Roosevelt Island Family Moves To Riverwalk And Is Profiled In NY Times Habitats Column - They Like That People Say Hi Here

Image of Roosevelt Island's Lorena and Vinicius Fortuna Family From NY Times

Today's NY Times Sunday Real Estate Habitats Column features a Roosevelt Island couple, the Fortunas, who moved to Roosevelt Island more than two years ago and then recently moved again - this time to Southtown's Riverwalk Court Building. According to the NY Times:

... The couple’s first toehold there was an apartment in a newish high-rise. It was also a 10-minute walk from the island’s lone subway stop. Finding the bus service erratic, they traveled to and from the subway by bike, but that proved less fun as winter approached and even worse when it rained. Still, they savored the pace and friendliness of island life.

They especially relished the walkway that runs along the island’s western rim, a popular route along which strollers and bench sitters could admire the Manhattan skyline while perched beside the water.

“You see the same people day after day,” Ms. Fortuna said. “They say hi. You say hello. It felt really good. We didn’t know many people in New York. But thanks partly to this street, we got to know people here.”

Two years after they settled on the island and now both 29, they lucked out further when a two-bedroom condominium became available in Riverwalk Court, a brand-new high-rise just steps from the subway. The condo’s owner had been buffeted by the recession, and even before he moved in, decided to sublet the apartment and live somewhere cheaper elsewhere on the island.

The Fortunas, who arrived last February and pay $3,100 a month, are the apartment’s first residents....

Vinicius Fortuna is a Google software engineer and has created a Roosevelt Island Google search engine and android cell phone GPS application for the Red Bus.

I asked Vini if there was anything else he would like to add to what was in the article. Vini replied:

It was a fun experience to be interviewed and photographed. It was a really nice chat with Connie, the Habitats column writer, and a long-ish photo shoot session (over 100 photos, to have only 3 of them used in the end). I felt like a model! :-) We learned more about the process of writing an article and enjoyed it all the time. But the most awesome part was to have half a page about us in one of the most important newspapers in the world. We felt really special!

There are two minor corrections to add. First is that as much as I like Google and thought it was nice to have our building on Google Earth, that was not really a landmark that "made us feel wonderful". I may be a little geek, but I'm not really a nerd 8-) Also, Lorena and I are are pretty smiling people. I think that's typical from Brazilians. Among all the photos that were taken of us, the chosen one had us very serious. I hope people don't get the impression that we are that serious. ;-) Other than that, I think that the article was pretty accurate and I'm happy with it.