300 East 39th Apartments — Local services in New York

This review isn't about the building - which is exceptional - it is about the management. Me and my husband toured this building and fell in love with one of the apartments, however we were about 60 days out from our desired lease start date. Management has a rule that they can only sign a lease for 21 days out and were unwilling to work with us, even though the apartment had been on the market for over 2 months at that point. We were told that if we wanted our desired date, that we would have to wait until 21 days prior.

We waited - checking streeteasy and the apartment building's website daily, in constant stress since we loved the apartment so much. Finally, we gave in to an earlier move in date since we knew we loved the apartment so much - this would have been for 2 weeks prior to our original desired move in date. When we reached out, we were told that the price had increased by about $200 AND they were no longer doing the COVID concessions of 1.5 months free - making the apartment close to $500 over the original rent price we were provided when we saw the apartment - pushing it completely out of our price range. The management company uses some sort of algorithm for the building that determines the prices of the apartments and changes daily. We felt completely blindsided by the changes in price because we were not told about this when we looked at the apartment or in the numerous emails back and forth with the management office the weeks after. If we had known, we would have signed the apartment on the spot when we saw it since even though we would be moving in a little over a month early, the lower price and concessions would have made the net effective rent in our price range. When we confronted the management company about how we felt this was handled incorrectly and the whole process was very shady, we were met with zero apologies or empathy. It seems that the leasing office has no capability of budging any of the overall management company's policies. To be completely honest, I am confused as to what their job is beyond showing us the apartment since they clearly are bound to the computer algorithm and the doctrine of the company policies at large.

The apartment we wanted is STILL on the market, now priced even higher. It has been on the market now for 108 days at the time of...

I don’t recommend living in this apartment for several reasons. For one, we saw cockroaches in random parts of the apartment and throughout our whole years lease, there was always 1 elevator working. They have been working on “upgrading” the elevator for over a year now but in an incredibly disorganized way. There was a point where none of the elevators worked for a whole day and management was unable to fix it. I had to walk my dog up & down the stairs 26 floors. I saw an old woman struggling to go down and heard my disabled neighbors were stuck in their apartments. Secondly, the management is subpar. Sure, Shawn is “nice” but this person doesn’t have much involvement in how the property is managed. So I’d be wary of signing on. If there’s an emergency, the actual property manager lacks organization and proper communication to the residents. For example, hot water and no clean water weren’t working for a few days because a spare part had to come in and did not communicate or fix the issue fast enough. Third, the windows are thin & if you’re sensitive to loud siren sounds coming in, don’t live here. They were so thin that WFH was unbearable. Yes, I know it’s NYC, but you could hear the music from people’s cars during my meetings that other people in the meeting thought I was playing music despite the fact we were on highest floors of upper 20s. Be wary of the hospitals near you. The A/C units also barely worked well and if you even use a little bit of it, you’ll get charged extreme amounts from ConEdison (ours was $900 once for one A/C usage in a month) because the units are so bad and the building is not sustainable. Look at their energy ratings. Overall, it’s the worse apartment for the price you’re paying. Not worth it. The amenities barely had good working A/C and the treadmills/ machines are all worn out, the rooftop elevator barely works. You can get a much better deal elsewhere. Don’t let the leasing team convince you it’s great…they’re trained to sell you at the end of the day. Don’t fall for it. It’s awful here and you’ll be late to work & appointments, because of their elevator system. I wish we knew all this and weren’t sold on the other good reviews and “niceness” of one/few leasing staff. We would’ve avoided this...

Roach Infested Apartment and Gaslighting Management…Do Not Move Here! I have lived here 3.5 years. The only pros are that the concierges are great and the views are decent. In addition to the roach infestation, trash is left in the hallway, loud drilling often occurs without warning, there’s one working elevator for 30 floors, and there have been massive floods and a fire.

I started seeing a concerning amount of roaches 3 months ago and maintenance called an exterminator who came every 2-3 weeks. Since then, I have seen over 40 german roaches in my apartment in every stage of their lifecycle (adults, nymphs, egg sacs). This continued after I completely stopped cooking, using the kitchen, and having guests over in an effort to contain it.

Last week the exterminator came (inexplicably after 4 weeks) and claimed the roach infestation was “getting better”. I was happy but skeptical as I still saw two roaches in the bathroom the week before. After he left, I checked the kitchen trap and there were 3 moving adult roaches and an egg sac. After 3 months. In a clean kitchen I haven’t used.

Given how this has destroyed my mental and social life with no end in sight, I asked management to let me out of my lease early solely due to the infestation. Management ignores that the exterminator didn’t check the traps and refuses to let me out of my lease outside of paying a 1.5 month ($7k) termination fee. Management claims seeing 3 live roaches and an egg sac days ago is “not indicative of this taking months to resolve”. I’m sorry, WHAT???

Anyway, I included photos and will let prospective tenants decide if this is a place they would like to live. I have not had a pest issue in 15 years of apartment living, and it is obvious the roaches are coming from inside the building (I’d see 4-5 yearly in my first few years and this infestation happened as they are replacing the elevator behind my kitchen wall). I almost didn’t move here because there were two prominent reviews mentioning huge roach issues at the time. Really...