Jinqiu had arranged that his mother welcomed us at his place. She stayed up extra long for us, as we had a very late arrival (at around 1 am). During our stay our host couldn't be at the place so we had almost the whole apartment for us. This wasn't expected but very welcomed. We stayed in contact with our host over text messages the whole time, which worked super fast and we could ask him anything. He was very helpful, supportive and cared for us.
The bed was very comfortable. As it was really hot outside during our stay (>31°C) we were happy that the place had air conditioning (a bit dated but functional).

We felt very safe in the neighborhood. In fact, the deli at the corner, where we bought our breakfast each morning, was also famous with the police, who came there for coffee breaks. The street was relatively quiet during the night and very clean. In the morning we were awakened by chirping sparrows.

The surrounding area is fantastic for a stay in New York City. Central Park is just a few meters walk away as are the next subway stations (1 and B,C lines). There are plenty of shops and restaurants in the area. To our surprise Spanish was as common there as English, which was especially cool for my partner who is a native Spanish speaker but not so familiar with English.

For our one week stay we bought a 7-day MetroCard (32$), a New York City pass (117$) which included access to 6 big sightseeing attractions (American Museum of Natural History, Empire State Building (actually two tickets in one: on for the day and one for the night), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Top of the Rock or Guggenheim Museum, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island or Circle Line Sightseeing cruise, Intrepid sea, air & space museum or 9/11 memorial & museum). As we are not from the US, we also bought a prepaid SIM-card with internet flat (38$) to have internet access while out and about in NYC.

All in all we had a fantastic stay at Jinqiu's place and can we recommend it warmly to everyone who wants to stay for a couple of days in NY as we did.