The Chrystie

After living at the Chrystie for a year, I do not recommend moving into this building. Of course the location and views are great. However, the noise from Houston is extremely loud, including in the middle of the night, even on a high floor with double paned windows. No, this is not "just NYC," as it is far noisier than my multiple prior NYC apartments over the past several years. If you do move here, I recommend getting your apartment professionally cleaned before you move out, otherwise they will deduct a portion of your deposit if it is less clean than that. Overall, it is not worth the price.

I have been a tenant for many years and unfortunately, the building is just not a nice place to live anymore. The current ownership and management does not care for their tenants. I will be moving out as they continuously harass tenants, and care nothing for tenants who have been there for a long time. Not to mention, there are constantly leaks in the building (gym, etc.) that go unfixed and cause hazards. There are construction issues all around the building. They constantly try to remodel areas of the building and it is a nuisance to all who live there. The front desk and maintenance staff are very nice but ownership and management will make living there miserable. Unfortunately after 8 years in the building, it is no longer a livable environment.

Perfect location. Whole Foods for breakfast. Close to subway . Great neighborhood to walk in, shop, dine.

We stayed here on a short term sublet last month. I'm only writing this review because I was literally shocked to the core when the person we subletted from told us that she pays over $5000/month for her one bedroom. Where to start? Well first of all the place stank. There was a constant smell of strange cooking in the hallways which made us wretch walking from the elevator. But reaching our apartment was no escape from it - the smell made it's way into our unit too. Someone we were out with one night even commented that he could smell it on my clothes. Next of all, this is an extremely cheap and nasty construction. The walls are paper thin and we could hear next door's TV all evening as if we were in the same room. We could also hear upstairs and downstairs. The sense of privacy is virtually non existent, which would be heartbreaking if you were spending $5000/month for it. I used to work in construction and I had a great time walking around the place marveling at how bad the workmanship was, and how poor the materials and fittings were. The windows looked like they had seen better days, but that's what gullible people pay for in these places isn't it? If you have "floor to ceiling windows" then you can charge clueless transplants almost their whole paycheck and they won't care if, as in this case, the A/C is as noisy as a plane taking off, or if the elevators are faulty, or the management completely hostile to any comments or requests. I couldn't even hear myself think with the A/C on. If I had to put an honest, objective rental value on the unit we were in I would say about $2500/month, and that's only because of the great location. It all reminded me of my cheap student digs 20 years ago. I noticed that most of the people in this building (the ones paying full rent anyway) were young yuppie wannabees in their early 20's - and frankly, these are pretty much the only kind of people you're going to get to sign a $5000+/month lease for something as cheap and shoddy as this. The whole experience was depressing, like staying in a soulless hotel room for too long. The good news is that we have now moved into our new apartment just across Houston St in the East Village, and we're paying just over half of the price of this horrible place for a beautiful home with high ceilings, solid walls and doors and lovely oak floors. If you're new to New York, don't let anyone con you into thinking that a place like this is the "going rate." It's not. Having a doorman isn't everything, and floor to ceiling windows get boring after a week. Buildings like this are constructed on the cheap in order to con gullible people out of huge sums of money. Time is too valuable to spend it earning to money to throw away on junk buildings like this.