Nice building in a convenient - but not necessarily pleasant - location
Pros
Apartments themselves are nice - high quality full-sized appliances, good water pressure, never seen a single pest other than fruit flies, every apt has a balcony, decent-sized closets, big windows and lots of natural light, really nice views (rooftop skyline view is stunning) Laundry room is clean and reasonably priced Two elevators so you never have to wait AC and heat work great and electric bills are reasonable Rent is very reasonable for the quality of the apartments Convenient location near M and L trains Building manager is extremely responsive and maintenance guy is super sweet and helpful Package room is nice Neighbors are chill MetFresh and Mr. Lemon right around the corner
Cons
The blocks immediately surrounding this building are insanely filthy. The amount of trash and dog shit on the sidewalk is worse than any other neighborhood I've lived in in New York and also worse than other parts of Bushwick just 2-3 blocks away. It seems to be a combination of Myrtle being a super busy street, Knickerbocker having tons of fast food restaurants, and the building owners on neighboring Harman and Himrod Streets being exceptionally bad about trash management and keeping their sidewalks clean. The owner of 1399 Myrtle is actually pretty good about keeping the sidewalk in front of the building clean but everywhere else on this block is just nasty so it doesn't matter much. Also, the streets in this area have really poor drainage so large, gross puddles collect on the street corners after it rains and they don't go away for days/weeks. Close proximity to the M tracks, traffic on Myrtle, and the event space in the ground floor of the building means it can get quite loud inside. I found it easy to adjust to the train and traffic noise so ultimately this wasn't too bad for me, but if you are very sensitive to noise this probably isn't the building for you. I couldn't hear the noise from the event space in my apartment but it might be audible inside the apartments on lower floors. Located near lots of fast food restaurants and generic stores. Sorta feels like living in a strip mall. All the cute local businesses are a few blocks away. Not a pretty neighborhood.
Advice to the owners
Continue being responsive and reasonable :)