My partner and I are in our fifth year here in JC, after living in the Upper West Side and various areas of Brooklyn, and I think it compares highly favorably.

For us it was a no-brainer, we save five figures annually on taxes living on this side of the river. You should talk to your accountant or tax attorney about this, and if you don't have one, it seems like it's past time to get one. If that sounds too daunting, your bank can probably make somebody available. This is too big a consideration to rely on your best guesses or something you read online, there are a lot of potential concerns about moving across the river that a bunch of extra money in your pocket can fix.

That aside, on to quality of life concerns.

First, I'm honestly surprised to see people who are supposedly used to the MTA complaining about the PATH. The PATH isn't perfect, but it's better than the MTA. And you're two stops from Grove to the WTC. That essentially makes downtown Manhattan part of your neighborhood. People travel further than two stops in NYC and still consider themselves on their home turf, but somehow the state line predisposes people to think they're further than they actually are. I blame the MTA map.

Second, along the same lines, it genuinely might be difficult to get people from NYC to visit you. . . at least the first time. In our experience, convincing somebody to cross the Hudson is like pulling teeth, but almost universally, the reaction is "it's actually really nice here! And I can't believe how easy it was to get here!" We threw a few big parties when we first moved in and really haven't had a problem since in getting Manhattan and Brooklyn folks in to spend time. (I will say, our Queens friends have a standing invitation to stay in our guest bed overnight, as Queens is genuinely fucking far.) But like, from World Trade Center, we are a five minute train and a ten minute walk along safe, well-lighted pedestrian boulevards. We're closer to downtown than most of Brooklyn and even most of Manhattan itself.

It's easier to get away from the city for the weekend from JC than it is from Brooklyn. We love to camp in Upstate New York, and our dear friends in Park Slope usually join us. They're less than an hour from us by transit, but somehow it usually takes them two hours or more just to get out of the city (leaving on Fridays during the summer leaves them susceptible to lots of traffic). We can leave at the same time and be at the campground hours before them. A two hour drive vs. a 4 - 5 hour drive is a big deal when you're just making a weekend trip.

As for the urban fabric, it's so similar to Brooklyn that I would worry less about you having the urban experience you want, and I would worry more about your girlfriend not being happy because the move wasn't dramatic enough. If she wants a bigger place and more space, and you want to still be able to get into the city easily, I'd look in downtown just past the high-rise district, roughly around Van Vorst Park and Hamilton Park. For context, we live roughly halfway between the two, we have a ten minute walk to the Grove Street Path, and we have a 1200 square foot 2-bed/2-bath with a roughly 900 square foot private garden that we spend a lot of time in. After a rent hike we now pay $2,800/month. Old construction, which we prefer.

Finally, you know what nobody realizes until they live here? We've got the best views of the NYC skyline. ;-)