The apartment is pretty much as described as to location (save that it is at 249 Eldridge Street not 269 Eldridge Street as stated on the site-269 does not exist-see further below). It is very close to the West corner of Eldridge and Houston and, as Houston is a very busy two way crosstown street, there is a lot of traffic noise late into the night and from early in the morning. This may or may not bother you. It was clean and laid out as described. It is a 5 flight walk up, so be prepared for that.
The main reason for the modest star rating is twofold. First, after having committed to the letting, the managing agents will ask to you lie about the length of your stay (to say at least a month) if challenged by any residents of the building. This may have accounted for a certain hostility we experienced in passing, with obviously British accents, from residents of the building. It is difficult to imagine that this, plus the misdescription of the address on the site, are for any reason other than trying to cover up a letting situation which is at odds with the wishes of the residents of the building, and which is, perhaps, unauthorised under the building lease. Again this may or may not trouble you: it troubled us.
Second, the agent's communication and level of involvement are problematic. This is not a personal let by a person called ‘Ali’ as the ad suggests ('Ali's place'); we never came face to face with anyone during our stay. ‘Ali' works for Renaissance Properties who seem to manage the property on behalf of someone unknown. Although ‘Renaissance Properties’ is listed as having an office in New York (220 W 57th Street), the communications we had seemed to be with individuals at head office, which is in Philadelphia.
Email communication was patchy and, at times, careless. Having given our ETA at the flat as likely around 10.00pm a few days previously, we landed at 8pm, to receive a message that said the Renaissance Properties' phones would be 'off between 8-10.30pm'. This was not welcome news after an 8 hour flight and we tried to make contact to repeat that we would be arriving at the flat very shortly. There was a reply and we were buzzed into the flat by persons unknown: again, we never had face to face contact with anyone involved with this listing, and this confusion over our arrival time was never addressed.
On arrival, things that a local owner would have identified and fixed were not done: the coffee machine was broken and needed replacing; the ironing board was broken and unusable (in fairness these were replaced swiftly once we drew attention to them); many of the wardrobe doors were non-closing or stuck in use rendering one of the two cupboards for storing clothes in the flat largely unusable as the broken door is propped up inside it; some of the towels were badly stained. All indications of limited presence or absence of on the ground owner/agents.
Similarly, a request to leave 4 cases in the apartment for 4 hours after official checkout was refused, ostensibly on the basis that the apartment had an immediately following letting, but it was still advertised as available on AirBnB. The suggestion that a luggage store over 40 blocks (2.7 miles) North was a sensible solution indicates a certain lack of local knowledge or an unwillingness to be flexible with left luggage, which none of the four of us, in extensive use of Airbnbs in the past, had ever had any problems with.
All in all we felt that the letting situation was shady and confusing. For us, it was not a nice enough flat to compensate for the general sense that we weren't supposed to be staying there and that the letting agents were distant, not just about the address of the flat itself, but about it's condition in general. In conclusion, if the noise, absentee ownership/management and the request to lie would cause you concern, we would advise staying somewhere else.