Utilities Tenant is responsible for in a walkup?

The norm in New York is that, of those, the tenant is responsible only for electricity. But it's not at all ridiculous, if the systems are set up for it, for tenant to be responsible for all of those, plus water. That's the way it works in most other cities, and especially in renovated/new places.

In fact, it's desirable, because it gives you the opportunity to save money, not to mention save world resources, by keeping your apartment at a comfortable sweater & slippers temperature, taking shorter showers, etc. I wish my building had that.

What you should do, though, is estimate the likely costs of those utilities so you can do a fair comparison when you shop for apartments. Utility providers might be able to provide historical monthly averages for you.

We live in an all-electric walkup (unbelievably, such things do exist in Manhattan) and are responsible for all utilities except water, which is paid for out of the maintenance account.

Generally, I think it's a positive to pay for and have control over your own utilities, both for your comfort and to prevent squabbles about proper temperature as often happen in smaller buildings.

That said, a heat pump and an electric water heater are not very efficient, nor particularly effective.

In my old walkup tenement, the landlord paid only to heat the water. In the UK and elsewhere, you'll often see water heaters hanging on the wall, with the tenant paying even for that.

We had big clunky gas heaters where the fireplaces had been, but got rid of them. The heat absorbed from the surrounding apartments was sufficient.