Even in NY though, landlords are allowed to request a key to enter the apartment non-destructively for emergencies or legally notified work. Its common practice here to add an additional interior deadbolt to your apartment front door, so the landlord (or building supervisor) will have one copy of the key for the main lock which any prior tenant could have also had, and you'll provide them a spare key for the interior addon deadbolt you added yourself. The standard lease also explicitly allows using a door chain/slider to prevent even keyed entry wile you are present in the home.
Many other states have no such requirement at all, or allow landlords to place much more limiting language they want into lease riders.
Read up after having a pretty scarring experience about two years ago. I like to take long showers to relax. One day I took a longer than usual shower and just so happened to be rubbing one out. Landlord busted into the bathroom mid rub out saying the water was running too long. I flipped a shit, read up on the laws afterward (previously skimmed them over and had a sense it was/is illegal), wrote a long letter hinting at taking legal action/very real what if scenarios (gf showering,etc). Rent hasn't increased since, beyond nice whenever we see each other, has even invited me to watch the soccer game with him a couple times after dropping off rent...
Regardless, what he did was fucked/illegal, and I was beyond embarrassed, though now I laugh about it when thinking back or a buddy brings it up
Possession vs Ownership. In some countries, there law makes a difference and in some like Switzerland and Germany, for example, the possession of an object (or apartment) gives you a number of rights that the landlord can't annihilate by adding more words to a contract.
While in germany the landlord is the owner of the appartment, they have no right to enter it as they want, use it as they want or do anything but emergency work without the permission of whoever pays rent.
On the other hand, since the renter is not in ownership but mere possession of the apartment, they can´t do as they want either; they can't take down a wall even if it's cleared by an engineer to be safe, the landlord has to approve any permanent changes to their ownership unless the contract gives the renter some free reign.
Structural changes either need the landlord's approval or have to be reverted to how it was before you moved in.
This can obviously be rather expensive if you tore down a wall.
If there's an emergency, the fire services will kick the door.
Deposit? Haven't heard that name before.
So could be that parent is French.
I can't speak for America or NY, but Switzerland has exactly the same tenancy law.
The landlord must announce a visit to the appartment like 48 hours in advance an he cannot abuse the privilege. Essentially you "own" the rented appartment during your tennancy.
Emergencies (i.e. a burts pipe) is different, of course.