From the get go, I had a bad feeling about Parker Towers. The rental office and the management office were at odds from day 1, when my apartment was not ready to move into at the start of my lease. I was offered an extra month of free parking as a concession, but the rental office never notified the garage and I had to go thru hoops to get the free month. While I lived there, there was a severe roach problem in the hallway, with roaches covering the walls at night. I filed a complaint and a week later they fumigated. Unfortunately, a dead rat got caught up in it and laid in the hallway for two days, despite 5 calls to management to come and get rid of it. I even took a photo of it to prove its existence. Two weeks later, another one was in the hallway by the elevator, struggling to free itself from a glue trap someone had laid there. Some of the tenants are disgusting and leave food and garbage in the hallway instead of disposing of it down the chute. There are many dogs in the building too, some of them very old with horrible odors. One tenant in particular has a dog with some disease that causes a horrible stench, and the odor remains in the elevator for HOURS every time she takes her dog out. Speaking of elevators, they are always malfunctioning and they are super slow even when they work. Count on an average 15 minute wait to get an elevator during the day and on weekends. The door staff is very polite, but even they seem like they are abused by management. The final straw is that 5 months after my move out, and despite many phone calls to Parker Towers (specifically Joe Abatiello, who is WORTHLESS and lied to me every time we spoke), I did not get back my security deposit. For over three months, he kept saying he was going to have the check overnighted. Then he just stopped returning my calls. Finally, I contacted Jack Parker Corp in NYC and got some action. The person I spoke to there was very helpful and did indeed get my security deposit refunded in full, and overnighted. Basically it came down to the fact that the liar Joe Abatiello was not putting thru the paperwork to process tenant move outs, which is what triggers the security deposit return. He blatantly lied to me for over 3 months. The NYC office was horrified about this and said they had heard similar complaints from other former tenants. Why they don't fire him is a mystery. This 3 building complex is old and not worth the trouble you have to put up with management. Now that Jack Parker is deceased, I expect the situation will get worse. Do not sign up for this headache. There are a lot of better run apartment buildings in Forest Hills as well as other parts of Queens that would be a better bet for your money.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/07/2007
Hi, I live in Parker Towers, in building #1. I have experienced some of these complaints first-hand and can attest to the stench of one assinine neighbor's pets. Management says they can do *nothing* about it. Our newly-formed Tenants Association will not address tenant-to-tenant disputes, but I hope for their help soon. As for roaches: I've seen a few in the basement which is normal for a NYC building. I use Raid in my apartment and have not seen any for years. Overall it's an OK place to live, I have a good view but the underground parking has always been annoying. Now that it's managed by Standard, I hope to see some improvement, but as I renter, there's just so much you can expect, unfortunately. There's rarely time to complain and to follow up when you have a full-time job. It's good to know that complaining to the NYC office helped. Thanks for the posts. -- A long-time renter.
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/07/2007
"Our newly-formed Tenants Association" Can someone give information on this? There are so many PT residents who needs better answers and a place to turn to (since management is completely useless).
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/20/2007
I live in 104-40 and I haven't had a problem with roaches however I do have a significantly large problem with the management. Ever since Jack Parker died the building has been terrible. The repairs are very slow and a lot of the workers have no idea what they are doing. The elevators need replacement I talked to 2 elevator techs working on the building and they said the elevators are over 60 years old but Parker Towers won???t replace them, they are frequently broken. There are other faults as well, the laundry room is now run by a card as a result you can???t have an option of taking your quarters to a proper Laundromat also the prices have been raised and the heat in the dryers lowered in fact on day I put my clothes on the terrace and the next day we get a letter in the mail saying we violated some rule on close lines even though I put my clothes in the dryer 2 times. Another thing is the towing practices in the traffic circle, I understand people leave their cars too long but it has stepped up Now you must remain in a yellow box if you drop something with the doorman they will tow you I have seen it and you can???t get them to drop the car unless you pony up the hundreds of bucks it cost and now the trucks are always around the circle. The management also seems to have lowered the heat by a lot the other day it was around 35 degrees out and there was no heat until about 7pm and they turned it off by 11:30pm. The garage is overpriced (I am currently not a customer) and the new group has screwed up the whole process. The final straw is the building will start charging for utilities, this was one of the only reason???s to pay the extra rent $$. The dog problem isn???t that awful just one neighbors who has an aggressive dog that barks and rams the door all day he bit one of my guests they had to go to the hospital all parker did was require a muzzle which the dog???s owner doesn???t follow parker won???t respond to complaints about the dog barking I find it insane that I pay well over $2000 a month and I have to hear dogs barking all day and night even on the far end of my apartment
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/23/2007
The Parker Towers Tenants Association will soon have a forum online at http://ptta.netfreehost.com/ If you are in building 1 and want to join, please contact the doorman for information or leave a message for the Parker Towers Tenants Association Chairman. If you are in buildings 2 or 3, contact the Parker Towers Tenants Association via the building 1 doorman.
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/01/2008
I hope the online forum will get more of teh Parker Tower tenants together to try to resolve some of these issues. The list is long and teh issues/problems are very familiar to me as a tenant of over 15 years.
From: ParkerStinks	Date: 01/26/2009
I'm having issues getting my security deposit back as well. It's been over two months, and nobody returns my calls
From: Anonymous	Date: 02/19/2009
i'm trying to get out my lease.. and no one is returning my calls either.. does anyone know who i need to call directly to discuss this issue?
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/13/2009
I have to say, Parker Towers is not what it's cracked up to be. I live at 104-60 which now only has 3 elevators working which is a huge problem as this building has high "people" traffic. I actually had to wait 15 minutes one afternoon with my groceries for an elevator that wasn't full! One of the elevators is so slow, I could probably walk up 5 floors before it goes 2 floors. Not to mention that one morning the elevator stopped almost mid-way down a floor and opened! I climbed out quickly, luckily the door didn't slam shut and kill me. They call themselves Luxury but other than the doorman and the new sophisticated flat screen to make it easier for the doorman to see who has a package and announce it to you, there's nothing so luxurious about it. The pipes in the laundry room look like they're about to fall on you. They are corroded and leak. You see huge water bugs here and there while you are doing laundry. There's dog poop right outside the building...dog owners curb your damned dogs, nobody wants to step in it!! Porters, sorry but you got to keep on top of that a little more...don't want to see it. Not to mention the crazy neighbors who like to beat the crap out of the wall all day long and then have screaming matches for hours...who does background checks on these nuts? (I know that can't be done but....) You call the Super to complain and he tells you, in an arrogant tone, to call the doorman if it's after 9pm so the doorman can call the Security Guard (whom I've probably seen twice in the year and a half I've lived there). So basically, you pay high rents to listen to other people's crap, see bugs, deal with horrible elevators! NICE! I won't be renewing my lease.
From: roseb24j	Date: 06/23/2009
THIS PLACE IS HELL ON EARTH. DO NOT LIVE HERE
From: Anonymous	Date: 08/12/2009
I moved out of Parker Towers in April 2009 after 12 months, which was at least 11 months too many. That is because it took about a month to recognize that the several nice aspects of the Parker Towers (convenient location, nice view from the balcony, decent space in the apartment) were obliterated by the negatives. You've heard some of these before: ELEVATORS. When you live on the 18th floor, you rely on the elevators. In my 12 months at PT, I was stuck in an elevator twice. The first time was in the evening, when the elevator simply stopped dead. The doorman didn't notice I was trapped, despite my ringing the bell and waving at the camera for 15 minutes. (I gave up all illusions that the camera might actually prevent crime from being committed on the elevator). After punching more buttons, the elevator door suddenly opened and I climbed out. The second time, we were between floors with 7 people, including an elderly woman. The staff got the door opened pretty quickly this time, but it took a while for everyone to climb out. This become a recurrent theme. There are two elevators for the even floors, two for the odd floors, and there were at least five weekends when there were no elevators on my floor. I had to walk down to the odd floors to get one. Needless to say, the extra traffic made them excruciatingly slow and crowded. This was compounded by the fact that THERE IS NO SERVICE ELEVATOR! That means whenever someone moves in and out (which is every single weekend), you have to share elevators with moving people. And then, one elevator is always occupied for about three hours a day by the maintenance and janitorial staff. Worst of all, there is no indication on the elevator buttons of where the elevator is (except in the lobby and basement panels), so you could wait for ten minutes before you realize there is no elevator working. PET FILTH. There is no accounting for personal taste, but people with dogs ruin this place. Take a walk out the backdoor and take a whiff of "pee alley", where dog owners allow their charges to pee and poop with impunity. It is left to the rest of us to walk around it, attempt not to smell it, worst of all to step in it. And, yes, sometimes they don't make it outside, so that the elevator smells like a doggy latrine. There are also the inhumane owners who leave the dogs in their apartments unattended all weekend, so that they can bark incessantly. ELECTRICAL SUBMETERING. Ask yourself - Do you trust someone who can't manage to keep your elevators working to accurately measure and charge for your electrical usage? FIRE SAFETY. This building is a fire waiting to happen. There are no sprinklers in the building. And anyone who lives in an apartment A-E will have no escape from a fire. The staircases are all in a different wing on the OTHER SIDE of the elevators. I actually bought a chain ladder so that I could climb three floors down from my balcony in the event of a fire on my floor. LAUNDRY. The great crap shoot: Will this dryer have any heat? Will the washer drain? Will the overhead pipes drip dust-infused condensation onto my clothes? (The answers: Probably not, maybe, and yes, absolutely, but only until you learn where it's safe to leave the clothes.) SECURITY DEPOSIT: Unfortunately, I did not read the bad news about getting back a security deposit until AFTER I moved in. Now, I am finding out it is true. I have been getting the run-around for more than two months. Even after I left the place spotless, just so I could avoid a controversy. (Luckily, I have photos!) BOTTOM LINE: Learn from my mistake. And don't be snowed by Maxine. This place is a dump.
From: Anonymous	Date: 12/09/2009
Hi...I live in Building 1 at Parker Towers, and I'd like to join the tenant association...but the doormen are no help. They say they are not allowed to get involved or hold any literature...If anyone has any info, it would be greatly appreciated.

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