Affordable Luxury

Rent in normandie court

Older building, worn. Cheap but out of the way uptown

Building is very well maintained and staff is incredibly responsive any time of day. Great amenities including large laundry room, gym (for additional fee), dry cleaning, supermarket & pharmacy all part of the building. The entrance to the Q is directly underneath the building as well.

Management is easy to get in touch with and repairs are taken care of quickly. Doormen are nice and helpful, and the package room is very convenient. The only downside so far has been the elevator renovations, but the management company, for compensation, only increased rents about 1-2% and also gave the option of breaking the lease at any point during the renovations.

I have been living in this apartment for the past 4 months. They are great for young people/young couples. Staff (doormen, front desk attendant, handyman) are good people and really friendly.
The place is conveniently located un the Upper East Side. Everything is close (including Central Park!). There is a Duane Reade a block away, coffee shops downstairs, great restaurants close by (2 blocks away), dry-cleaners downstairs, a grocery store on the first level.
Ubers and taxis roam all day long around the building, and the line 6 of the Subway is one street away.
The neighborhood has its own security, and there are Doctors offices on the premises (and a Hospital near-by).

Overall, I had a great experience at Normandie Court; the management is prompt and reasonable, maintenance is super responsive to any issues that you call for, and the laundry/package room does their job quite well (never had any lost packages or lost laundry). The front desk guys are pretty awesome about getting to know everyone (and stopping non-residents). They also returned my security deposit in full with no hassles (which if you're familiar with how terrible some management companies are, is a breath of fresh air).

The room itself was not renovated, but was still maintained quite nicely (as befits a luxury building) with a great view from large living room windows and central air. I honestly never managed to check out any of the gym facilities, but it seemed really nice during the tour.

The only downsides of this building are of course, the location. As a young just out of school grad, I picked the upper east side mostly out of cost. Given that it's a solid 25-30 minutes to get to the LES (or even longer if you want to get to the LWS or Brooklyn), it actually makes it somewhat of a chore to get to the great nightlife in the city. There's a 6 train stop at 95th street which makes this less of a chore, but still hardly ideal. There are some decent restaurants around the building, but you'll find that the best options are further downtown.