$5,845 | Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan

Jeff Karliner, 64, and Henry Johnson, 64

Occupations: Mr. Karliner is a former high school teacher and a retired jeweler and metalsmith, who used to own and operate Jeffrey Allen Jewelers; Mr. Johnson is a retired high school biology teacher who helped run the business.

On being close to the Port Authority: Catching a bus to New Paltz is a breeze, and they love being close to the city’s performing arts scene. “We saw one show that was so close to our apartment that if the bathroom line was too long during intermission, I could have come back here,” Mr. Karliner said.

Making friends: The building’s monthly events have been a great way to meet and hang out with their neighbors.

Anniversaries: The couple met in college and have been together 43 years. They married in New Paltz in 2004, when the village mayor married a number of same-sex couples before it was legal in New York. They married again, legally, in 2009 in Connecticut.

Mr. Johnson would travel to New Paltz to pick up the mail and check on the house, only to find himself heading back to the city 15 minutes later. Mr. Karliner had come out of retirement for the third time to teach at a high school in Orangeburg, N.Y., a 30-minute reverse commute from their Hell’s Kitchen apartment. The drive from New Paltz, though, was an hour and a half.

“The studio would have been O.K. if we were just there every few weekends, but we were living here full time,” Mr. Karliner said. “We don’t think the cats were happy there, either — they couldn’t get away from each other. And we couldn’t get away from each other, either.”

Upgrading to a one-bedroom seemed an obvious solution, especially after a penthouse apartment in the building became vacant. Delighted to not be so cramped, Mr. Johnson started going on “shopping expeditions” to their house in New Paltz, bringing back artifacts from the 57 countries they visited together.