[Jeffhs]

I am surprised your landlord does not allow outdoor TV antennas. There is an FCC rule, just recently enacted, that states outdoor TV antennas may in fact be erected in apartment buildings, if certain requirements are met. (Your landlord and/or building manager may not be aware of this ruling.) I live on the first floor of a 2-story, 12-unit apartment building where outside TV antennas are not forbidden per se (in fact, several tenants here have satellite dishes), but the building is wired for cable so there is little or no need for outdoor antennas. My first landlord (this building has been sold once since I moved here 15 years ago) did in fact forbid any kind of outdoor antennas anywhere on the building (even small ones that attach to window ledges), but the current landlord apparently will allow TV antennas to be erected, if a tenant desires to do so.

I see no reason why you could not use a small antenna inside your apartment, if rabbit ears or other types of indoor TV antennas, for whatever reason, will not work. If you are in a reasonably strong signal area, even a small antenna such as the ClearTV digital antennas (you may have seen their commercials; they run nationwide) will provide good reception, provided all TV stations in your area are on UHF DTV channels and are no more than about 50 miles distant. I have a ClearTV antenna that works very well in my area, a small town 35-40 miles from the Cleveland TV transmitters; I would be using it now instead of paying for cable, except for the fact that it does not receive two local channels (CBS channel 19 and FOX channel 8), the subchannels of which are MeTV and Antenna TV, respectively, and are the two stations I watch the most. I do not receive these stations using my ClearTV antenna because they are on VHF DTV channels (ten and eight, respectively); the ClearTV antenna is designed for UHF only. The other stations, plus an audio-only channel operated by the Cleveland Sight Center (a reading service for the blind), come in just fine, because they are on UHF DTV assignments.

Edit: I just looked at TV Guide's listings for New York City area TV stations (OTA broadcast), and found that there are about 68 channels potentially available using an antenna. As I mentioned in my post, you must be either in a very low-elevation area or in an area blocked from New York stations by terrain features or other obstructions. At the very least, I would think you should be able to get the NYC network stations with an antenna, but again, if there are obstructions between your apartment and the TV stations' towers, reception will be compromised. I have never been in or lived in New York City (although I have a cousin who lives in Brooklyn), but I would imagine that, due to buildings and other obstructions, unless you are within, say, five miles of where the New York stations' towers are located (atop the Empire State Building), your reception may be fair to poor at best, especially with the far weaker signals from DTV stations compared to the hundreds-of-kilowatts to megawatt (up to five megawatts for UHF) signals the old NTSC stations had. Where you are in Connecticut seems like a far-suburban or even a near-fringe area for NYC television reception; this may explain why the master TV antenna system in your apartment complex was dismantled, removed, and the entire building wired for cable.