We stayed at Al's apartment for a week. When we arrived at night my husband was not that impressed with the neighbourhood (large group of young people over the road playing very loud music) but after a few days the people in the street were saying hello to us as we left every morning and everything was fine.
The apartment was very big compared to the space you would get in a hotel in Manhattan, which was great for my daughter and a baby that just wanted to crawl.
The place was good but I probably wouldn't stay there again as it is a decent trip to get into Manhattan with 2 kids and more than once at night when we had lots of bags and tired children, the cab drivers refused to take us back there. One driver said he didn't have a clue where it was and had no GPS or map so we had to get everything out of the cab and get in the subway. The place is really close to the subway entry though which was a big positive.
Al was accessible via email while we were there and we had no problems. Loved the authentic NY experience rather than staying in a hotel.