321 Wythe Avenue
Pros
The biggest positive by far is Izzy, the super. He has been here since before the new management. He is genuinely a great person, always helpful, and clearly cares about the residents and the building. We absolutely love him and have nothing but good things to say about him.
Cons
The new management has completely let this place go downhill. The amenities are basically falling apart. The listings still show nice 3D renderings, but the reality is very different. The second-floor outdoor space is constantly covered in dog poop, all three grills are broken as of today, the fireplace is broken, common-area furniture is dirty, the gym is gross, laundry machines are constantly down, and the elevators are always having problems. They do not even maintain the grass out front anymore. It is completely overgrown and looks like a jungle. Meanwhile, they raise the rent every year. We have what has to be one of the smallest 1-bedrooms in the building on the 4th floor. There is basically no storage and barely enough room for furniture. If you put a queen bed in the bedroom, that is pretty much the entire bedroom. Forget about fitting normal dressers, nightstands, or much of anything else. The worst issue by far has been the plumbing. We have repeatedly had black sludge water from the floors above us back up into our kitchen sink. It gets so bad that I have literally had to scoop buckets of disgusting water out of the sink and dump them into the shower to stop it from overflowing into the apartment. We cannot comfortably leave the apartment when this is happening without pointing a camera at the sink because we are worried about it overflowing. This has happened multiple times. Management's response has consistently been slow, plumbers come in and make a mess of the apartment, and the larger problem has never actually been solved. We have never received any compensation or meaningful help for having to deal with this, yet our rent still goes up. Packages are another mess. We have had packages stolen multiple times. The package room is basically a mountain of boxes with very little organization. I honestly would not recommend having anything important, especially medication or something time-sensitive, delivered here because there is a real chance you will not be able to find it or it will not be there. It is great that the building allows dogs. We have a pit ourselves and love that it is dog-friendly. But management has allowed the second-floor outdoor space to basically become a dog bathroom. There is constantly dog poop all over the area right next to the grills and fireplace. Again, all three grills and the fireplace are currently broken anyway. The elevator situation has become ridiculous. There are only two elevators for a 19-story building. One has now been completely down for five days and no one is even here fixing it today, so tomorrow will make six. There is constantly a line waiting for the one working elevator. Thank god we live on the 4th floor because we just take the stairs most of the time. I genuinely cannot imagine paying this kind of rent and living near the top of the building. Elevator problems are not rare here. One of them seems to be down constantly. Laundry is also a disaster. The cleaning woman who used to take care of the building was incredible, but she was let go after the management change. Since then, the laundry room and common areas have gotten noticeably worse. The laundry room smells bad, machines are constantly broken, and somehow it still costs us around $30 a week to do laundry. Because so many machines are down, trying to do laundry at a convenient time feels like the Wild West. The entire building is fighting over a limited number of working machines. For what this building now costs, it is absolutely not worth it. We just found a beautiful apartment down the street in a much nicer building with TWO bedrooms for hundreds of dollars less than what they want for our tiny one-bedroom here. This building used to have a lot going for it. Under the new management, the maintenance, amenities, cleanliness, elevators, laundry, package situation, and overall quality of living have noticeably declined while the rent continues to increase. At this point, I would not recommend paying a premium to live here.
Advice to the owners
Fix the issues.
Good location, but little care for tenant comfort and safety
Pros
Neighborhood , some aspects of common areas
Cons
Noisy parties, small units with little storage/closets, elevators and laundry machines constantly out of service, unresponsive management
Advice to the owners
Pay more attention to maintaining the amenities and facilities (rats, mildewed outdoor furniture). Be more responsive to complaints about disruptive neighbors and unsafe building conditions like lobby doors that won’t close and elevators that don’t work
