GA Life near Manhattan

I'm looking forward to this thread.

Many years ago when I left college to work in Manhatten it quickly became
apparent that I was not ready to immerse myself in Manhatten life and
forego aviation. My financial situation forced a choice. After living in
the city for almost a year, I moved to Essex Co NJ and bought a car.

During the week I commuted in, during the weekends I commuted out. CDW was
my airplane home, Blairstown my glider home.

The problem I had with Manhatten is that a car is a luxury (having one or
not having one) but a car is required to fly. Financially, renting actually
seems to work better than owning. I'm sure that hasn't changed.

You can't surf and ski the same day on the right coast, but you can do
business in midtown at noon and catch a native (stream bred) trout by 3:00 -
or a striper - or rent a plane. Just takes a car.

"Marty Ross" wrote in message
...
I'll be moving to Manhattan from Los Angeles (does it get any more
extreme?)
next month.

Any advice or relevant anecdotes out there to help me gather some leads
about continuing my flying hobby from there? I've been renting (in
L.A.) -
usually from the FBO where I did my training.
I'm IFR rated with about 300hrs., and am pretty OK with the (busy) L.A.
airspace and ATC. I haven't looked at a NY sectional yet.

I've just started to look at airports near to where I will be (using
Airnav,
FS2004 and other web tools), and I found "Linden" (LDJ) and "Essex" (CDW).
In fact, there appears to be a flying club that has a presence at both of
those.

I guess my main concern is easy transportation to/from these (or any
other)
airports I might use, as I will be giving up my car (I hear it's a luxury
*not* to have a car living in Manhattan), and to learn about possible
desitations (nice places to go for a day or a weekend).

Any leads, tips or general discussion of GA from people living in/around
Manhattan would be great!