Where to move in NYC Area under $2k a month.

StreetEasy is the gold standard over Zillow, much easier to look at stuff.

Jersey City or Hoboken are great if you work a M-F, 9-5 and most of your friends also live in NJ. Depending on where in Tribeca, the ferry could be a pretty easy commute - it stops right near GS. If you're working later, on weekends, or want to go to NYC at night it gets dicey, which is why most people move into Manhattan after a year or two. If you miss the ferry you're stuck with car home (expensive and lots of time) or PATH train (schedules can be inconsistent at best)

My advice is to go on StreetEasy. look at every apartment south of Central Park (keeping it ~20-25 min commute) and eliminate based on 1. Places you absolutely cannot live in because they're terrible and 2. Places that would be an extremely long commute (parts of Murray Hill for example are beyond far from a subway station). You probably can't afford to live anywhere within walking distance of work, so pick the nicest place that's in your budget and not a huge haul to go to work.

There are only 100 studio/1br south of Central Park under 2k right now, so you can probably eliminate half of those quickly (no kitchen, shared bathroom, 7th floor walkup, just gross, can tell on map the subway will be very far) and narrow it down to 10-15 to look at. At $2k you're looking at a lot of places with serious issues so you're looking for the diamond in the rough that doesn't have that.

That seems like a lot of work I know, but if you say "I want to live in West Village because it's fun" and there's 3 shitty apartments there, you're not going to get very far. If you are open on location you can find a few places you like and then pick the best location.