What $2,100 Gets You In Upper West Side, Manhattan | NYC Apartment Tour

Auto-captioned from the film, lightly cleaned. Elena's words, not edited prose.

hi hello how's it going it's Elena welcome back to my Channel today I'm bringing you guys another episode of buzz in which is a apartment Tory series I've been doing my channel for like well over three years now it's been a hot minute basically showing you different apartments in New York and talking about the different neighborhood and ways of decorating and today I'm excited cuz we're going to go see my friend Vivian's apartment I met Vivian through the beauty of the internet and I was like your place looks sick can I come tour it and thankfully she said yes so we are heading to morning side Heights to see her sick apartment that she shares with her partner and her Greyhound Jelly Bean who you'll get to me viv's super cool she's this badass a PhD student getting her degree in biology and also has incredible style and is a fashion creator online so truly a gal who can do it all which we love and she lives in Morningside Heights which is basically upper West Side kind of near Columbia cuz our partner is going to Columbia right now and I think it's a cool perspective for any potential undergrad or grad or PhD students out there a learning a bit more about the local area and as usual I love to do a little history lesson she's brief but let's let's learn a little bit more about the history of morning sight Heights so if we're going all the way back in history like all land found in the US it was originally native land Manhattan Island was originally purchased for next to nothing by Peter mwe in 1626 from the lape tribes but we're going to fast forward quite a bit so the history of morning sight Heights is really closely linked with that of Columbia University Columbia came to be in New York in 1814 when College administrators applied for State funding and they were actually given a plot of land in Midtown but then they eventually moved to morning sight Heights in 1897 before the university came to this area it was predominantly home to Puerto Ricans Dominicans and African-Americans and you can still feel a tension in this area between the local communities and the ivy leak presence and its major contribution to the dentrification of the neighborhood throughout the years morning side Heights became a hub for cultural and artistic and academic activities and it attracted a lot of writers and artists and intellectuals that really contributed to the cultural vibrancy of this community morning side heits also played a role in various social and political movements like during the 1960s the neighborhood was a center for anti-vietnam war protests and Columbia University became a focal point for student activism today this neighborhood is very vibrant and culturally significant with its educational institutions historical landmarks and diverse Community before we head over if you wondering Alena where is that incredible jewelry from let me tell you today's video is sponsored by majuri which I'm so excited about I've worked with them throughout the years and they are just an incredible jewelry brand with such cool pieces if you're unfamiliar with majuri they've been around since 2015 and they're basically taking five jewelry and turning it into a everyday occasion which we love and I got a few new pieces which I want to show you guys some of which I'm wearing right now I'll take you guys on a little bit of a jewelry haul of sorts first up this this might be one of my favorite pieces it's the heirloom ring in sky blue topaz it has 14 karat gold and topaz just happens to be my birthstone so when I saw this I was like I need her she's so stunning and so pretty I don't always wear jewelry with color like this like stones but I think this might be most beautiful rings I own now then we've got the Double Diamond stacker right here as you can see also 14 karat gold feel like if there's any dudes watching out here this is a great gift for the ladies she is so elegant and D and so pretty and then we have my cool pyro large hoops here with this cool like kind of triangular design kind of everyday gold earring to have on but just like a little bit more interesting than your classic hoop and I also got the balance Terra coin charm which I paired with the round box chain necklace which is also 14 Kat gold and it just hits perfectly again I feel like it's one of those like staple everyday pieces these are a few of my favorite but there's definitely so much more online on the majuri website and so if you're looking for some fun pieces for yourself or just some holiday gifting for your loved ones mau's got you covered obviously all of these will be linked down below there are some of my new favorites in my little jewelry circulation thanks again to maeri for sponsoring this video and on that note let's head on over to Vivian's apartment and go see your space let's go hi welcome to my one-bedroom apartment in morning s Heights I'm Vivian and this is Jelly Bean hi everyone my name is I am 255 I work part-time as a content creator but my full-time job is actually being a PhD student in biomedical science and the apartment is $2,100 but split between two people so this is our really long entryway I decorated it obviously with my Greyhound merch we wanted an auction donating to the Greyhound rescue agency that we got Jing from this is a list of all of the sumo wrestlers that are in a sumo to a competition when we were visiting Japan and they just randomly gave us this poster and it really reminds me of a good trip it might not be big to everyone's standards but for a men catton especially this is a huge living room I take a lot of my content in here as well and we also have our dining table here which is really nice because we get to host a lot of friends I want to know about this lamp this is an Urban Outfitter lamp actually and it's always uh a conversation started cuz it's such a safe piece this piece right here I bought it on eBay I really did not mean to bid the amount that I bid we have it here now that's the that's the important thing I really like it it's obviously done in the traditional Chinese watercolor style it's definitely not authentic I'm still moving around and probably not settled in this apartment forever I didn't want to have anything too pricey in my apartment especially my parents have a lot of our more valuable like Chinese calligraphy pieces at home and I know they're going to keep those safe for me we're a huge reading household so we have just all of our books here and to my left a little bit is my National Geographic collection a little tidbit about younger Vivian she really wanted to be a National Geographic Explorer when and so when I was in college and I was starting out in my first ever apartment I started collecting National Geographics I like the feeling of having them here it feels like they've been with me for so long at this point that they'll probably just keep going with me wherever I move so here's our little display case wherever we travel we always try to spot Jelly Bean this is from a hostel in Hokkaido that I stayed in this is the couch living area usually my dog is right here this coffee table I always get a lot of questions about I actually diyd it I got the base off Facebook Marketplace for 50 bucks and then I bought a bunch of spray paint on Amazon and I spray painted it pink and it represents a phase of my life where I was just veryy into DIY I do a lot of Ceramics it's probably my main hobby right now I made this pot earlier in the year I really like working with my hands I just wanted to do something that required less you know sitting down on the computer and thinking and more Bing things that are outside of my 9 to-5 job I collect a lot of vintage lamps all bought on Facebook Marketplace and this little guy my partner studies salamanders and brain evolution in salamanders in addition to having a lot of dog merch have a lot of salamander merch so this mirror is actually not a real mirror it's one of those fake mirrors and it used to be from a dance studio that went out of business just drove to the Bronx and loaded it up in the back of a car and brought it home um it's just a fun piece to open up the space I think cool what did you search to find it out of business dance studios are where you're supposed to look I hope that dance studio is doing okay I hope they're doing fine now but thank you for the mirror all right well this is the hallway leading to all of our other rooms we actually recently got this rug right here from my favorite vintage store in Montreal and it's handmade textiles her shop is called the little shop if you want to check it out this is our little kitchen it's probably my least favorite room just because I wish there weren't so many walls or I wish I had more counter space but I really love cooking and I make it work a really important part of my cultural identity is to make Chinese food so I cook a lot of Chinese food in here it's definitely very important for me to continue on those recipes here we have another scroll I think that if I had endless money and probably too much free rain on eBay the entire house would be covered up in these little Scrolls here is our bathroom my favorite part about this is the fact that in the morning we actually have really really bright sunlight in this room I love taking showers in the sunlight welcome to my bedroom I've wanted to keep this room really simple because I really don't do anything besides sleep in here Jelly Bean is on the bed right now she's cute and she gets away with it as you can see having fans as a common theme in the apartment I really didn't want a headboard or a traditional bed so I have a platform bed and I wanted to take up this space with this giant fan piece the duvet is from hay I really been experimenting with playing with my bed sheets more because it is the only source of color side of the bed we have this cartel bedside table which I've been wanting for years and I finally just bit the bullet and bought it I made this little cup it matches with the vase that you saw outside I also made a bunch of these prints a couple years back this little Jelly Bean replica was made by my friend Katie for my birthday so this print I got when I visited the the Maro Museum in Barcelona about the frame I think I got this online for probably $10 it adds to the room without being too much this dresser hides a lot of my clothes on top here is just a bunch of random jewelry my Sandy bows that I wore to our show this year I like displaying a lot of my jewelry too because accessories and what people wear is really telling of their personality where do you put all your clothes this is my Dirty Little Secret my closet is kind of filled with everything I own not just clothes I have all my art supplies here and then I stuff all my luggage with the previous season's clothes up top this one we just don't talk about this boyfriend in the hallway hi everyone my name is Vivien I'm 25 and I live in Morningside Heights this building is actually owned by Colombia which is why we have relatively cheap rent my first Passion has always been art as you've seen in my apartment I love painting I used to do a lot of drawing and now I really focus a lot of my energy in Pottery a really common question I get is how I balance the two aspects of my life and I really like using the analogy of Hannah Montana because she lives this double life that keep my two kind of Worlds very separate I'm working in the lab every day and I'm eventually trying to write my thesis on the other side of my life I've always really been into fashion and then when I moved to New York it made a lot of sense to start taking Instagram a little bit more seriously very grateful to be involved in the fashion sphere in New York because it's so unique seeing how other people dress and express themselves really inspires me I like just having a house where it seems lived in and it has a lot of your own stuff um that speaks to your personal style or or what you like or your experiences I really like collecting things especially vintage pieces and a lot of my Decor is from Facebook Marketplace or it's from vintage shops or it's from travels anything that reminds me of a life lived as someone who was born Chinese and who really ident ifies with that part of my culture I wanted to bring in pieces that reminded me of Chinese art and historical art and I feel like it just makes the space feel a lot more me I never want to forget where I'm from morning side Heights is on the border of Harlem when I go out the door it's a mixture of grad students who go to Columbia I really enjoy the area I like the fact that I get to you know hang out and then come home to a very quiet spot I love the fact we live across Riverside Park and it's a great spot for bean to live as well because she gets to run around in the morning and just have fun and meet a lot of other dogs we don't get a lot of tourists and it just feels very homey like every 16-year-old girl probably I watch sex in the city and I watch Gossip Girl and I wanted to move to New York so bad but it's definitely a lot different to what you see online I've always told everyone who wanted to move to New York that the first few months is going to be really difficult when I moved here I obviously leaned heavily on my online presence and I made friends through that try to do something new you know you've moved to New York for a reason like take a class if you want and that's the beauty of living in New York is that truly you can find someone who's into anything you can have the most absurd hobby or interest and you'll find someone who enjoys doing it as much as you do