New York City Summertime Festival-Fest!

If you’re relocating to New York City for the first time or simply moving from one NYC neighborhood to another, you might find yourself wondering whether you will be leaving the good times behind you forever…

But fear not! You can’t throw a rock in any NYC neighborhood without having an even bigger rock hurled right back at you! And, if that’s not your idea of a good time, then you’ll be glad to know that you are highly likely to have hit a festival of the fun variety with that initial pebble you lobbed, so follow that "ping". While this is true year round, summertime in NYC is especially one big, non-stop festival-fest and fun-fair.

So while your apartment hunt might sometimes be a drag, there's nothing in the NYC real estate play book that says you can't check out different boroughs and 'hoods when they are at their most festive. Here is a teeny-weeny fraction of some of the fêtes going on this summer:

MANHATTAN
Downtown NYC River to River Festival, May 28 to September 15
World class performing arts festival with free performances throughout lower Manhattan.

New York Shakespeare Festival/Plays in the Park, May 27 to August 31
Pack the right picnic, blanket, friends, and waiting in line for tickets in Central Park is half the fun.

New York International Fringe Festival 2008, August 8 to 24
Fringe Jr., Fringe for families.

BROOKLYN
Celebrate Brooklyn! June 12 to August 9
Celebrating 30 Summers of Free Performances at the Prospect Park Bandshell

Afro-Punk Festival, July 2008 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM)
Celebrating black revolution and change through music, film, art, and a temporary skate park.

Coney Island Film Festival 2008, September 26 to 28

QUEENS

Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival, August 2 to August 3

NYC Food Film Festival (2nd Annual), June 14 to 20
Watch movies about food on Water Taxi Beach then eat the stars.

Colombian Independence Day Festival, July 20

BRONX
Festival Popular Duartiano, July 18 to 27
Music and Carnival Rides and Attractions

17th Annual Bronx Day, July 14
Music and family entertainment at the New York Botanical Gardens.

STATEN ISLAND
First Annual Staten Island Comedy Festival—The Grand Finale, August 7
[I love Staten Island, but isn't this just waaay too easy?]

Richmond County Fair, September 5, 6, and 7
Staten Island Historical Society

Let’s Face It: You’ll Find Your NYC Apartment Faster If You’re WIRED!

If you’ve been playing the blood sport that is NYC real estate for more than a nanosecond, you’ve probably already learned—the painful way—that the most indispensable piece of protective equipment you’ll need to stay upright in the field is a big, steel-reinforced cup. But once you’ve got that essential bit of armor strapped snugly over your tender emotions, you can calibrate your priorities to those of many professional athletes and make your highest priority staying wired all the time!

Traditionally, cafés with free Wi-Fi were the popular destinations for top Brooklyn condo and SoHo loft draft picks out to sate their voracious appetites for both caffeine and internet access. Recently, however—perhaps in response to the public's increasing disgust with performance enhancing drugs in general, or wait staff’s increasing exasperation with the dwindling tips due to slow table turn-over by the laptop set—cafés offering free internet access are increasingly restricting the hours during which you can troll your broker’s site for apartments.

That said, as one might imagine, staying wired in most NYC neighborhoods is easy—if you know where to go... Cafés may be changing their ways, but many bars are all too happy to pick up the slack and to be your home hunting “hot spot.” Lolita on the Lower East Side is comfortable and quiet during the late afternoons and even has coffee so that you won’t have to alter your performance enhancing drug regimen too drastically. Eater.com recently published this map of bars that offer free Wi-Fi and they are updating it as per readers’ nominations of deserving places to add.