Beam Living

Nice grounds, nice building, nice apartment, nice views

Moved out because rent was increased by $1000 (original rent of $2800). Building location was inconvenient - far from subways

There is very little good to be said about living here, but I'll start with that:GOOD: The doormen are very nice. Living in an iconic building is a cool tidbit. The windows are really nice and provide a ton of natural light.

THE BAD:Management: Not a lot to be said that hasn't already been said here. They will really try to seduce you when you are thinking about living here but once you sign the lease they will screw you at every turn. TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR APARTMENT the moment you move in. You should do this in every apartment in NYC. We had large scratches in our floors when we moved in. Then when we moved out they charged us a ton out of our deposit for floor scratches (despite the fact that I had multiple photos of scratches). If they are taking money for "floor repairs" from tenants - why are there scratches when a tenant moves in? Again, maybe just the state of all NYC housing, but still. Not great.Neighborhood: Get ready to live in the most boring neighborhood in Manhattan. There is NOTHING happening in the neighborhood except Brooklyn Bridge tourists and Pace students. Both will become the bane of your existence. The restaurants are boring, the streets are ugly and devoid of culture. If your idea of "culture" is the Oculus, maybe this neighborhood is right for you.Dogs: I can love a dog, but every resident in this 70 story tower owns dogs, big and small. The portico and outdoor space outside the lobby are dog bathrooms. You will see dogs going to the bathroom more than anywhere else in the city. Nobody cleans up after them. The lobby smells of urine and walking out of the building is a mine-field.Amenities: As everyone else has noted - the amenities are such a scam. The quality is fine but there are several gratuitous amenities that don't help lower the cost (who needs a library full of books that they don't own? Also - they built a 70 story skyscraper and put the amenities on the seventh floor? Hope you enjoy that scenic view of the Pace building and the Brooklyn Bridge traffic. Package Center: It's convenient to have someone watching your package, yet four times they couldn't locate boxes for me. Each time, they said they were already picked up - when I said that wasn't possible, they made it seem as though I was trying to scam them. When it was a time-sensitive package, they told me they'd need their manager to review footage and it would take at least a week. Kathy from the package center was a particular nightmare. The worst attitude.TL;DR - you can find a lot better places for the outrageous prices this building is charging. You will be treated like dirt by almost everyone in their management, and they will attempt to take every nickel and dime from you until well after you've moved out. I have been in another new building for four months - everything is better. Stay away.

Run far, far away from this building. It slowly sapped away my will to live. No wonder the windows don't open more than a tiny crack. APARTMENTS:Many of them have wonderful views, of course. Given the density of the neighborhood, though, you're just as likely to be looking into someone else's window.The units make the most of the space, but they are cramped for the price. The finishes and materials are fine, which fooled me into thinking that the construction quality was better than it actually is. The appliances are of poor quality. In less expensive apartments, they use shoddy Haier brand appliances. The fridges make a lot of noise, and the dishwasher in my unit never completed a cycle. Maintenance never fixed the dishwasher in two years.There is mold in the building's filthy ventilation system. Living there, I always felt fatigued and unwell. Despite frequent and thorough cleaning, when I moved into my new place, I had to clean off a layer of grime from all of my furniture and belongings. There are also smokers of tobacco, pot, and I'll assume otherwise, throughout the building and management doesn't do anything but send out periodic emails reminding people that it's against the rules. Thanks, guys.THE BUILDING:The best feature is the covered driveway. Birch Coffee downstairs is also perfectly nice.Otherwise, the amenities are flashy but impractical for daily use. They're cramped for a building of around 900 apartments and have an uneasy, disjointed layout. Management also pulled a switcheroo not long after I moved in and tacked on a hefty additional fee to use them. Then the opening hours were reduced and they now close at 10PM on weeknights.Maintenance is lousy. The carpets in the hallways are stained. On my floor, hallway lights were out for weeks at a time. The amenities, if you use them, are dirty. For example, the pool tables are clearly never cleaned and have hair and dust embedded in them.The dry cleaner is awful; they destroy clothes and accept no responsibility for it. See my other review. STAFF:The doormen are generally very nice, but they are the only good people who work there.Dealing with the leasing and management staff is inevitably a miserable experience. I really, really hate moving and had hoped to trade up to a larger unit, hopefully without the toxic ventilation problems and with functioning appliances. I was ready to grit my teeth and ignore the rest of the building's shortcomings. They made it impossible.When you move out, they will try to cheat you on the security deposit, as noted by the other reviewers. I had to repeatedly call to have it returned, which they didn't do until well after the 60 days specified in their own lease terms. To add insult to injury, over $300 was taken out for the notorious floor repairs which I'd been assured by the maintenance man upon move-out were not a problem.LOCATION:Transit is great and it's convenient to the Financial District. It doesn't really feel like a coherent neighborhood, though. The whole area is overrun with crowds coming off of the Brooklyn Bridge and ambling down to the Seaport or over to the WTC. Park Row is now a busy depot for tour buses. Nothing against tourists, but it's feeling like Times Square these days. One hotel after another has been opening in the area, so it's not really geared to long-term residents.UNEXPECTED BONUS:The incredibly pretentious emails from the building's "Luxury Attaché" eventually became a cherished hate-read. What's the latest hot restaurant that the Times wrote up? Where does Condé Nast Traveller think I should I stay in Gstaad this winter? I never tired of guessing if this was for real, a commentary on the pretensions of my former neighbors, or some kind of bizarre mental exercise.

I love my home!8 spruce street is beautiful and the doorman are so nice and kind . Not only are they nice, but they are helpful. I recommend living here!!the apartments have beautiful views and beautiful layouts!!!

Rents for renewal have increased 15%-20%. That is 25-30% increase with respect to their teaser rates. Simply ridiculous.

Caution: poor management and $1000's in charges on move outBe very careful! The management will charge you 1000s of dollars for normal wear and tear of the cheap veneer floors! They charge almost every unit to replace the floor for minor scratches from normal wear. The management of this building has gone way downhill!! Doormen are great but the management company is slimy!

Very shady management. I lived here twice. The first time around, I had a good experience - the doormen and staff at the front desk are particularly nice, remember your name, etc.The second time around was an entirely different story, and as a result, I cannot recommend that anyone live in the building. I will certainly not return there.When I moved in, there were scratches on the hardwood floor in various places. I reported them in an email to management and didn't think much of it. When I was moving out the following year, the move-out inspector highlighted every single scratch he could find anywhere on the floor. The building management (led by Ed Johnson) then tried to charge me for it, taking nearly half my security deposit. They had absolutely no proof that I caused this damage; in fact, they had reports on the previous tenant's move-out inspection that there was substantial floor and wall damage.I have never had an issue with the state I have left any apartment in, and I have lived in many. At every other inspection I've had, the inspector has been amazed at how clean the apartment is. After reading many other reviews on here revealing the same scammy practice of getting tenants to pay for building repairs, I decided to fight this. I was prepared to take the building to small claims court. They ended up settling with me before we needed to get there, but consider yourself warned.

Kiss your deposit goodbye!! I forgot to write a review after moving out. Horrible experience. I am extremely clean and take care of every place I've ever lived in, I don't have dogs or anything else that would cause damage. Normal wear and tear in NYC is scratches and scuff marks etc. That is kinda what you pay for while renting. Well....Not in this place. Renter beware you will be charged for absolutely everything. The guy walked around with an iPad taking pictures of the most minuscule scratches and said "All these boards have to be replaced" The flooring was spotless except what was their from before. I thought he was joking, I own properties and rent them out. Sure enough most of my crazy large deposit was gone. You can live here, but prepare to never see your deposit again.

I have had the displeasure of living in the building for close to two years on two separate floors - 12th and 51st.Pros: The door staff and porters are pleasant and the views can be decentCons: Virtually all else!!! The elevators frequently have problems, the valet service is horribly slow and inefficient (they don't even accept large packages any longer and caused serious issues for me when they erroneously turned away a smaller shipment), the management staff - including the direct property Manager - Vitool Pradith - of FS Residential is grossly incompetent. Pace students smoke pot and cigarettes brazenly in the Plaza area that is of course "No smoking" and to add insult to injury you have to pay for every amenity - gym and even access to common areas.Do yourself a favor and get a better finished apartment and better managed property at another location in the FiDi or TriBeCa.

Physical building is nice (relatively new).

Management is abysmal. Incredibly difficult to deal with - it took weeks of haggling to get all the paperwork done so they would let us have someone deliver a rocking chair. Then when your lease is up they'll jack up your rent 10% because they know it's a pain for you to move, and that's what they think they can squeeze out of you. Elevators in the high rise bank are continually breaking. Tonight my wife (and a bunch of other people) got trapped in an elevator and it took management about an hour to find an elevator technician to let them out. According to the guys at the front desk this happens once every month or so.UPDATE: Apparently someone else trapped in the elevator with my wife says a friend got trapped in another 8 Spruce elevator earlier today. So this might be a weekly or daily occurrence.