I lived in Normandie Court for 3.5 years (summer 2004 - fall 2007). Overall, this was a nice building. I had a pretty good size 1 bedroom apartment with a lot of closet space (G line in 235 bldg). It was really convenient having a gym in the building, especially in winter. However, due to the number of people sharing apartments (putting up those temporary walls) waiting for elevators did take awhile at times! The building was not built for that kind of capacity.

As for rent, the rent I paid over the years was as follows... $2165 -> $2270 -> $2550. Basically, an 18% increase over three years. I found this frustrating as the increases were fairly arbitrarty and there was little one could do to negotiate down. I did not have these same increases in my salary, so I really felt that I was losing more money as each year went by. In the lease renewal they gave me when leaving (fall 2007), they were attempting to up the rent again to something ridiculous like $2790.

The doormen are very nice and they have a good system in place for package/laundry pick-ups, so no issues there. Also, be advised that if you paint your apartment there is a $300 deduction taken out of your security deposit. This was not made clear to me upon signing the lease, so just be advised. Also, any special terms you negotiate, be sure to get in writing! Overall, I suppose I can not complain too much, but living in NYC is super expensive! Just be aware that there are significant rent hikes each year and really think about that in terms of how much money you'd like to save each year and what kind of increases you can anticipate getting in a raise each year. While I loved my apartment and the building was nice, in hindsight, I do wonder a little about how much more money I could have saving living somewhere else.

The other pros were that this building is VERY close to the 96th street subway stop, so that was nice. I also liked not being too far from Central Park. As for going out, I never really went north of 96th street... so always heading south or west to meet people out. But my apartment was really large and beautiful with a very nice view looking downtown, so again I can't complain too much. Note also that there is construction happening right now for the 2nd Ave. subway, which can be a bit loud if you have to work from home, but it is not entirely unbearable.

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