My wife and I just got back a few days ago from our 5-night stay in Elisabeth's apartment, and must say that we had a wonderful time! It was our first experience both in New York and with Airbnb, and both turned out a success. The apartment was very clean and tidy when we arrived, and just as pictured. It is very comfortable and spacious (for New York), and we especially loved having our breakfast and coffee at the table by the window each morning. We picked up some groceries at the market 1 block away, and found that the apartment was stocked with everything we needed to do a little bit of cooking and therefore save a bit of money on food.

There were only two quite minor downsides to our stay here. The first we already knew, and that is that this place is about a 15 min subway ride from the Times Square/downtown area. There were a few times where we wished we could be closer (especially on evenings/weekends when not all subway lines are running), but for the most part it was very easy to get around. The fact is, there are many hotels and rentals closer to the action, but we really felt we got the best value with this place. The neighbourhood was great, we were never bothered by street noise (though AC was on almost all the time), and you are 1 block from the 1 train which can take you all the way down the West side of Manhattan. The other downside was a complete fluke and something unpredictable, and that was that there was an apparent gas leak in the building, so all gas was turned off, which = no hot water for 2+ days (still wasn't on when we checked out). Luckily we were out most of the time, and it was 35+ degrees out, so not a huge deal (though inconvenient).

Elisabeth was a great host, and a superb communicator. We had no fears or worries that the place would be any different than described, and it wasn't. She always replied right away to our inquiries and was incredibly helpful - even putting out blankets for us to use for a picnic and an umbrella for the rain. We really appreciated her flexibility with our check-in time (we arrived a little earlier than the "official" check-in time) and knowing that she had family in the building made us confident that we could get a hold of someone if we needed help with anything (but there wasn't any need!).

Even though we sometimes wished to be closer to downtown, we had spent hours on Airbnb looking at places before choosing this one, and are confident that we would never have found a place for this price and quality that we would have liked as much. We completely recommend it!