I lived in NYC until very recently and was kinda sorta apartment shopping. One place I looked at had the common areas on the ground floor, the bedrooms on floor

I lived in NYC until very recently and was kinda sorta apartment shopping. One place I looked at had the common areas on the ground floor, the bedrooms on floor -1 (with small windows that looked up to grates through holes in the ground) and then a windowless basement on floor -2. It was kind of neat actually and pretty cheap (relative to similarly sized places in the neighborhood) due to being on the ground floor and below.