Fantastic location. Close to mass transit, bodegas, restaurants, shops, coffee (and even 24 urgent care). Not on a super busy street but ½ block away from everything. Apt faces the street but since it’s 3 flights of marble stairs off the street, the noise is minimal given that it’s NYC. The neighborhood felt safe; I was alone and was out quite late.
Key pick-up & drop-off was easy and host quickly responded to my questions. I never met nor spoke to the host-we texted.
Image the first apt you had when you started your ‘grown up’ stage of life. Remember how it was furnished? How clean the carpet & furniture was? How the bed had unique lumps and bumps? Maybe there are: missing bathroom soap, ill-fitting sheets, stained bed pillows, dirty towel folded as if clean. It’s not truly bad but it’s certainly unpolished and requires more attention to prepare for guests.
Note that you have to traverse the kitchen to get between all rooms. The kitchen floor is elevated ¾-1” above all the other flooring. So, each time I passed over the doorway threshold I tripped. Additionally, the bed is quite elevated (host stores stuff under the bed). I’m 5’4” and had to grab a handful of the sheets and foam top and pull myself up onto the bed.
Bottom line: I spent many years living in college & grad school-like apartments. Do I like better quality & attention to detail? Yes. But the location was perfect for me and I worked around the shortcomings.