The apartment was clean, tidy and had all the necessities. The description on the website was accurate and the pictures give a good impression of the place. We picked the place since it has two queen sized beds. To us this was a big plus, since we traveled with two adult couples. Most apartments have at least one double bed.
The apartment is on the 1st floor, so you have to carry your luggage (and shopping) up one flight of stairs.
Sophie is a very friendly and helpful hostess. She was waiting at the apartment when we arrived. During our stay she gave us a lot of useful information about places to go and things to do.
We had to check out at noon and our plane didn't leave till 9 pm. Sophie was kind enough to let us keep our luggage at the apartment so we could enjoy our last day in New York till the end.
The neighborhood took a little time to get used to. It is quite noisy on the weekends with loud music and a fire house a block away. The streets are littered, even though we saw people cleaning the walkways in front of their houses. On the other hand the people were very friendly and said hello when you walked down the street. Despite the noise we never felt unsafe, even walking back to the apartment late at night.
There is a supermarket about 5 minutes away, and at least 4 deli shops. And there are plenty of restaurants in the area. There is a laundromat a block away if you want to do laundry.
The nearest subway station is about 10 minutes walking away. The train takes your straight to Manhattan in approximately 30 minutes. You can walk an extra 3 blocks to the express train which goes more often and takes 5 to 10 minutes less to get to the city. Once in the city, the round trip time to the apartment and back is to long for a short break at the apartment. We just spend the whole day in the city. If we wanted to do something at night we left later in the day.
The one thing that surprised us, was the fact that there was no house phone at the apartment. Sophie helped us out by calling a cab and offering to call take out our first night.