Holiday Apartments in New York

Has anyone any experience of renting an apartment for 5-7 days in NYC? We were on holidays in Washington DC 2 years ago and rented an apartment for a reasonable price and it made the holiday so much more enjoyable and relaxed.

There are 2 couples going so we are looking for a two bed apartment ....Any advice appreciated...

Make sure the apartment is in the boro of Manahattan 1st . Then make sure it is in a reasonable area as there are bad area in Manahattan too . Dont rent beyond 96th st for sure and dont rent near alphabet city . Tribeca is a great area , also turtle bay area and the up and comming which is very trendy is the flat iron district in lower Manahattan . In the flat Iron district there are plenty of apts to rent . ( short term ? ) Good luck and enjoy

We used this crowd, http://www.colbyinternational.com, a couple of years ago & stayed in an apartment on East 58th Street & it was a safe area & easy to walk to subway etc.

I know someone that stayed at Radio City Apartments and had good things to say about them, although it was a few years back.
Check it out anyway.

http://www.radiocityapartments.com/

The Radio City Apartments are very popular with good reason. The location is fantastic and the apartments, while smallish, are fine. The only problem I found is that they get a lot of groups and if your check-out coincides with one of theirs be prepared for bedlam in the small front desk area. Having said that I would definitely stay there again.

I stayed in Herald Towers on 34th Street next door to the Empire State and across from Macy's with no issues. Very clean and very affordable in prime location. Ours was a one bed; however I'm sure they have varying sizes...it is approx 80 stories! I can't remember who we booke through though - sorry

I can vouch for Radio city , stayed there twice , last in 2008 ,and was very pleased on both occasions, excellent loction, reasonably priced , spotlessly clean and the front desk were very helpful with enquiries about what to do , where to eat etc.
Going again in November.

hey if you haven't booked already go for the Affinia Manahattan. We went there in april and got a 2 bed apartment. we asked above the 15th floor to avoid the noise!
Was fab place, its on 31st street so close to everything and Penn station for transport. we booked on getaroom.com because all the usual sites were very dear. We went for 4 nights and it cost us $1200, roughly €850!!
For two couples thats v good. also the place had two bathrooms.

hope that helps

new york has just banned short-term letting of apartments.
(short-term =under 30 days. New York means NYC -the five boroughs,not elsewhere in NY state)
We in the travel trade are just digesting this news and trying to work out what it exactly means. For example, properly licensed hotels often have apartments or at least self-catering facilities; they are not affected by the law.
But individual apartment owners who let out their apartments -whether directly to customers or via agencies -are affected.
This may affect the financial viability of some of those agencies who depend entirely on short-term lettings of apartments.

As I'm not entirely sure of the situation I'd recommend that anyone wanting to rent an apartment for under a month in NYC should google as much up-to-date info as possible.

(Co-incidentally, Paris has just done the same thing -or, to be accurate, started to enforce a much negelected law banning short-term lets of apartments in Paris. Again this does not apply to those licensed "hotel-apartments")

Don't know if this is what you have in mind but you don't rule it out in your OP: you can also use craigslist to sublet the apartment of a New Yorker who is going to be away during your dates. I live in NY and sublet my apartment regularly in this way. Yes, you have to use common sense while using craiglist - make contact with the letter, get as much information as you can, get references from past subletters if possible, just be sensible and prudent.

I disagree with the poster above who rules out above 96th and outside Manhattan - parts of Brooklyn especially are very close to Manhattan and are extremely pleasant (Park Slope, Fort Greene, Williamsburg) and you'll get lower rates there. Above 96th on the east side I don't know well but on the west side that is largely Columbia University housing and up to 120th or so you'd be fine. Depending on your age group, yes, Alphabet City might be a bit noisy and gritty but then again it has changed hugely in recent years and I find it a very pleasant place to be now.

There are also house swap or apartment swap websites which a friend has used with success in NY. And websites such as (I may be misquoting this) sabbaticals.com, which academic friends have used, and I'm sure it's open to non-academics too!

Good luck.