Avalon Willoughby Square at 214 Duffield Street,

Brooklyn, NY 11201

This was my first apartment in NYC, and I’m afraid it set the bar too high. I rented a large 650 sqft studio in 2018 for $3090. The building is rent controlled so your rent cannot increase beyond a certain amount (I stayed for 2 years and my rent increased by 2% in the second year).
The staff is wonderful, there's a coffee shop and a subway station right on the premises, the amenities are comfortable and clean, and the apartments are well built. I occasionally heard a lot of wind (but when you're 50 floors up, it's to be expected). Walls are thick and I never heard my neighbors. I literally never found a bug or pest in 2 years (thank god). The sinks have disposal built in (a lifesaver!). There's (expensive but readily available) parking in the building, and it's close to every subway line you can think of. Target, Trader Joe's, and several other stores are across the street at City Point.
If they weren't so expensive I'd come back to lie here in a heartbeat... I'm already considering blowing through my budget to do so. Highly recommend.

Honestly, nothing apart from the rather minor inconvenience that sometimes the entrance smelled like dog pee (because owners would take their dogs right outside the door). Additionally, the way the leasing office communicated to me about lease breakage terms was kind of shady (they implied during COVID that I could take 2 extra weeks to confirm my lease break for free, but ended up needing to pay for those weeks because there was obviously no demand). Just read the terms of your lease carefully (they're clearly spelled out) and you'll be fine.

Make sure to be clear about your lease conditions to new tenants! Also please do short term leases.

-gym and roof access
-great staff
-responsive maintenance
-convenient location to other neighborhoods and subways

-mail room can be overwhelming…Amazon lockers are great though
-windows don’t get cleaned often (not once while we lived there for 2 years)