Jamie's place is a lovely apartment: spacious, full of light, airy with high ceilings, furnished with high quality fittings and appliances. There is a simplicity in the layout of the apartment that makes it very relaxing and with a great flow of energy and air.
The position was especially convenient for our purposes of being within walking distance of Columbia University. Overall, the area is very well served by underground and car services. However, if you like walking like we do, then the sky's the limit. Central Park is 10-15 minutes away and we easily walked to museums and shops as far as Saks Fifth Avenue without using any public transport.
Harlem is an incredible neighbourhood, lively and with some beautiful architecture. It was our first time ever in Harlem as we usually stay in the Upper West side for shorter periods. The advantage of Harlem is living in low-rise houses rather than the big apartment or hotel blocks in upper Manhattan.
There are plenty of shops and restaurants for take away or outdoor dining (soon to become indoor with limited capacity) close to Jamie's place. One of our favourites was Harlem Shake.
The apartment was easy to access and we've had no problem whatsoever during our stay of 3 weeks. One day we lost wi-fi for about one hour at a critical time for an online meeting, so we panicked because we could not find the wifi hub to try and restart it. However, the interruption was externally caused and lasted for a short period of time. Otherwise, the signal was consistently excellent for either work or entertainment.
If I have to pick one thing we liked the most, it was the TV! We do not like large TV screen that dominate a room. But this TV is perfectly placed and very discreet despite being pretty enormous.
We would be very happy and fortunate to be back at Jamie's place next time we are in NYC.