‘Malcolm has landed’ is true but admittedly grandiose

 

View of central Phnom Penh from roof of my apartment building.

Life in Phnom Penh seems to start unfailingly around 7 a.m., two hours after what somehow has become my routine wake-up time.

Sitting in the apartment that we’ll occupy probably for no more than six months, I hear construction starting on the house 10 floors below me in the neighboring lot.  I can see tuk-tuks gathering on street corners, hear Buddhist chants and notice other sounds of life, including birds, rising in volume.  Later this morning, the city’s inescapable energy is sure to peak.

(One reason for expecting to move is that the apartment we had to grab was merely acceptable and available following our arrival here on Dec. 3.  Two weeks in a basic hotel was quite enough, and the building is well situated in an area with a concentration of ex-pats, upscale coffee shops and, heaven help me, a Burger King that soon will open.  There goes the neighborhood.

(But I expect that the open kitchen with its two-burner electric stovetop, bath with pink tiles, master bedroom with bubblegum-pink sheets, lukewarm water in the shower and fluorescent lighting will prove to be too much to bear for an extended period — that and a bigger reason that I’ll detail toward the end of this post.  One attraction is the rooftop pool, however.

(For the $1,000 a month we’re spending on a furnished 2BR, how can I complain?  Well, you’ll see.)

Since I spent three weeks here in March, I have encountered a few surprises.  

Out and About: Location explains huge price gap

(Photo by scholl10)

When I ambled into open houses just 16 blocks apart on Central Park West, the tired old saw about location struck me as graphically evident.

In a building in the low 70s, I visited four apartments, each of them with prices that I find hard to justify.  They then ranged in price between approximately $3.5 million and $10 million.

That same day, I went to an open house in a building in the low 90s, and I was blown away by

Out and About: You gotta love the neighborhood

In early May, Riverside Park is this side of paradise.

A while back, I quoted Paul Purcell, who is a founder of Charles Rutenberg Realty, as mentioning what he termed an old saw:

You’ve got to like your home, but you’ve got to love your neighborhood.

Smart and obvious, though not to me until then.

The concept came back to me last month when watching a friend of mine, Teri Karush Rogers of BrickUnderground.com, on WNBC-TV, where she was talking about mistakes that buyers make.  She confessed that she twice had made one such mistake, and you’ve guessed what it is: She loved two places to which she moved but hated the neighborhoods.

As for me, I’ve lived in seven different Manhattan neighborhoods.  In order, they have been Morningside Heights, Washington Heights (in a section that has taken on airs as “Hudson Heights”), close to the East Village (18th and First Avenue), central West Village, Gramercy/Flatiron and now the Upper West Side near the 96th Street express stop on Broadway.

I can’t say