5b Duffield St,

Brooklyn, NY 11201

Decent location on a quiet block. Fast walk to commodore Barry park & only about 20 mins to fort Greene.

Building is very clean. Never saw a roach or rat living on the 1st floor. The apartment finishes are decent & despite being new build never had anything break down.

Decent common areas, nice rooftop for gatherings.

Lackluster little gym, apartments facing the highway dealt with noise & vibration. Unresponsive super spent most of his time washing his BMW in the parking lot but I believe he’s been replaced.

Tiny fridge with poor insulation so food would spoil on the top shelves. Everything is electrical including boilers so electrical bills are insane (over 300 for a 1 bed). Boiler would run out of hot water after 1 shower and take an hour to refill.

Prices reflect bigger units & more amenities than the building has.

Cheap rent
Decent amenties

No in-unit laundry
Very loud next to highway
Sometimes building shaking makes you think it's going to fall over

Lower rent

It is pretty clean, management is pretty responsive, good package management

Lots of noise from the highway if you have an apartment that faces it, gym is pretty bare bones, rooftop sofas are never cleaned

I enjoyed being so close to manhattan, Dumbo, and other Brooklyn neighbourhoods. Didn’t have any bug or pest problems. Air always worked, never had packages go missing. Always felt very safe.

This is just one of those apartments where they made the whole building look somewhat nice as cheaply as possible and have decided to to pretend to be a luxury building. previous renter did not take good care of unit and the building should have done some maintenance in between move in/move out to rectify this. Bath needed to be re-sealed, bathroom drawer handle was off and never got fixed, fire alarm was just lying on the counter. Unit needed to be SCRUBBED when I moved in and honestly still felt dirty after a deep clean. When we moved in there was Starbucks, a ladder, and an industrial vacuum left behind all of which were never retrieved. As with most “luxury” buildings, management was never on site/seemed to be busy with other things. When we asked for something management told us to “check with the door guy/front desk” (there was no door guy or front desk) For the price, things should have been better maintained. Also lots of young people living in building which isn’t bad, it could just get a little loud. Because of large windows, our winter heating bill was $450 for one month. Laundry room was not great and machines would leak often. Overall, I would say this is an okay place if you’re new to New York and want to get your footing for a year but by the time the lease was up I was ready to go.

Be more present and spend the money to maintain things.

It’s in a decent location

The building owners/managers are utterly unresponsive as soon as you set foot in the building as an official tenant. In addition, they did not return my security deposit despite claiming I was in good standing to receive it back in full. They first claimed to have accidentally sent it to the wrong address (okay, possible). Then, after “sending” it back out to my actual new address, they claimed that the check had been signed over to some random person and deposited into their account despite my never having received the check in the mail. They had me sign/notarize a form promising that it was not me who deposited the security deposit check, then proceeded to ignore me for months. On the rare occasion I received a response to my multiple inquiries about the status of my check, they kicked the can down the road, explaining they were awaiting the okay from “management” to issue me a new check. Worth noting: one of the times I called to inquire, I was asked, “are you the one who’s check bounced?” Clearly they are having financial difficulties and passing them right down the line to previous tenants. It’s a mess.

Word to the wise: do not expect a response to any tenant request you might have for management while living at 1 Duffield, and do NOT expect your security deposit to be returned regardless of whether or not you leave your apartment in good condition.

Shape up. The shenanigans with the security deposit is shameful. I’ll be posting a review similar to the one above wherever else I’m able to do so online.

Amazing roof, awesome amenities, gorgeous interior.

Could get cold in winter, loud next to the highway.

None that I can think of!

Apartment itself was great- especially the high ceilings and the bathroom. Amenities are simple but great- small gym, big laundry, parking available. Super convenient to grocery stores and such.

The management company is not existent and stuff never gets fixed unless you push - at least I assume that’s the case, I didn’t push because nothing was make or break. Nothing got fixed, though. Some shortcut in building decisions, like the kitchen. Not much closet space. And for the neighborhood, what you gain with convenience, you lose in charm- no actual neighborhood vibes here.

The biggest con is that they raised our rent over 35% this year. Highway robbery.

Fix things when people ask and don’t charge too much.

Clean and great loaction

Overpriced. Can hear traffic from the BQE.

None to offer.

Accessible to pretty much all Brooklyn neighborhoods
New building and appliances
All Amenities are included within the rent
Rooftop deck
Bike room
Clean building
Super and management is responsive

There’s a 1-3 month wait for parking after applying
No doorman
Some apartments have small windows

Get a doorman!

Beautiful building, nice apartment layouts, amazing roof and amenities. Landlord allows flex walls and is lenient with many things, which can be both good and bad depending on the situation. Now that Wegman’s is open, grocery shopping is a breeze. Parking in the area is very easy.

Management is a disaster. They are extremely difficult to communicate with, and it’s hard to get fixes for common issues. The heat and hot water cost is fully electric and fully on the tenant to pay (there’s a hot water heater in each apartment) which can occasionally result in upwards of $400 electric bills a month during the winter. The package room door has had a broken door handle all year, which has resulted in multiple tenants locked inside screaming for help, and multiple package thefts. Building was clearly built quite cheaply, and it’s already falling apart in many areas. Very little storage/closet space in each apartment.

Fix the package room door!

Amenities are great including lovely roof deck, gym, and bike storage. Apartment units are spacious and neighbors are friendly. Pets are allowed. Prime location with wegmans right down the block and a stones throw from the Manhattan bridge for easy commute to Manhattan if that’s your thing.

There are these ginormous clunky dual heater / AC units that simply don’t work. When they do turn on, they are louder than a jack hammer and not all that effective. But mostly they just flash an error message and don’t turn on. Due to this — and an unresponsive management that never responds to our repeated requests to please replace the unit — we had to heat our apartment with a space heater this winter. Between that and the fact that we pay to heat our hot water with our own heater, we received an EIGHT HUNDRED dollar electric bill this February. Yep, that is $800 for a two bedroom apartment. It’s outrageous. One single time (out of our dozens of requests) a heater tech came to check out our unit. He fiddled with it and it worked ok for about a week. Then it went right back to the way it was (broken). Needs to be replaced. Straight up. Also there are no closets in these units which is much much more problematic than I thought it would be. You can put your clothes in dressers and wardrobes but things like vacuums and umbrellas and cleaning supplies really need closets, IMO. Oh, and I am one of the tenants who got stuck inside the package room when the door handle came off. Thank goodness my roommate was home to rescue me. I would have been stuck there for hours if not I’m sure. They never fix it.

Replace these ancient heating / AC units. Also closets are very important.