When I moved to New York twenty-six years ago, I was surprised by how this vast, seemingly anonymous, city can, at times, feel so incredibly local. I actually didn’t expect to enjoy living here. I thought I might only stay a few years, for business purposes. I had expected to find New York City overwhelming and a bit cold. But I realized that it is, instead, a fascinating mix of small neighborhoods and that one key to feeling at home here was to find a community.
It first occurred to me with restaurants. I realized that my friends all tended to go to restaurants within walking distance of their home. It makes sense. Why bother with a subway or bus ride (or an expensive car service) if you have good restaurants that you can walk to?
I have a friend who loves good wine. He has made friends with the owners and managers of a number of wine bars near his apartment. These aren’t close friends by any means, but they do provide a needed connection. And when he enters any of these wine bars, he is suddenly Norm from the TV show Cheers – the guy at the bar who everybody knows.
A few months after I moved to New York, I was talking to a friend who was just starting to date someone. He lived in Inwood and she lived in Brooklyn Heights. She described how challenging it was to travel to see him. She compared it to a long-distance relationship and she was seriously considering whether it was worth the hassle to continue to see him. Each one loved where they lived and thought it was superior to the other’s neighborhood, so they were always trying to encourage the other to come to them for dates. This was a good sign, perhaps, that this wasn’t a perfect match, but also kind fascinating to witness.
Working with seniors I’m realizing how much the local community – the people and services near where someone lives – can impact how a senior ages and lives.
For seniors who live in a doorman building or a building with a sizable staff, the building staff can be a huge benefit. In 2019 we moved Cecilia from a duplex she owned into a rental apartment in a large building near Lincoln Center. She was not pleased to be selling her home and moving. Her children really encouraged her to make the move because the duplex had become hard to maintain, and it had stairs.
Cecilia died a few months ago (at age 98) and her children hired us to empty out her apartment. Her daughter told me that she thinks the only reason her mother was able to survive COVID lockdown was because the building staff started regularly checking on her and helping her order groceries and other supplies. And she also formed a close connection with the neighbors on her floor – all of whom looked out for her and checked in on her regularly.
My husband and I used to live in a walk-up apartment building with eight apartments. It was the kind of place where you can’t help but know everyone in the building. Some of the neighbors were true friends – people we were happy to get to know. Some were more casual acquaintances – people we were happy to chat with. And a few, of course, were people we might prefer not to share a building with! But there was definitely a feeling that we were never alone.
When one of our neighbors started showing signs of cognitive decline, a number of us started looking after her. We helped her when she had trouble unlocking the front door or accessing the laundry room. A few times my husband helped her even remember which apartment was hers. We eventually reached out to her son, who lived out of state and wasn’t aware how much she needed him. She’s safe now – living with her son. I wonder sometimes how she would be doing if she lived alone in a house somewhere and didn’t have a community so close by.
New York is full of more formal organizations that help seniors locally. Some buildings or neighborhoods are designated as NORCs – naturally occurring retirement communities. NORCs were not designed or built for aging New Yorkers. They just happen to become communities when a lot of the residents became older. The city and state started to recognize these communities and partnered with agencies to provide services and funding to the seniors who lived in them. The first NORC was recognized in 1986, and now the city has roughly 60 of them.
NORCs typically have case management services. They identify and support seniors who are in need of services like meal deliveries or health care.
But you don’t have to live in a NORC to get local support. Every part of the city has an agency that supports older adults. Each of these provides case management services for people who are in need of support, and many of them include vital services like meal deliveries.
The New York Foundation for Senior Citizens organizes a matchmaking service for seniors looking to share their home. They match people with extra space in their home with people looking for a place to live. Sometimes the arrangement includes providing household chores and maintenance- things that can become harder to stay on top of as we age.
Some neighborhoods have organized their own volunteer communities. The Good Neighbors of Park Slope was organized about ten years ago to provide activities and support to seniors in the area who want to stay at home and age in place. They are completely volunteer-run and manage to organize around a hundred activities each month.
Bloomingdale Aging in Place (BAiP) is a similar community-based initiative on the Upper West Side. Like Good Neighbors of Park Slope, it's an all-volunteer effort by neighbors to address the needs of seniors in the area, offering services like medical escorts, errands, and technology assistance.
New York City can be a hard place to grow old. It’s expensive, the winters can be really bad and the summers can be extremely hot, and housing can be a nightmare, but there are definitely benefits to aging in a place where you are never truly alone.
