Thanks very much for your comment~
commutes of 45-50 min (x2) very day is fine for me:
in my home city I also spend around 2 hours every day to commute between home and the campus.
It sounds fine to live in Brooklyn or upper Manhattan for me.
My stipend is $26k per 9 months + $10k summer support,
but I am not sure of how exactly the summer support works,
so let me take a rough estimate of $31k as the pre-tax stipend per year.
The MacCracken housing in Stuyvesant Town costs ~$13,000 for 11.5 months
I have not researched on the tax rate in NYC yet, but if I set 10% as the deducted amount of the total income,
then I have (31*0.9-13)/12~$1250 to spend per month, not including the expenses for moving in summer as you mentioned.
The housing looks expensive, but I will probably choose it to ease me from the headache of finding somewhere to live,
in addition to adapting to the new environment and grad study.
Hopefully I will survive with the stipend I have