312 East 53rd Street
Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Vandenberg/The Townhouse Experts

Listen, it’s not as though getting an apartment in New York has ever been easy. But one could probably argue it has never been harder than it is right now. The most god-awful studios are regularly renting for thousands and thousands of dollars with lines of interested tenants out the door. Here, we’ll find the actually worth-looking-ats, the actually worth-the-costs, and the surprisingly affordable-for-those-parquet-floors from around the internet. 

Woke up beaming this morning — what a historic, historic time to be alive in New York. In less-pleasing news, rents have climbed so high that people are opting to live with nuns for half the market rate. This week, I traveled far and wide — from Fort Greene to Carnegie Hill to Harlem — in search of an affordable apartment that doesn’t suck, so that you don’t have to join a convent. My favorite neighborhood this week has to be Central Harlem. It’s hardly cheap these days, but your dollar still seems to stretch further there.

$6,100, 3-bedroom: Okay, this week we’re gonna start with the worst (from a pricing perspective) and decrease the pain register slowly as we go. Hurts that this gorgeous and squat brownstone apartment has the best bone structure I’ve seen in a while.

246 Cumberland Street
Photo: Compass

$4,500, studio: Funky layout on this one — I assume they’re labelling it a studio because the basement bedroom has no windows and therefore doesn’t count as a bedroom? You’d have the benefit of sleeping really well down there at least.

$13,800, 3-bedroom: Classic-ish six with a south-facing living room and wood-burning fireplace.

$11,000, 3-bedroom: Sorry to report that this is a bargain for the neighborhood.

1235 Park Avenue
Photo: Douglas Elliman

$8,500, 4-bedroom: Entire brownstone with a swimming pool in the backyard. I REPEAT: entire brownstone with a  swimming pool in the backyard.

184 Midwood Street
Photo: Location Location Location

$3,295, 2-bedroom: Gorgeous prewar with good parquet and a recently remodeled bathroom.

$3,375, studio: A picture-perfect location (I mean, would you look at the view of that charming church??), plus picture-perfect floor-to-ceiling windows.

20 Sidney Place
Photo: Courtesy of the owner

$2,525, studio: An almost sinister level of optimization at play here — have never seen such an intriguing accordion-kitchen setup in my life! Murphy bed that doubles as a couch, too.

118 West 132nd Street
Photo: Sovereign Realty NYC

$2,950, 1-bedroom: Digging the wood inlay on the mantle and the deep-set windows, but a little less excited about all the exposed brick.

$3,000, 1-bedroom: Almost offensively bad pictures for an apartment with potential! Laundry on-site …

$9,000, 3-bedroom: Have listed this idyllic but stylistically confused triplex before. The antique trunk, 19th-century treadle sewing machine, and the wood-burning stove are all making me feel a little too much like a time-traveling tradwife. (“Pioneer Street” not helping.)

120 Pioneer Street
Photo: Rove Travel LLC

$6,000, 3-bedroom: Special and beautiful prewar that seems overpriced for how few updates there are. Cheap windows, sadly, too.

$3,300, 2-bedroom: A stunning junior four in a stunning, bucolic complex! First time I’ve heard that jargon used in a long time (shows how far I live from the suburbs in my head).

8701 Shore Road
Photo: Klevi Tomcini, LREB

$6,250, 3-bedroom: Adorable semi-detached house with a two-car garage.

7617 6th Avenue
Photo: Corcoran

$2,200, 1-bedroom: Prewar with potential and a black standing dresser that needs to self-immolate asap.

$4,500, 2-bedroom: It starts (and ends) with the windows.

184 8th Street
Photo: Corcoran

Okay this isn’t convent-cheap, but it might be the closest you’ll get to feeling like you’re in the countryside without leaving midtown. Built in 1866, this little cottage at 312 East 53rd Street has all the charming details — clapboard façade, mansard roof, extra-wide floorboards. It’s historically cool too: Lincoln Kirstein lived there before he co-founded the New York City Ballet, and next door the writer Edmund Wilson once put up T.S. Eliot for the night. It’s not yet on any of the real-estate sites, so act fast.

312 East 53rd Street
Photo: Vandenberg/The Townhouse Experts

If you don’t have $4 million, you might want to head to Kensington, my recent-favorite neighborhood filled with a stunning number of beautifully maintained prewar apartments. Like this one, a sturdy one-bedroom coming in at around $500,000, with generous proportions — nine-foot-high ceilings, a proper kitchen that doesn’t feel like an afterthought, and a bedroom that could fit a few beds (if that’s for some reason of interest to you?). Nicely maintained building with low maintenance. Win-win!

Which one’s for you?

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