Originally Posted by
Edward Oleen
The short answer is NO. Woodworking in NYC is NOT a very popular activity. Most NYer's live in apartments: landlords, co-op and condo boards of directors frown on running a table-saw in the living room, or a router in the bedroom, etc.
Private houses are mostly jammed cheek-by-jowl - "party" walls are very common, and the "party" in "party walls" means that the wall in question is shared between two dwelling units, as if you lived in a one-story apartment building with nobody either above you or below you. Be very sure that the adjacent "parties" will appreciate power tools no more than they would in an apartment building.
Stand-alone houses, for the most part, are separated from their neighbors by very little space. Also, the houses tend to be rather small in foot-print, going UP rather than OUT. This means rather limited basement space, especially if the basement also houses the car. On-street parking can be risky - cars are broken into all too often.
I'm lucky, sort of: my house was built in 1932, and is of brick, and my basement has thick walls - not the usual cinder block or concrete block stuff they use today. I am also separated from my neighbors by two driveways each 10 feet wide - one on each side, and my rear opens into my back yard - the front is underground.
Even so, I limited my woodworking to the daylight hours on weekends, until I retired a few years back: now I can work week-days as well without annoying people.
There is a man in my neighborhood who has converted an external, free-standing, garage to a wood shop. He has insulated rather heavily, for sound control more than temperature control, and still works only during daylight hours.
Lastly: better not have a wood-shop visible, especially one with lumber visible, and definitely NOT A SPECK OF SAW-DUST, when your house is inspected for insurance purposes. Paint, varnish, any sort of solvent, even a spare can of motor oil will also drive your inspector nuts. A can of gas for a lawn mower or a snow blower? Forget ever getting insurance.
If the building department comes around it can be much worse. Ditto the fire department. The cops don't know what a band saw is: anything they can't identify must be a terrorist device.
They used to teach wood shop and metal shop and so in the public schools in the city: after all, there was a lot of light manufacturing in the city, as well as some not-so-light. Two aircraft engine manufacturers were located in Queens during WW II, and Grumman Aircraft was all over Long Island. (My father worked for Ranger Aircraft, an engine producer, which fed Grumman with engines.)
Then the "educational reformers" got control, and the curricula were purged of anything that they thought was "demeaning" to the students. Or that they could use to hurt themselves, or for any other reason, or "reason", they could think of. Also, "property values" went up, and working space got turned into residential space: light manufacturing either closed it's doors, went to New Jersey, or went over-seas.
We have to hire immigrants to do construction work these days. I had a new roof put on my house a year back: the crew spoke only Spanish, with the sole exception of the crew boss, whose English was marginal, at best.
Lots of museums: look but don't touch. Also expensive to enter. Almost all exhibits behind armor glass. If not, there is a guard nearby - very nearby. In addition, they frown on taking pictures - they make a buck selling illustrated guides to the collections. Measuring something? You'll be lucky if they don't have you arrested.
So no - there is not much woodworking activity in NYC. There used to be Constantine's, but that is long since gone. Rosenzweig - a real lumberyard - is still around, but they have gotten very expensive. There is a plywood wholesaler in the Bronx, but they won't sell less than a pallet's worth.
There are building supply places: Home Depot among them, but they either sell junk (HD) or aren't interested in anything other than high volume building supplies.
Westchester County is not much better.
When you come to the Big Apple you will be regarded as a purse-on-legs, and the effort will be to empty that purse as rapidly and completely as possible, from the taxi that takes you from and to the airport to the hotel people and restaurant people, to the Transit Authority - the people who run the subways and buses. Taxis charge by the foot and the second - they just say it's by the 1/4 mile and 5 minutes, or what-ever they are charging by these days. (I haven't taken a taxi or subway in years.) (My wife and I live in a private house 3 blocks from the city line. We shop in Westchester for just about every thing, and weekends (and some weeks) during the summer we escape to Orange County, where we have a small bungalow. They only reason we stay in the city is for our daughter, her husband, and out grand-daughter. The only reason we lived here was because of our work.)
Good luck, and enjoy your visit to the Big Apple.