernal Heights is more Park Slope/Windsor Terrace.

  36. pilgrim
    Posted February 3, 2007 at 10:51 pm | Permalink

    Others may be right that it’s too much to equate even largish SF neighborhoods with entire NY boroughs, but if you’re going to, I think you have to flip these:
    You have:
    Sunset –> Brooklyn
    The Richmond –> Queens

    But I should think the Sunset is a much better match for Queens. And the Richmond seems a closer match for a Brooklynish demographic these days (although let’s face it — both Brooklyn and Queens are incredibly diverse and just huge, whereas the Richmond and Sunset are comparatively tiny — and incredibly diverse).

  37. chris
    Posted February 4, 2007 at 8:45 pm | Permalink

    Wow dude, how long has it been since you’ve been to NY? I’ve lived in both NY and SF and most of these aren’t even close. Carroll Gardens and the Western Addition? Soho and Union Square? And the Sunset is equivalent to ALL of Brooklyn?

    I appreciate the attempt but you need to do a little more research. I think perhaps a visit to NY is in order. :)

  38. craig
    Posted February 4, 2007 at 9:36 pm | Permalink

    San Francisco is a collection of neighborhoods with distinct personalities, so comparisons must be made on a more granular level. Think Pacific Heights/Carnegie Hill (not Upper East Side). Now, are there really people in NYC you’d want to call neighbor?

  39. shawdee
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 7:33 am | Permalink

    this is cool, i guess but it makes me a little sad that the neighborhood i love is more or less the same in cities across america: cambridge/central square=the mission=wicker park=williamsburg

    resistance to corporate domination works to keep neighborhoods real up to a point but what do you do in the face of global hipster homogenization??

  40. Adam
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 8:15 am | Permalink

    I really do love both SF and NYC, but I have to say that the overall impression that this list instills is that SF is so much lamer than NYC.

    Of course, this was always kind of obviously true. San Francisco is charming and provincial, while New York is…New York.

    But seeing the neighborhoods laid side by side like this really drives it home. This kind of comparison does a disservice to the areas in which San Francisco actually shines, such as weather and burritos.

    The Sunset = Brooklyn? Wtf?

  41. Becca
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 10:02 am | Permalink

    excussssssse me….but Brooklyn does not = Sunset. You have no idea of what you are talking about. Pleasssse!

  42. alan
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 11:57 am | Permalink

    cam, just found me an apartment just between red hook and carroll garden in brooklyn this weekend! with my SF apartment just between the mission and castro and haight, I think I’ve established an appropriate bicoastal warp zone for myself…

  43. Rachel
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 1:17 pm | Permalink

    Jackson Heights = Berkeley Flats

  44. Joe
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 3:44 pm | Permalink

    Your map proves that San Francisco = New Jersey.

    That’s about right.

  45. Ray
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 4:14 pm | Permalink

    Mission = Spanish Harlem
    Nob Hill = Murray Hill
    Upper Fillmore + Castro = West Village
    Tenderloin = Bedford-Stuyvesant
    Village = Hayes Valley
    SoMa = TriBeCa + Hell’s Kitchen

  46. Mags
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 5:46 pm | Permalink

    Not all of Oakland is like Harlem, either. There are some neighborhoods in Oakland that are very much Upper East Side.

    To me, Union Square is like Times Square, as far as hustle-and-bustle and transportation hubs go (cable car/BART/Muni transfer points vs. the Times Square shuttle/subway/etc.). I mean, if you’ve seen Union Square on any given weekend (and especially during the holidays), that place is freakin’ madness. Minus the roasted nut carts during the winter. (Yum!)

    Thanks for posting this. You’ve really helped soothe my feelings of Manhattanlust for the moment.

  47. SB
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 6:56 pm | Permalink

    Good job! Stanford and Berkeley should be matched with Columbia University though!
    Best, SB

  48. Rachel
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 7:36 pm | Permalink

    I find most of these comparisions to be reaching quite a bit. But I will say the Mission is very much like Williamsburg. When I lived in S.F. I could not afford to live in the shmancy part of the mission (a.k.a. 16th and Valencia) so I lived futher south in the scarier part (2oth and Folsom, where amongst other things, I was once caught in the middle of a drive-by shooting). Now that I am in the ‘Burg, as I like to call it, I don’t have the funds to live anywhere near cutesy Bedford (so similiar to Valencia!!!) so I live in South Willie B (where three of my friends have been mugged by knife and/or gun point) Notice the connection yet? Broadway, with its plethora of 99 cent stores, looks so much like Mission ave it’s remarkable.
    BUT after saying all this I must refute the “no good burrito place in NY” assumption. Have you ever heard of the Puebla? Yeah, it’s that region of Mexico responsible for a tidle wave of immigrants whose influx has provided much lovingly prepared Mexican delights including, but not limited to fantastic burritos here in the NYC. If you come to NY from SF send me a shout and I’ll show you where to find the best Oaxacan joints this side of the Mississippi. Top your Mission burrito experience anyday. Promise.

  49. Rachel
    Posted February 5, 2007 at 7:38 pm | Permalink

    And P.S.
    Berlin is the new Williamsburg I hear.

  50. Soldier's Mom
    Posted February 6, 2007 at 12:01 am | Permalink

    Ok, I live in San Diego and can’t think of any place better to compare it with!
    : )

  51. scottybgood
    Posted February 6, 2007 at 6:32 am | Permalink

    as a recent sf>nyc transplant, who has lived in western addition and now lives in carroll gardens, i would have to argue that comparison…not sure if you’ve been to carroll gardens lately, but now it’s all brownstones with gardens, expensive restaurants and high-end boutiques (tho’ there are still nooks of gritty urbanity if you know where to look)…feels closer to noe or hayes valley to me, although it was probably closer to w. addition when I first moved here 3+ years ago…

    also…i’d say oakland is jersey (just the part near nyc)…i.e. jersey city = downtown, hoboken = rockridge, bergen county = piedmont, etc…

    just my 2 cents…or 4 maybe :)

  52. roz
    Posted February 6, 2007 at 12:47 pm | Permalink

    I second Oakland=Brooklyn, having just moved from Oakland to NYC.

  53. Y S E
    Posted February 6, 2007 at 1:45 pm | Permalink

    As someone who spent most of her late childhood in Bergen County I can say that piedmont is NOT like Bergen County. Bergen County is an incredibly diverse place with over 70 municipalities. You’d do a lot better with picking a specific town in BC (say, um Ridgewood??) Rather than generalizing a place which includes towns like Teaneck (full of Hassidic Jews & African-Americans…) and Saddle Brock (a more ‘working class’ community perhaps?).

    Furthermore, Oakland has always felt more like Newark to me.. a pretty sizeable transportation hub with a huge crime problem. The NJ towns right outside of NYC (Hoboken/Jersey City) are actually getting to be really nice, and probably don’t deserve the downtown Oakland comparison.

    Also, all of you who live in Carroll Gardens — you must go to Le Petit Cafe! They have the best Brunch! And GET THE FRENCH FRIES. They are phenomenal (Its @ Court & Nelson.. near the Smith/9th street stop).

    PS: I’ve lived most of my life in NYC (including some time in both Queens & Brooklyn but mostly Manhattan) who went to MS/HS in Bergen County and now lives in Berkeley for grad school.

  54. errr
    Posted February 8, 2007 at 2:55 pm | Permalink

    the richmond = long island city/astoria is more apt

  55. kate
    Posted February 8, 2007 at 9:03 pm | Permalink

    Ray had some good comparisons.

    I also agree that NYC Hell’s Kitchen is nothing like SF’s Tenderloin. Maybe decades ago…

    I lived for nine years in Carroll Gardens. I’m not an SF expert, but Western Addition does not feel the same in any way.

    Deep Breath. I’ll hold your hand. I made the big leap, got over the stigma and moved a few years ago to the “Six Borough” - Hoboken, NJ! I knew I would like it, but wow! I love it! My commute to Manhattan is less than half the time. Cute stores. Nice cafes. I look at the Empire State Building from my living room. It’s like living a small town, but Manhattan is the view across the river. I love it. But my friends still struggle with Jersey thing. After all, they finally got used to the idea of Brooklyn - esp. once Smith St. in Carroll Gardens got hip.
    However,I am curious what people think would the be SF equivalent? Also, because it’s looking like I may be moving from my beloved Hoboken to SF later this year.

  56. NYC transplant
    Posted February 9, 2007 at 12:50 am | Permalink

    This is so lame…I’ve lived in New York for 7 years until Aug 06 when I moved to SF…I’m moving back to NYC in a week (work keeps me moving) but I’ll say this…im not all that excited about it

    NYC is such an empty culture…I love how people who live there think they are like living in the “center of the world”…get real they are living in a vacuos bubble of bs…SF is such a gem of a city and it pains me to see bay area sellouts praising new york as a superior city when it is clearly not in many ways…sf has resisted this culture of celebrity that LA and NY propagated by puff daddy paris hilton MTV and the worst culprit Sex and the City…the culture of SF is such that it intellectually prioritizes better things and is much more balanced in terms of lifestyle than NYC will ever be…the food is BETTER because it is made with more grace and creativity and fresher ingredients…and its not like eating in an nice nyc restauraunt where its a star f*cking atmospher (hey i got an 830 rez at Dorsia)…granted NY has things SF will never have such as pointless clubland murders, overbearing velvet rope attitudes endless lines of cokewhores at bungalow8 and relatively crappy weather (jk jk…or am I?)

    Anyways I am looking forward to going back but not because of new york but because my family, girlfriend and friends live there

  57. kate
    Posted February 9, 2007 at 3:31 pm | Permalink

    oh, I just noticed Scottybgood’s post where he suggested Rockridge for Hoboken. I don’t know Rockridge.. will need to check out. I agree today’s Carroll Gardens feels closer to Noe or Hayes Valley (from what I’ve seen).

  58. Adam
    Posted February 9, 2007 at 4:41 pm | Permalink

    NYC transplant: if you think NYC has an “empty culture,” I suspect that’s a reflection on you. Perhaps you should stop hanging out in the Meatpacking District.

  59. JT Dicker
    Posted February 9, 2007 at 5:15 pm | Permalink

    SF | NYC
    Tupac | Biggie

  60. loulou
    Posted February 12, 2007 at 8:01 pm | Permalink

    As someone who has lived for long periods of time in both NY and SF, I find this very funny and somewhat accurate in parts. But I must protest: West Village = Castro? NO. The West Village is quaint, beautiful, charming….and the Castro is in your face cheesy sexcapades 24/7 (seen the video store window displays or the meth addicts roaming around at all hours?) Nowhere even close. And Williamsburg is not as sketchy as the Mission - at all. I lived there for almost 10 years and wasn’t ever scared. SF’s Tenderloin and parts of the Mission are waaaaay scarier than any part of Brooklyn I ever saw.

  61. lizbeth
    Posted February 17, 2007 at 11:03 pm | Permalink

    Bernal Heights is definitely Park Slope. I live in the one, my best friend in the other, and the parallels are so clear…the lesbian moms, the dogs, the proximity to a big old park.

  62. ellen
    Posted February 20, 2007 at 9:43 pm | Permalink

    I’d say the Richmond is Coney Island or Rockaway Beach

  63. beavin
    Posted February 21, 2007 at 2:08 am | Permalink

    Regarding the LA and SF comparisons. I just moved from LA to SF. Noe Valley in particular. I do not see any similarities between any LA and SF neighborhoods at all. I thought Noe Valley would be like Brentwood or parts of Santa Monica, but it isnt. The Marina in SF is kind of like main st. in Santa Monica and the people are post college fraternity types like the rental parts of Brentwood. Pacific Heights is nothing like Beverly Hills. Oddly enough Union Square has the high end shopping of Beverly Hills, but not the residential. Union Sq. actually borders the tenderloin which is the one of the worst parts of San Francisco.

    I think the comparisons between SF and NYC make more sense, but not SF/LA. The cities are just too different…even the suburbs are different. The east bay is nothing like the SF Valley. The east bay past oakland is like “the country” rural with very little to do. The SF Valley is not rural at all. In fact, it is very built up and congested just like the rest of LA.

    The next point of why you cannot compare LA to SF is that SF is really like a city and LA is a giant, sprawling series of suburbs where you need to drive everywhere. There are very few places you can walk in LA and everyone has a car.

  64. beavin
    Posted February 21, 2007 at 2:19 am | Permalink

    hoboken sounds really similar to rockridge.

  65. Deana
    Posted February 21, 2007 at 11:49 am | Permalink

    how about cole valley?

  66. Jorge Valencia
    Posted March 4, 2007 at 6:56 pm | Permalink

    Stanford = USC ? (goose stepping nimwits)
    Stanford = Princeton ?(smart, but business failures)

    Stanford > Harvard ( even though they had a 300 year head start )

  67. MoFo
    Posted March 7, 2007 at 7:17 pm | Permalink

    WTF! What about Twin Peaks, Sea Cliff, and St. Francis Wood? Amazing how a city with about a tenth the size and population can go toe to toe and come out quite well.

  68. KEmpany
    Posted March 9, 2007 at 12:07 am | Permalink

    I just don’t get how anyone could compare the Sunset or Richmond (large neighborhoods, but small parts of SF) to the entire CITY of Brooklyn.
    !!Oakland is so obviously San Francisco’s Brooklyn!! Oaktown has it’s own skyline, museums, universities and it’s even across a bridge to the east.

  69. joejoe
    Posted March 11, 2007 at 1:38 am | Permalink

    why would anyone bother comparing LA and SF in this thing anyway? I actually moved from SF to LA recently for a job, and although I had never really been here and only heard bad things about it, I found out how untrue things are. LA neighborhoods are really nice compared to SF’s and although you may need a car, it sure as hell beats standing in a crowded muni train/bus where it always smells like piss and you’re guaranteed to have at least one crazy homeless guy yelling at you…and Pacific Heights has NOTHING on Beverly Hills, absolutely nothing…it’s sad to see how envy/bitterness make people say things that aren’t true about other places. SF cares too much about comparing itself w/ the rest of the world. it ignores its faults (of which there are plenty) and just tries to reassert its good qualities everytime it gets. Get over it people, SF is pretty lame. The scenery around it is nice, but SF is just an irrelevant place trying too hard to be relevant.

  70. Potrero Hill Resident
    Posted March 11, 2007 at 9:20 pm | Permalink

    I’ve seen my neighborhood mentioned incorrectly at least twice here (in the comparison and in a comment.) To set the record straight, the SF neighborhood is properly called “Potrero Hill”; not Portrero Hill nor Potrero.

    Thank you.

  71. melissamango
    Posted March 16, 2007 at 1:05 pm | Permalink

    This is hilarious! I currently live in SF but will be moving to NY by the end of this year. Wouldn’t the Castro be more appropriately compared to Chelsea? Ah, well… I’ll have to be sure to post my own comparisons.

  72. Allison Landa
    Posted March 23, 2007 at 11:48 am | Permalink

    My $0.02:

    Rockridge = Park Slope
    Berkeley = Williamsburg
    Parts of the Castro + parts of Noe Valley = West Village
    Market = Midtown, to a degree

    I really never thought I’d find NYC cleaner, more well mannered, and less obnoxious than my beloved Bay Area. Alas, my last trip proved this to be true.

  73. jg
    Posted March 23, 2007 at 12:15 pm | Permalink

    The Marina in SF is more like Hoboken in NJ. Both are filled with preppy yuppies. NYC doesn’t have a Marina-like neighborhood.

  74. Brian
    Posted March 24, 2007 at 8:03 pm | Permalink

    San Francisco is like a small town compared to NYC. everything in San Francisco is pretty much scaled down from its NYC counterpart. I was born and raised in NYC, and lived there until I was 25, and I now live in the Bay area. These cities are just not comparable in my opinion, though they are both special for their own reasons.

    NYC is THE megalopolis, the capital of everything; it is a world city. It offers the greatest in shopping, entertainment, business, theater, food, museums, architecture, etc. that the world has to offer. Everything is bigger and brighter than anywhere else. It is diverse in every way possible, and offers everthing from high end retail, to beaches, to golf, to symphonies, to top tier academic institutions.

    San Francisco on the other hand is an incredibly unique, “charming” place. The topography, the climate, the region where it sits, the unique architecture, and diversity make it special.

    These cities do indeed share similarities. The layouts are very similar, and pretty much unique to these two places. Whereas other American cities are pretty much central business district (CBD), slums, and suburbs, NY and SF have everything in between, all in proxmity to each other. Yes, Boston, Chicago, LA, etc. aren’t exactly “CBD–>slums–>suburbs”, they are just not the same as NY and SF. These cities have clear, distinct neighborhoods, every one of them different from the others.

    While most of my thoughts are in regards to Manhattan, the outer boroughs offer their own special characteristics (both good and bad of course). This is another reason why it is difficult to make this comparison.

  75. coastergirl
    Posted April 27, 2007 at 1:28 pm | Permalink

    Perhaps I’m going too far south, but the Santa Cruz boardwalk is definitely a close parallel to Coney Island.

  76. sdedalus
    Posted May 15, 2007 at 8:16 pm | Permalink

    Presidio = Governors Island

  77. Oakland94612
    Posted June 1, 2007 at 1:13 pm | Permalink

    Some of the previous posters keep comparing the city of Oakland as a whole to places like Harlem, Newark, Brooklyn, etc. Oakland is quite diverse both ethnically and socioeconomically. Here are my comparisons of individual Oakland neighborhoods to areas in NYC:

    Rockridge = Park Slope
    Oakland Chinatown = Manhattan Chinatown
    New Chinatown = Flushing
    Fruitvale = Jackson Heights
    Downtown = Brooklyn Heights
    Lakeshore/Lake Merritt/Adams Pt./Grand Lake = Williamsburg
    West Oakland = Harlem
    Elmhurst (Deep East Oakland) = Brownsville
    Temescal = Astoria

  78. Chicago Neighborhoods
    Posted June 20, 2007 at 11:38 am | Permalink

    Never been to Atlanta, so I don’t know what the equivalent of Little Five Points would be.
    This is a great idea, although one should recognize that not everyone has the same opiion of what a neighborhood is like. In Chicago, some might find Wicker Park as a trendy, mult-cultural neighborhood, while another might find it more gentrified and pricey. In that case, which neighborhood in S.F. would it best mirror?

  79. ez
    Posted June 28, 2007 at 11:08 am | Permalink

    Being from north jersey and having lived a couple of years in the Bronx and five 1/2 years in the TL, I think Oakland - Newark is right on. Newark is also diverse, it just (at least in my experience 9-10 years ago) doesn’t have the trendy neighborhoods like Rockridge or Piedmont.

    But have to say SF/East Bay is unique. Having seen some megacities over the years, SF (which isn’t a megacity like new york) is still one of the best places to live in the world that I’ve seen (just wish it was a bit cheaper).

  80. Zmmm
    Posted August 1, 2007 at 6:52 pm | Permalink

    Hoboken, NJ is to Berkeley, CA
    Tomkin Square Park is to Dolores Park
    Washington Square Park is to Civic Center
    15th Street (Vzzz) is to Golden Gate and Larkin (Pill Corner)

  81. fenske
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 6:11 pm | Permalink

    i’m moving from ny>sf in two days. been living in the village. i don’t see anything about cole valley/ashbury heights here. any feedback on those two?

  82. Belgand
    Posted September 18, 2007 at 7:57 pm | Permalink

    Cole Valley/Ashbury Heights is roughly the gentrification of the Haight. It’s the large, family-friendly houses of either the ex-hippies who sold out and got money in the 80s and the kind of people who think the Haight seems cute, but want more high-end boutiques and fewer of those dirty people with the weird hair that drive down property values.

  83. The Dude of SF
    Posted October 18, 2007 at 10:00 am | Permalink

    For the record, the author did a pretty good job. But I think pac heights / russian hill are both upper west. Gold Coast / Sea Cliff are upper east. Noe is Park Slope (that’s actually a perfect fit).

    Some of the comments are funny too… I like oakland = newark, bayview = harlem. To that, I’d add that Richmond/Antioch/etc is Trenton. Fairfield is Camden. Sacto is Philly. Stockto is Baltimore. Reno is AC. Tahoe is the Hamptons (except more awesome).

  84. Predictable
    Posted December 7, 2007 at 8:40 pm | Permalink

    Ok, so i get it that this is an urban planning blog but. . . this is such fuckin cliched crap! What does every New Yorker do in every city? She goes to (and yes, I’m a New Yorker)…she says, “omg, like…Le Marais is so west village,” “Santa Monica is so UWS with cars.” Ok…so you’re studying urban planning so we get it, you’re into this shit… but ur a little too wide eyed and innocent for my taste. Lets be honest that this blog deserves to be made fun of a la Gawker! At least those snide bitches would encourage us to laugh at your ‘oh-i’m-so-cosmopolitan’ crap. Oh ur smiley ass thinks ur deep! ooooooh ur no fucking better from some valley girl / jap, “omg, like this is sooooo….like omg, hold one while I maps it on my iphone / blackberry pearl”

  85. JT
    Posted December 11, 2007 at 9:52 pm | Permalink

    SOOOOOOOO useful, thank you!! Contemplating an SF to NY move and this has helped us map {Noe, Bucktown (Chicago)} to {UWS, Park Slope}. Can’t wait to check them out!!

  86. JT
    Posted December 11, 2007 at 9:57 pm | Permalink

    New York Chicago mapping here:

    http://www.city-data.com/forum/chicago/81118-comparing-nyc-neighborhoods-chicago-neighborhoods.html

  87. weafwa
    Posted January 4, 2008 at 4:53 pm | Permalink

    Columbia is the right answer not princeton

  88. S from SF now in NY
    Posted January 10, 2008 at 12:24 pm | Permalink

    What about Glen Park? Lake Merced? Taraval? in SF…

  89. logan
    Posted February 16, 2008 at 4:46 pm | Permalink

    I’ve lived in both SF and NYC and ….
    NYC is way better than SF in every respect except access to nature and the outdoors.
    NYC has REAL people, heaps of culture, museums, art exhibits, shows (lots of them are free, especially during the summer in central park- shakespeare in the park, etc), cheap eats (amazing thai places for $5 a meal, etc), and the sheer size of the city makes it so that you will always find your niche. Plus, the subway system is FAR SUPERIOR than the muni. The subway, while it can be dirty (not the actual cars but the steps leading down to the subway), is FAST, efficient and will take you anywhere you need to go all over manhattan.

    The muni is SLOW, dirty, and has way creepier people than the nyc subways ever could have. Most importantly, it doesn’t go everywhere. And more significantly, most people in SF have cars and thus the people stuck taking the muni are old, poor, creepy, and homeless.

    Whereas in NYC, no one has a car (even rich people don’t- it doesn’t make sense and it’s pretty impractical) and thus everyone takes the subway, even the wealthy folk which makes the subway experience more real and interesting. Although rich people tend to take cabs more often, but even still most take the subway.

    AND CABS! Oh my god- can’t get a cab in SF if your life depended on it. NYC- cabs abound everywhere. $5-$8 total to pretty much anywhere on the island.

    Last but not least, everyone comes to new york at some point throughout the year…to visit, see friends, see a show, etc. And thus when you’re here, you always see your friends. Yet when living in SF, you’re the one who always has to go out to the east coast to see people.

    While SF has great views of the pacific ocean, and there are awesome hiking trails, and cliffs and nature, that’s about all it has going for it.

    I say, when you’re in your 20’s live in NYC.

    When you’re older and settled with a hubbie/wife and kids, live in SF….unless you can afford NYC.

  90. karley
    Posted March 26, 2008 at 1:29 pm | Permalink

    all of the “nyc is way better than SF” comments are the exact reason why i moved from nyc to SF it’s impossible to live amongst people who truly believe that they are the center of everything. yes, nyc has great things to offer as a place to live, so does SF, so does chicago. but why is it always new yorkers yelling out their annoying claims that their city is better than all the rest! do they need some validation? are they mad that other cities exist? the best comment was from logan “there are REAL people in nyc.” what does that mean exactly?

  91. Gibson Verkuil
    Posted March 29, 2008 at 6:56 am | Permalink

    Nice NYT quote.

  92. brian
    Posted May 3, 2008 at 4:30 pm | Permalink

    This is stupid and displays a misunderstanding of both cities.

  93. Jeff
    Posted May 7, 2008 at 3:33 pm | Permalink

    South Park Union Square?

  94. Jeni
    Posted May 13, 2008 at 12:24 pm | Permalink

    I live in Harlem on Central Park North, which is a great neighborhood. In 5 years, I haven’t witnessed or any crimes or felt uncomfortable… but feel it’s wise to stay aware of what’s going on around you. I like that my neighborhood is undiscovered, culturally diverse, has access to the park and is relatively safe for a single girl. Is there an area in SF or Oakland that compares?

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