Just avoid it. There are other places out there.
Pros
Beautiful pre war brick walls, hardwood floors, relatively new light fixtures, high ceilings.
Cons
The building infrastructure is old. The brick walls are charming until they start crumbling spontaneously. Heating/cooling units usually don't work so you're on your own for that (which jacks up your ConEd bill). The hot water heaters are in each unit so your hot water is tied to your electricity bill. Which means you get about 7 minutes of hot water if you're lucky. There was no heat in my unit. At all. I had to depend on space heaters during the winter. My fridge broke and it took the management company over 6 months to replace it--and only after my original contact at the management company had left. Not that the new guy was any better--any reasonable request I ever had (not many in the four years I lived there) was met with hostility and intimidation. It was always, always an unpleasant interaction. Essentially, they know they have people by the balls because it's Manhattan-relatively reasonable rent in a desirable neighborhood, so they don't really care about keeping tenants happy. The biggest joke was that the owner makes each potential tenant meet with him before the lease signing--in his enormous Upper East Side apartment overlooking Central Park. I thought about that guy a lot when I was shivering in the winter because I didn't want to turn on my space heaters yet again. That guy could care less about his tenants. Overall, I was really happy to leave this place when I could. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Advice to the owners
Have a modicum of human decency. I know that's not required in this city, but it sure does go a long way.
/-73.963031,40.761059,14/640x640@2x?access_token=pk.eyJ1Ijoib3BlbmlnbG9vIiwiYSI6ImNsYjNmMjVwdzBjeHgzd21wYmJmZDB0eGYifQ.XZvZCOh51yXuDBE-I3Bg0A)
/-73.962952,40.761025,14/640x640@2x?access_token=pk.eyJ1Ijoib3BlbmlnbG9vIiwiYSI6ImNsYjNmMjVwdzBjeHgzd21wYmJmZDB0eGYifQ.XZvZCOh51yXuDBE-I3Bg0A)