Bensonhurst sounds fine. They'd most likely live in a multi-family house that, by 2005 rates actually goes for 775K (!). But they've been sitting on it for a generation and a half and it was paid for as a wedding gift for cash. <g>. I'm sure everyone will go home for Sunday dinner. One of the sons, invariably moved into the renter's apartment of the house once the grandmother died...until then she occupied her own apartment.<g>
My only concern is that the publishing industry pays very poorly. She would travel to the Rockefeller Center area for work or Times Square. (The classic publishing houses are all off of 5th or 6th). This means that she would work in an expensive part of town. IOW, the hero had best make a lot of money or it'll be questionable how they can afford to live in Manhattan at all.
You could make up a backstory for them getting into a rent-controlled apartment...but the cost of living would still get to them. I suppose they might have purchased a coop with wedding money or bought a wreck and renovated it themselves...but it would need a credible explanation for how they were able to get their hands on it.
I'm only being a nitpicker about this because I abhor fiction that puts the heroine in a palatial estate when she makes almost no money.
May I suggest that you go to realty sites on the internet and check out the prices of rentals and purchases and build your home from those? Perhaps it would help clarify.
One possibility is that they could live WAY up on the upper west side towards the George Washington Bridge (Washington Heights). This area is now becoming popular and it would be affordable for young marrieds. But it would mean an hour commute via subway on a bad day and an hour via bus on any day. It would take two hours to get to Bensonhurst for Sunday dinner. (Which mama calls "macaroni" NOT "pasta"....
Sherry
