When I looked into moving to New York, I saw similar rents and figured something was up.

Are these sub $2k places across from a public housing complex, rat infested, or just scam listings that magically have a new price once you call>?

Public housing is not available to you. Some are probably rent-stabilized. Many are high-floor walkups in tenements. Many buildings in Manhattan have rats. Craigslist has scams but Streeteasy usually doesn't as ads there are paid, though it usually doesn't have the cheapest apartments either.

Just curious -- why did you exclude midtown from your StreetEasy search?

(I happen to live in a $2.5k studio just a couple minutes away from Byrant Park. I picked it because it made my commute to work a 9 minute walk.)

Tried to list all of short-commute Manhattan and just missed it.