THE LOCATION:
If you work downtown or like the Financial District area while have no problems going further out on the weekends to enjoy NYC or simply like to order in, the location is actually one of the best parts about this building. The 2/3 line are three blocks away, East Side buses run across the Street and the 4/5 line is only five minutes walking distance away.

THE BUILDING:

LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS.??Luxury Living?? in NYC is a diluted notion. The walls are very thin ?? not to say paper-thin. The ventilation system is very weak and there is insufficient air supply into the apartments. According to a recent CO2 reading conducted in our apartment, the CO2 level is ca. twice as the outside air, i.e., there is almost half as much oxygen to breath as there should be.

The best and nastiest part about the building is, however, that some fellow tenants love to enjoy tobacco at varying hours of the day., and that the intense smoke meanders through the ventilation system and finds its way into innocent apartments. Although according to the lease, tenants may smoke in their apartments, non-smoking tenants have no recourse. Worse, one cannot even track down where the smoke originates from. It could be pretty much coming from any which apartment. Imagine you just came from the gym, took a shower and are ready to peacefully fall asleep when nasty dense smoke-drenched air comes spewing at you from the vent located right across from your bed. Of course you have the choice to combat the nasty air by opening the window (only opens slightly due to a safety-guard) but it happens to be 90 degree outside and instead you sweat and suffocate from the stifling outside air. It??s simply nasty.

As far as the apartment fixtures are concerned, it ??s the principle of form over substance that applies here. The bathroom and kitchen fixtures are low-grade and have a tendency to come apart all the time, requiring constant maintenance (how often do you want the building maintenance staff be in your apartment). The floor-tiles come lose since the construction was apparently done in a haphazard way. For fairness sake, the windows are large and allow the maximum of sunlight into the apartments (but drain energy in winter ?? i.e. greater heating costs).

The laundry room is always dirty, has limited surfaces, no sink and no customary laundry carts so that some freshly laundered cloths usually end up on the floor from when transporting it from washer to drier.

The tenant??s lounge, which opened 11 months after the building was filled with tenants, is very nice. But because the majority of tenants are students, it always has a frat-house feel.

The roof deck is one big joke. Access to it is not ADA compliant, and you get the feeling that an outdoor prison courtyard as originally intended instead of a roof deck.

The gym is first and foremost a Gym for Goldman-Sachs employees. Also, the maintenance of the gym is poor. The advertised 30,000 sq feet include back areas and unusable areas ?? don??t fall for it. Most importantly, during peak hours, the place is teaming with GS employees. This is not a gym for the building community.

THE MANAGEMENT TEAM:

The management team, consisting of three individuals (for a building of close to 500 units), has been our greatest frustration. I have the impression that they gave up on trying to make tenants happy before they even started. They have generally been unresponsive and generally rather reactive than proactive. Much aggravation could have been spared had they only learned to simply communicate certain matters to their tenants. Instead, they could have also used the front desk people to communicate, but that would have meant thinking outside the box. The leasing person is cocky and arrogant, the assistant building manager is incompetent and unprofessional and the building manager is the only person who can get anything done. Overall, I cannot even start to count the numerous instances where the explanations to questions that I received seemed nothing but a bunch of lies to us.

The Building management has a policy of purging unhappy tenants by preempting a potential lease renewal. (Like anyone who is unhappy would want to voluntarily prolong the suffering ?? perfect example of non-existent judgment on the part of the building management).

THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE STAFF:

Generally, the front desk staff is the building??s main asset. Friendly and helpful (some much more than others ?? but nevertheless).

THE TENANTS:

Whether one can identify with the tenant??s is a matter of background and preference. The majority of tenants are students or very young professionals (still college kids at heart). Probably, the majority of the students behave like students would, including rowdiness, drinking, and loud parties. Another major group of tenants (there is an overlap among all groups of course) are dog owners. Close to 20% of the building??s apartments have dogs (essentially this building is like the Eukanuba Dog Show). Most dog owners cannot always control their pet??s incontinence and the elevators smell like dog half of the time. If you happen to have an apartment with dogs next to you, enjoy the Yap-Yap 24/7.

THE FEEL:

Because it??s a large building inhabited by primarily busy people, it has the typical NYC hotel feel. Anyone looking for a community feel better continue looking.

THE EXPERIENCE:

Depending on what one wants to get out of living in this kind of a building, the experience will vary. In my case, I relied on the representations and image portrayed by the sales office. Had I known that I would be renting in a frat-house hotel, I would definitely not have rented here. Many tenants prematurely moved out because they hated their experience that much.

THE CONCLUSION:

Every evaluation is naturally subjective. I feel that many structural problems can be overcome by proactive and responsive management. This was not the case in our situation. Unless one has a compelling reason to move to this building one should reconsider it carefully.

User Responses
From: WhatWeExpected	Date: 07/20/2006
I agree with much of what you have to say. The tenants are younger and I noticed that the other buildings in the area are the same age. As 1 of the dog owners I am happy that dogs are allowed but wish there were a few less. I don't know that it is necessarily the buildings fault or just irresponsible dog owners that haven't learned how to train properly. The knob in my bathtub has fallen off twice since I've lived here too. The finishes are a higher quality overall and whenever I've had a problem they have fixed it right away. I do like the management group and have a more positive view of them than you may. I disagree with you on a couple points: 1) The gym is for residents and Goldman employees as it was presented to my wife and I (as well as my neighbors who we have become close with over the last 9 months). The gym really is amazing. I have not one complaint. 2) I do recommend it. The construction is done and the place is great. It has so much to offer and for us it feels like home. We have no regrets and although we signed a two year lease, if it were to expire now we would renew. Thorough review overall but maybe a little unnecessary negativity.

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