Murray Hill or Midtown East: which side of 40th to rent on

Where the line actually is

Murray Hill runs roughly from the low 30s up to East 40th Street. Midtown East picks up from there and runs north into the 50s. The boundary is not official and different listings draw it differently, but East 40th is where most of them put it.

144 East 40th Street sits on that line. Which is useful rather than ambiguous: it is the address that gets both.

What changes as you go north

Midtown East gets denser, taller and more commercial the closer you get to 42nd Street. More offices, more lunch trade, more foot traffic on a weekday and noticeably less of it on a Sunday. It is a neighbourhood that empties.

Murray Hill stays residential. Lower buildings, more people who actually live there, shops that are open because somebody needs them in the evening rather than at noon. It does not empty at the weekend.

Neither is better. They suit different weeks.

What changes as you go south

The trade-off for Murray Hill's quiet is distance from the terminal. Grand Central is at 42nd; every block south is another two minutes on foot at the start and end of every day.

From East 40th that walk is four minutes. From the middle of Murray Hill it is closer to twelve, which over nine months is a different commute even though the map barely moves.

The block itself

East 40th between Lexington and Third is residential on both sides, which is unusual this close to 42nd Street and is the specific reason this stretch behaves more like Murray Hill than like the avenue two streets north.

That is the thing worth knowing about the boundary: it is not a gradient across ten blocks. It is a street or two. Stand on 42nd and then stand on 40th and the difference is immediate.

Which side for a nine-month stay

For a stay of a few nights, pick the terminal and ignore the rest. For nine months, the weekend matters — you will spend a lot of Saturdays in whichever neighbourhood you chose, and Midtown East proper is not where most people want to spend them.

The boundary addresses are the compromise, and they are the reason this one works: a quiet residential block for the evening, four minutes to five subway lines and Metro-North for the morning.

• Grand Central — 4 minutes on foot, 4/5/6/7/S and Metro-North
• Bryant Park and the B/D/F/M — 9 minutes
• Morgan Library — 7 minutes
• Empire State Building — 13 minutes
• Walk Score 98, Transit Score 100

What a room on the line costs

Weekly billing, nine-month minimum, every utility plus air conditioning, Wi-Fi and weekly housekeeping inside the rate.

• Deluxe Room — $525 a week, shared bathroom
• Studio Basic — $650 a week, en-suite
• King Studio — $745 a week, en-suite, the largest room