These days Ms. Roberts has a car and lives about two miles away from Mr. Harding, in an attached house in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, that she shares with her fiancé, Amilcar Perez, 42, a lawyer, and their 1-year-old son, Clemente. Sebastian spends Saturday afternoon through Tuesday at his mother’s home and Wednesday morning to Saturday at his father’s apartment. His two almost identical bedrooms are both outfitted with loft beds and decorated with a basketball motif.
Ms. Roberts said she feels there is something about New York City life that makes living so close to your ex-spouse an attractive option.
“Since New York City is so dense and many residents don’t drive, people’s identity is really tied to the local neighborhood,” Ms. Roberts said. “On top of that, I think that New Yorkers like to find their ‘familiar’ in the vast anonymity of our urban life. So changing things like your go-to bodega, your train stop or even your laundromat can be a big deal.”
Hannah Jones Lawrence, 29, the deputy editor of branded content at Romper, a parenting website for millennials, shuttled back and forth between her divorced parents’ apartments on the Upper West Side starting when she was 4 years old. Her mother, Christine Jones, 66, who now works at All Points Property Management in Troy, N.Y., lived on West End Avenue and 93rd Street, while her father, Stephen Lawrence, 76, a composer, resided just blocks away on West 86th Street.
“Sometimes I actually can’t believe I had the schedule that I did,” Ms. Lawrence said. “On Mondays and Wednesdays I’d be at my mom’s house, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I’d be with my dad at his house, and if it was his weekend, I’d spend Friday and Saturday with him and go back to my mom’s on Sunday. I enjoyed it because I got to see both of them on a fairly regular basis. But it did require a lot of planning. And quite a heavy backpack.”
The back and forth was not without its drawbacks. “I always felt guilty for asking to spend another night here instead of there because I didn’t want to hurt my mom or dad’s feelings, and I shouldn’t have been worried about that,” she said. “The schedule is a guideline, not a list of commandments.”
Toward the end of high school, she said to her parents, “I’m done. Please don’t make me do this anymore,” and moved into her mother’s apartment full time, seeing her father about once a week. That’s not to say she didn’t find the original arrangement beneficial. “When your parents live so close to each other, you never really feel like anyone’s absent,” she said.
“I think parents who are really interested and dedicated to being involved with their kids will figure out a way to do it no matter where they live,” said Ms. Rosenthal, the divorce mediator. “One advantage of the parents living in the same neighborhood is kids can spend more time in their own homes rather than in transit. But if the parents are getting along, the kids will be O.K.”
At the Gitti/Bologna household, things seem to be working out.
“Sometimes I want to say hi in the evenings when they’re with him,” Ms. Gitti said. “I’ll come in and say to the girls, ‘Hi, I just want to give you a kiss.’ And then Matteo says, ‘Come in!’ And then we all have dinner.”
“We’re still a family,” Mr. Bologna said.
Article Appeared @http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/realestate/divorced-parents-living-close-for-the-childrens-sake.html