View 34 — Local services in New York

My wife and I lived at View 34 for three years, starting in July 2022. The location was perfect for us due to its close proximity to the NYU hospital network, where my wife was a resident physician.

On the surface, View 34 is a great building. The doormen and concierge staff are fantastic, and the package room is a huge convenience (though it's closed on Sundays, which is a minor inconvenience). Maintenance folks arrive promptly and carts are very useful when needing to load or unload items or even to take large packages upstairs. The amenities, like the rooftop and lounge, are also a major selling point.

Unfortunately, the building's problems are significant enough to make me strongly recommend against living here. For the high cost of rent, you can find a better place that truly prioritizes its tenants.

● Abysmal Elevators: As many other reviews mention, the elevators are a nightmare. In the south tower, we would sometimes wait up to 30 minutes for an elevator. This isn't an exaggeration—on several occasions, only one elevator was working for a 35-floor building. My wife has a disability and cannot physically walk down 24 flights of stairs. She had to start leaving a half hour buffer for the elevators to ensure she got to work on time. Management has been "modernizing" the elevators, a process that supposedly takes 20 weeks per elevator. With four elevators per tower, this means at least one elevator is down for over a year due to modernization alone, not counting regular breakdowns, which are already occuring in the one elevator that already completed modernization. It's an absurd situation.

● Constant Disruptions: The building constantly has drilling noises. While some maintenance is necessary, it feels like management hires the cheapest labor for every job, causing projects to drag on forever and creating an ongoing nuisance for residents.

● Forced, Inferior Wi-Fi: For our final year, we were forced to switch from Verizon to a new, mandatory, and more expensive Wi-Fi provider called Gigstreem, which was included in our rent. For someone who works from home, this was a major problem. We had more issues with our internet in that one year than we did in the previous two combined. It's completely unreasonable to force tenants to use a new, more expensive, and inferior service.

● Amenities with Restrictions: The amenities are great—when they're open. The rooftop, for example, is beautiful. However, management closes it on holidays like the Fourth of July, the very times you'd want to use it to see fireworks. We were required to pay for shared spaces as part of our lease, but they were often unavailable during peak times.

● Poorly Maintained Laundry: The washing machines are often broken, and the dryers are inconsistent—some don't dry clothes properly, while others run so hot they can burn your hands.

● Mandatory Cleaning Fee: When you move out, you're charged a non-negotiable $300 cleaning fee for a studio or one-bedroom. This isn't an optional service for people who don't want to clean; it's a mandatory charge, even if you clean the apartment yourself.

● Lack of Transparency: Management is not transparent about a tenant's rights. For example, if maintenance on the exterior of the building makes a resident's balcony inaccessible, tenants are legally entitled to a rent reduction. Management will never tell you this; you have to know to ask for it.

● Other Issues: We also heard stories about tenants having their leases non-renewed for criticizing management, which creates a very uncomfortable living environment. Additionally, if you have AT&T, the phone signal inside the building is notoriously bad, which is something to be aware of.

To be clear, the staff—doormen, maintenance, and concierge—are all wonderful. This review is not about them. The building looks good from the outside, but the day-to-day experience is frustrating and not worth the high cost. You're better off finding a building that respects and prioritizes...

So far the "newly modernized elevator has broken down at least 4 times that I know of since it was put back into service. Dates as follows; 12/10, 12/11, 12/14 and 12/15. Basically UDR stuffs 4 residents in a one bedroom as %90 of the tenants are post graduates who are roommates. As such, the building infrastructure cannot handle the number of residents as it was never designed to handle that amount. This is evident in the elevator breakdowns. It's clear that UDR management does nothing to mitigate this inconvenience on the tenants. The service elevator is used by the staff during morning rush exacerbating the issue. Many times I have taken the elevator up, simply so I am assured I can fit on the way down. By the time the elevator gets to my floor, there's just no more room. Furthermore, the amenities are never in full operation but the residents are charged a fee every year. The grill hoods have been broken for over a year. The media room has been closed for months with no indication of when it's to re-open (amenities fee has not been reduced or waived). When inquiring about an elevator part that enables the service elevator floor to be shown in the lobby area, I was told it was on order. That was in March, it is now December! As it stands now, tenants have to guess what floor the service elevator is on from the lobby, run to the back, where the service elevator is in the hopes that it's on a near floor. Lastly, the management should be able to come up with strategies to help ease the disruption to residents. Make the service elevator available during peak times, put in place the panel that indicates where the service elevator is when in passenger mode, instruct tenants that during peak hours, food deliveries should be picked up from the lobby. These can all help reduce the trouble placed on tenants. I understand it's tiresome for the management to hear all the time that the elevators are an issue, think of how it is for the tenants who have to actually live through it. BTW, most elevator modernizations take 10-12 weeks, for some reason when UDR does it, it takes 12-20 weeks. Thats over a year to modernize 3 elevators.. Please also note, there are roughly 1200 residents that at any given time are being moved by only two elevators. Please send help, for the love of all that is holy, please send help! UPDATE: 1/06; As of today, the service elevator has been out for two days. So now there are roughly 1200 residents being moved by 2 elevators only. Workmen are using the resident elevators tying them up so it's even more of an inconvenience to the tenants. Furthermore, multi-family complexes should have one elevator for every 60 – 90 units for convenience and to reduce wait times. Currently, View34 has roughly 350 units on this side of the building being served by 2 passenger elevators and one service elevator (currently broken). This is woefully below the number of elevators that are needed to efficiently move the residents. But I understand, it's obvious where the residents fit on the priority scale here, at the bottom. Gotta get our trusted vendors to complete there vital work, residents be dammed. Gotta get those vacant apartments filled ya know. Oh, and yes, I'm sure my comments will be taken into consideration, like all of your tenants needs. UDR needs to treat it's tenants like clients. As of now I firmly believe they view us as a nuisance. And now you have to pay $70.00 a month to use their internet provider, whether you want to or not, whether or not you already have an internet provider that’s cheaper, oh no. You have to use their internet provider. This place is really unbelievable. Thanks for...

Hands down the WORST "luxury" apartment building. Lived there 6+ years. UDR purchased the building years ago & have driven it into the ground. Renamed to View 34 from Rivergate but same building, management, owners, & problems. Asbestos & lead in the apartments. Constant debris & chemicals in the air covering your clothes, furniture, lungs. Elevators break constantly causing 15-20 minute waits & trapping tenants inside. Sewage comes up through bathtub & sink drains. Hundreds of construction workers all over the building & tenants in the building have had items stolen & furniture damaged. Windows & balconies are screwed shut for construction so you can’t get fresh air or use space you pay for. Scaffolding used for construction becomes electrified often & can kill. Building-wide power issues that break electronics/appliances. Many apartments rented short-term on craigslist so you’ll have sketchy neighbors. Too cheap to install trap doors on trash chutes so debris flies out covering you & getting in eyes. NYPD uses the building for prostitution stings every other month. People convert 2 bedrooms into 4. Kids puke & pass out in the hallways & elevators. Parties rage into all hours. I saw cops arresting a partier who apparently sexually assaulted a girl in the elevator. Tenants throw bottles/cigarettes out of their windows & off balconies. Multiple fires/smoke conditions caused by construction. Major construction during nights, weekends, & holidays. Impossible to work from home or sleep-in. Loud as a jackhammer, will hurt your hearing, walls\ceiling crack. Constant water outages & when working its brown & smelly. Laundry room too small so long waits, machines never work. Management refuses to renew leases so they can renovate or split into smaller units & won’t pay for moving w/in building. They lie when signing/renewing lease about the construction being over or ending soon. Years’ worth of major construction remains (roof, elevators, splitting 1bedrooms into studios). Amenities advertised don’t exist such as a roof deck (been closed for years). Promises of fair rent increases during renewal but will ask for as much as $1,000\month more. Claimed deposit wasn’t paid years after moving in. Corners cut, construction projects done incorrectly & have to be re-done, drag on forever. Even brand new windows/balconies required multiple visits due to safety issues. No notice of jackhammering/renovating so no idea when you need to find a hotel. Doormen warned me they’ve tried evicting tenants for posting complaints online & when I did they started harassing me by coming to my apartment screaming at all hours & calling me threatening eviction. Corporate greed is apparent as the re-designed lobby has the leasing office in the center. During Hurricane Sandy, they demanded rent payments be on-time even though the building was condemned & everyone...