Renting an apartment in New York City

I’m a very hashtag lucky girl in the sense that I’ve been to New York 5 times now. When we went in September we decided to take a punt and book an apartment in Brooklyn instead of a hotel. It worked out much cheaper over all and since we were travelling with my parents thought it would be better to have a bit of space to socialise, take our time getting ready in the morning etc etc.

Before we’d even booked our flights I already knew I wanted to book Sandy’s Place which I’d found on Booking.com when we first started talking about the idea of going to New York for my 40^th Birthday. It looked exactly what we needed and the fact it was in Brooklyn rather than Manhattan didn’t put us off. In fact, being a group of New York-philes anyway, we were looking forward to staying in a different neighbourhood.

The location was ideal for starters. It was a 2 minute walk to Kosciuszko station where you can pick up the J train which takes you directly into lower Manhattan in about 15 minutes, and the trains come about every 8-10 minutes or so. We never waited long for one anyway. There isn’t much in the way of restaurants around to eat so you might want to stay in Manhattan for that or venture over to Bushwick or Williamsburg but the couple of take aways that are right next to Kosciuszko Station (a pizza place and a chicken shop) were excellent value and were perfect on the couple of nights we were tired and just wanted to chill out at the apartment with a couple of beers. There was also a few little supermarkets within walking distance to pick up some essentials (like beers).

The apartment itself had everything we needed; two decent sized bedrooms with double beds which were extremely comfortable. A fully working kitchen with glasses, dishes and utensils, plus a dishwasher, oven, hob and large fridge and freezer. It was a nice touch to be welcomed by fresh fruit and bottled water as well as a few essentials like coffee, tea and sugar. There were 3 air conditioning units throughout, which, in the 30 degree September heat was a godsend!

In the bathroom there were ample towels (Tommy Hilfiger towels no less) for 4 of us for a week and a really good hot shower which stands over a bath – always a bonus that there’s a hairdryer for use as well, especially when you go to the states and travel hairdryers aren’t always the most powerful things in the world.

I would say the only thing I would change, if I were being super pedantic, would be that the sofa isn’t the most comfortable for 4 people to lounge on, that said though, there was plenty of seating if you don’t mind sitting on high bar stools, or for me, since I was with my family and always revert to being the baby of the family again, just sat on the floor while we were sitting around chatting.

It’s probably worth noting as well that Sandra owns the whole brownstone building where there’s a couple of one bedroom apartments too if there was only two of you. I’m completely sold on apartment living for New York now, it was so handy being able to save a bit of money on things like breakfasts or coffees and being able to actually chill out there for pre of post drinks. It also served as a great base for the Brooklyn Brewery tour we did in Bushwick (review of that coming soon!). And I would absolutely stay there again. In fact, I’m already planning reasons to be able to go again!