491 Columbus Avenue,

Manhattan, NY 10024

-Location
-Nothing else

-Very dirty and poor garbage maintenance (leads to a smell in the lobby/stairs that has made me gag)
-Pests (cockroaches and the building has a history of bed bugs)
-Management company is unresponsive and doesn’t seem to care (Shoutout to Celsa for reinforcing the stereotypes about NYC slumlords)
-Problematic tenants (If your mail is stolen/covered in dog pee or your wondering why the police are there every week or so, thank the second floor tenants)
-Cannot have packages delivered (Children, some of which live in the building, will steal them)

Take a hard look in the mirror and reflect on the living conditions you subject your tenants to. How would you feel if your landlord treated you the same way?

Management is responsive to requests for repairs.

Should mop hallways more frequently.

The best thing I can say about the building is that it is in a decent neighborhood. There are things to do, solid places to eat at, at least one good bar nearby, etc. This is all irrelevant during Covid tho.

This is going to get long, but if you're even thinking about renting here, please read:
1. Essentially, there is no super. I was given multiple numbers during my few years in the building, and never once did I have actual contact with the super. During literal emergencies (like the boilerroom catching fire) it took hours for the super to appear, after multiple calls to multiple numbers.
2. Management is AWFUL. The building caught fire, and the first thing the Brusco brothers, who own the building said to me, after I told them that multiple fire alarms throughout the building DO NOT WORK, was 'we aren't sorry because this wasn't our fault. Also is your door damaged'.
3. Packages CONSTANTLY get stolen, and it's for a number of reasons. The two doors to access the building are usually broken and provide no security. In addition, there are zero cameras in the entrance hallway where literally anybody walking by the building can see dozens of packages piled up. Also I suspect the few employees who take out the trash occasionally steal packages they see have sat there for a few days. There is zero security in this building, it's embarassing.
4. Management does not care about it's tenants, and purposely has antiquated systems in place to ensure that you, as a tenant, get screwed at every turn. You have to physically deliver or mail your rent checks monthly, and they have hilariously lost rent checks or claimed to receive them late, and so they'll tack on a late fee. There is zero reason to not have an online payment alternative.
5. The restaurant next door, which this management company also owns that property, has a messed up ventilation system. LOUD fans constantly whirring all day, and pretty bad smells filling apartments, are the standard. I made friends with neighbors and one said the restaurant had to physically go through their apartment MANY times to access their ventilation equipment. Meaning strangers were constantly going inside their apartment and climbing out the windows to access a small rooftop with broken ventilation machinery. This happened before and during Covid.
6. The building is not maintained--it's dirty and often stinks. Somebody once let their dog take a dump in the lobby hallway and it stayed there for two weeks.

My advice is to look at the way you manage these apartments, read the reviews on Yelp and Google and listen to what tenants are telling you. You're doing an awful job, it's not up for debate, but hiring a responsible super who tenants can actually contact; implementing real security measures like working front doors and lobby cameras; and not acting like slum lords would go a long way.

Location is perfect

Roaches, water leak,
unresponsive landlord

Get a super who is responsive and knows how to fix things