Almost 10 years ago, an old friend of Andy’s was moving to the city. He’d just finished business school at Dartmouth and was starting as a management consultant in the fall. He had to find an apartment. Over dinner at our favorite free-wine-with-dinner Chinese place on Amsterdam Avenue, he asked us for apartment-hunting advice.

“Well,” Andy said, “what are you looking for?”

“I’d like something decent-sized, not too expensive, and the possibility of walking to work in Midtown would be nice.”

“So you’re not a stickler for charm and character?”

“Not at all,” he said, folding a moo shoo pancake.

“Your choice is easy then,” I said. Andy nodded. “You should look on the Upper East Side.”

We explained that that part of the city, once considered somewhat hoity-toity, actually had a lot of reasonable apartments available.

The next day, Andy’s friend called him. “I was a little offended by what you guys said.” When Andy expressed his bafflement, his friend said, “You know, that you thought I should live of the Upper East Side. Everyone in business school said the East Side is uptight and professional. I may have an M.B.A., but I’m still a cool guy.”

Andy managed to assure his friend that our neighborhood recommendation had nothing to do with our perception of his level of coolness; we’d simply been thinking of a place where he’d get a good deal and maybe be able to walk to work from. “It’s all about supply and demand,” Andy told him. “And the Upper East Side has a lot of supply.”

“Well,” said his friend, still slightly huffy. “That doesn’t mean I’m the type of guy who’d live there.”

He ended up paying way too much to live in Alphabet City, and commuting to work by taking a bus to the 6 train, which just proves that, when it comes to New York real estate, people may say they want value for their money, but they’ll pay a high premium to make sure they seem “cool.”

I thought of this story recently when some newly married friends were describing their apartment hunt. They’re currently renting in the West Village and want to buy. Like everyone else on this earth, they are looking in Brooklyn. During their search, we met them for brunch at our favorite cafe on Smith Street.

“Everything is so expensive,” the husband was saying. “If you want anything decent-sized, you need to push out into more marginal neighborhoods.”

“And, no offense,” the wife added, “I thought the sacrifice was moving to Brooklyn.”

“The market is so hot here,” her husband summed up. “It’s amazing just how little your money buys.”

Andy and I stabbed at our eggs and hummed sympathetically. We each knew what the other was thinking, that the real estate bubble was ripe for bursting, but when it came to other people’s real estate decisions, we’d learned to keep our mouths shut.

That must have been about a month ago. Then late last week, Hallie and I were walking her dog in Cobble Hill Park, and she told me this couple had found an apartment.

“You’ll never guess where they’re moving,” she said, shooing Harvey, her enormous sheepdog-retriever mutt away from some delicate looking flowers.

“Gowanus?” I guessed. From the way she shook her head and scrunched her face, I could tell my guess was way off the mark. “Prospect-Lefferts?” I asked, and received the same scrunching.

“I said you’d never guess,” Hallie reminded me. “You need to start thinking more out of the box.”

“Ditmas Park?” I shrugged. She shook her head. “Coney Island?”

“Nope,” she said. “They bought a place in the 80s off York Avenue.”

“You mean -” I began.

“Yup,” she said, nodding. “They’re moving to the Upper East Side.”

Apparently, they could get more bang for their buck there. Which, I suppose, makes sense – as Andy told his friend 10 years ago, it’s all about supply and demand. But at the time he said it, the East Village was where people overpaid to get cool points. Back then, we wouldn’t have even thought to recommend that Andy’s friend live in Brooklyn. But now it seemed this was the new place to pay for style credit.

And though our friends’ decision made sense, I couldn’t help but be surprised by it. “The Upper East Side,” I mused to Hallie. “Huh.”

“I know,” she said. “If there are deals to be had, I told Mark we should try looking there.” I nodded. It certainly seemed a better choice than Jersey City. “Maybe,” Hallie said, “the Upper East Side is the new Brooklyn.”

“Or,” I countered ruefully, “maybe Brooklyn’s the new Upper East Side.”

The Brooklyn Chronicles,a work of fiction,appears each Friday.Previous installments are available at www.nysun.com/archive_chronicles.php. The author can be reached at kschwartz@nysun.com.