When Candice Gwak and David Xie moved from Southern California to New York City, they settled in Hell’s Kitchen, just a block from the chaos and crowds of Times Square, the very place many New Yorkers love to hate.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of their one-bedroom apartment are the upper-level ramps and rooftop parking lot of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The walls of their living room glow with colored light thrown from the ever-changing giant digital billboards nearby.
Their friends who knew New York couldn’t believe they’d live there.
“We’re not really fazed,” Ms. Gwak said. “Maybe it’s because we’re so new here, so everything is great.”
The couple moved in September. Mr. Xie, who works for an executive search firm, is focused on developing a sense of direction to avoid getting lost. Ms. Gwak, a lawyer, is learning to navigate her way through throngs of people, but she’s not annoyed by the slow-moving visitors — in fact, she relates to them.
She and Mr. Xie admitted they have behaved like tourists since they arrived.
“We bought CityPASS as if we don’t live here,” Ms. Gwak said, referring to a ticket that grants admission to several tourist attractions.
They visited iconic spots including Ellis Island, the Empire State Building and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. They also took a guided boat tour around the harbor. They try to jam-pack their weekends with sightseeing and exploration.
On their excursions, they often realized that at the end of the day they’d be going back home, rather than to a hotel. Mr. Xie called that “the best feeling.”
“There were so many times we kept going, ‘Oh my gosh, we live here,’” he said.
Years before they even met each other, they had separately gotten a taste of New York City and wanted more.
Back in 2017, still in college, Ms. Gwak had visited a friend who lived in the East Village. The trip made a lasting impression on her, and she set her sights on moving permanently, at some point, though she couldn’t envision the path.
Two years later, Mr. Xie had moved to Hell’s Kitchen to live with a friend. He left in early 2020 to visit his mother on the West Coast, but then the pandemic hit. He didn’t make it back east for several years.
$6,025 | Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Candice Gwak, 26, and David Xie, 28
Occupation: Ms. Gwak is a corporate lawyer; Mr. Xie is a life sciences leadership adviser at an executive search firm.
On “life-changing” udon: Ms. Gwak’s first-ever meal in New York City was at Raku, a Japanese restaurant in the East Village. Five years later, she took Mr. Xie there during their first summer in New York, and now it’s their go-to spot to bring visitors. They were happy to discover Raku’s newest location opened up within a 10-minute walk of their apartment.
On pets: The couple set up a dog bed in their living room in anticipation of the arrival of Jenna, a black and tan Shiba Inu, a dog native to Japan. Mr. Xie adopted her during the pandemic. “She’s coming in December, so it’s like our Christmas present,” Ms. Gwak said. Mr. Xie’s mother has been taking care of Jenna in California in the meantime.
Ms. Gwak and Mr. Xie connected on Hinge in October 2022. Both were living in Southern California with their parents.
By the summer, Ms. Gwak — who was in law school — had secured a temporary summer job at a law firm’s New York office. As luck would have it, Mr. Xie had planned to be in New York that summer too, as his employer at the time had a location in Manhattan.
To Mr. Xie, that “felt like fate, almost.”
The couple lived together, rent-free, at a friend’s place in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. By the end of summer, Ms. Gwak received an offer of a full-time job in New York. She and Mr. Xie returned to California so she could finish law school and began searching for an apartment in Manhattan that would guarantee a short commute.
They signed the lease without seeing their apartment in person, but were sold on the layout of the unit — with a kitchen island and bathroom adjacent to the bedroom — and the luxury building’s amenities, like a spacious gym and a forthcoming spa. To them, the rent of $6,025 a month — with two months free on a two-year lease, which brings it down to about $5,522 — was a worthy splurge.
“Yes, we have to pay a little bit more, and squeeze a couple dollars, and eat at home more, cook more,” Mr. Xie said. “But for us to have our dream home as our first chapter of New York was something that was hard to pass up.”
After work, to wind down, they retreat to the building’s outdoor terrace, its trees and greenery making it feel, as Ms. Gwak said, “like you are not a block away from Times Square.”
But being a block away has its perks. For instance, on nights they’re too tired to cook at home, they’ll pick up dinner from one of the many fast food chains in the area.
Ms. Gwak’s walk to her Hudson Yards office — visible through the apartment windows — takes only 15 minutes. Mr. Xie takes the walk with her and then returns to the apartment, where he works remotely from his desk in the living room or in a study area on another floor of the building.
While both of them emphasize they made their New York City dreams come true, their East Coast experience has not always been easy or pleasant. Mr. Xie misses the camaraderie of in-person colleagues, and Ms. Gwak can feel overwhelmed.
“There are some days where work gets a little bit hard, and impostor syndrome, or just like, not feeling so sure of myself — those feelings start to creep in, and I start to feel a little bit homesick,” Ms. Gwak said.
To settle in beyond sightseeing, they’re reconnecting with old friends in the city, attending social events in their building and channeling their energy into furnishing the apartment. At some point, they know they’ll feel like true New Yorkers, and New York like home.
“I look forward to the day that a tourist comes up, like, ‘Hi, like, which way is Broadway? How do I get there?’” Mr. Xie said. “My hope is I can represent New York well, as a newly minted resident, going, ‘Oh yeah, you want to go that way,’ and be helpful.”
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