Finders Keepers

Bree Coven ’97 knows a lot about New York living. She ought to: she’s moved fifteen times.

“Finding the right home is everything,” Coven asserts. “It’s important to find a neighborhood that fits your personality and the phase of your life.” It’s connecting, she says, “on so many levels. It’s like finding a job that’s a good fit. Connecting to your neighborhood makes you feel safer in a city that’s as vast and impersonal as New York. I was miserable in Gramercy Square — it was old money, and I was a young artist. For me, proximity was most important, so I shared a three-bedroom in the East Village. I could walk everywhere. Some people need gay-friendly, like Park Slope. Some people need pets. Some people need space, like Bedford-Stuyvesant.” She laughs. “Convenience or space, you almost never get both!”

—E.D.