The Suffolk — Local services in New York

Living in Suffolk has cost me my relationship.

Our Suffolk is truly amazing! Not only do we have monthly resident gatherings that no one attends, which help us "internally digest," but we also have a super diligent front desk, much like a dormitory RA, to ensure that you don’t fraternize with residents from other apartments. They strictly maintain the purity of our noble Suffolk resident lineage! Our Suffolk is just too good! End of the compliments, let’s get to the main part. Avoid this super stupid apartment, Suffolk. Unregistered guests are forbidden, and if you bring someone over, it's considered trespassing, can you believe that? Ridiculous amenity hours and an indoor air conditioner with a deafening roar. Background information: Initially, all Suffolk amenities started kicking people out at 10 PM, locking the doors so you could only leave, not enter. It's a bit better now, with the closing time extended to midnight, but the gym still closes at 10 PM. Also, the air conditioner in the Suffolk rooms is incredibly loud, banging against the walls with a rumbling noise. For the sake of convenience in the following narrative, the second-person perspective is from a male viewpoint. Female readers can replace "girl" with "guy." A quiet evening: It’s 8:30 PM, and you and a girl just finished watching a movie at the Regal near Suffolk. The atmosphere is perfect. She says, “Let’s go to your apartment for a bit.” You’re holding hands, walking toward the apartment, unaware of what’s about to happen… Scenario 1: The Overly Strict Dorm RA-Like Front Desk As soon as you enter, the first challenge is the overly strict front desk staff. They can accurately identify anyone who doesn’t look like a Suffolk resident and intercept them precisely. And you’re the unlucky one. The girl is stopped by the front desk and asked to provide an appointment confirmation to enter. You explain to the front desk, “There’s no appointment; she’s just a friend coming to visit.” The front desk will tell you that you must report this on BuildingLink three days in advance and get approval, or it will be considered trespassing. Date, over! Scenario 2: If by some miracle you manage to avoid the front desk’s watchful eyes and successfully sneak the girl into Suffolk, she might feel a bit hot when you get to your room. You think she’s about to make a move, but instead, she says, “It’s too hot, can you turn on the air conditioner?” When you do, the air conditioner’s deafening roar will drown out all your sweet whispers and tender feelings. Every time you close your eyes, ready for a kiss, it feels like you’ve teleported to a construction site downstairs. Finally, caught between the dilemma of being too hot or too loud in the room, you give up on getting cozy there and head to Suffolk’s beautiful amenities. You decide to take her to the 7th or 8th-floor terrace for some fresh air. As you’re cuddling, gazing at the night sky (though there’s not much of a view), and whispering sweet nothings, an oblivious cleaner comes over and tells you that the facility closes at 10 PM, and you need to find somewhere else to go. So you give up on the room and the public terrace and decide to take a walk outside with the girl. But when you return, the front desk has changed shifts. The new front desk staff says, “I can tell you’re not a resident, Big Wei Tian Long!” and proceeds to kick the girl out. She ends up having to call an Uber to go home. Your date: over! So you return home, staring at your nearly year-old, empty queen-size bed, and lament: “I don’t know how many days Suffolk has taken from me; but my hands are indeed growing emptier. Silently counting, more than 300 days have slipped through my fingers; like a drop of water on the tip of a needle falling into the ocean, my days have dripped into the flow of time—without a girl, not even a shadow. I can’t help but feel a chill in my head and tears...

If this was in my first 6 months of living here this would be 5 stars. The building is absolutely beautiful and the amenities are great. The front door staff and maintenance crew are all amazing. I enjoy interactions with everyone involved in the day to day with me.

My issues are with Gotham Management. After signing two leases here it is clear management seemingly cares more about margins than the quality of life for tenants and seemingly the staff quality of life as well. This is likely par for course for most building management companies, but sucks to see it happen to one of the best buildings in the les.

If management doesn’t like your questions you ask them they seemingly choose to ignore and avoid you until you make it more importantly clear that you need help. I’ve waited weeks for management to return an email on the acceptable dog breeds for the building.

Worth mentioning the appliances are bad. In less than 2 years, I've had to replace the washer/dryer multiple times and my AC unit three times or more as well.

One specific example of poor treatment. After a dinner, I stopped by the building to run up my leftovers. I asked front desk if he would watch my e-bike while I ran up food to my fridge. Of course the staff said yes. Up and down in roughly a minute. As fast as the elevator got me up and down. Get on the bike and go back out. Within 10 minutes of leaving the building I am being sent a screenshot of my photo walking in the bike from the building cameras accompanied by a three paragraph email how e bikes are not allowed.

Knowing I am working to find an outside building to park my bike over night, and that is where I took the bike, this is how management treated me. They just made it such an uncomfortable situation for a tenant living here on his second lease for parking a bike in the lobby for maybe 60 seconds. At 9pm on a summer Thursday night. Come on.

9/21/2025 Can’t believe I need to come back here and write more but this is the proper outlet. Gotham properties seemingly couldn’t care less about its residence or staff. Coffee was something that was available to all residence throughout the day initially, now it’s open for a 3hr time slot. Has coffee gotten that expensive that our $5k/month rent can’t afford it? We were provided multiple window cleanings a year, now you are only allowed one. Are we asked to pay any less? No. I’ve never had an issue when requesting new air filters for my AC initially, but now we are being told everyone is limited to 2 per year. Wow. Even 99¢ air filters are being taken from us.

And the worst of it all, allegedly, past immigrant staff members have also been very uncomfortable here when the building management asked them to do things that were knowingly not covered by their union memberships. It is disgusting, if true, that a management company would abuse our system by targeting low-English speaking new members of our society to perform non-sanctioned work. This is the most disturbing thing I’ve come across and something that needs...

Honestly, I don't think Suffolk is really worth such a high rent. Even though the studios are quite large, they can cost $5000+. Many other buildings, even in Manhattan, offer 1B1B apartments for less than this price, but the services and rules should not be this high. The building management has a very negative attitude towards visitors. If you invite your friends into your home, they always require you to send the request 72 hours before your friend comes, which is really ridiculous. You are hardly making new friends here. The move-out can be a nightmare; the front desk might not allow your moving-out company to come up and say you should move all your furniture by yourself!

Furthermore, the management failed to consider the viewpoints of the tenants when addressing potential issues. If you order fresh food from Amazon Fresh or Whole Food Market, they won't allow the food to be sent directly to your apartment; they put it all in the package room! There will be no refrigerator in the package room; they recorded those food packages even after 12 hours after delivery, so you can pick them up! Therefore, many foods, such as ice cream or meat, are susceptible to spoilage and should be frozen immediately to prevent food waste and financial loss. If Suffolk is truly committed to maintaining building safety, I recommend implementing measures such as requiring tenants to scan their keys to use the elevators and stairs.

Additionally, the lounge is frequently closed, making it impossible for you to use it for homework, and many resources are challenging to access. One good thing about Suffolk is that most staff are enthusiastic and will walk into your apartment on the first day...