Trump Place – 160 Riverside Blvd Apartments

I have lived at Trump Place for 7 years and have been happy with the size of the apartment, the look of the lobby, and amenities inside the apartment (love the washer/​drier!). I am working with the same leasing agent now as when I first came here, as I transfer to another Trump apartment next door. It is a pleasure to know her and she has facilitated my transfer in a very friendly, helpful and personalized way.

I really love this building. We will stay as long as prices are fair for a 1 bedroom in the area. I love the amenities, the door men, and having a dry cleaning service in house is a plus. We had an issue with a neighbor smoking and they immediately took care of it! I appreciate that. I will update this review once we see our rent increase for ¹⁵⁄₁₆.
The only down fall is there are a TON of kids and lots of dogs. I like the dog part… :).

My experience is very similar to the prior review from Charlotte L. I do not recommend the Trump Place properties. There are many luxury rental buildings in the same neighborhood and even the same street that are much better value and treat their tenants with respect and courtesy, which the Trump management office lacks.
After my first year they begun to automatically charge me beyond my regular rent for water and sewage which totaled to an unbelievable $ 55 – 65 per month. This was not part of my original residential lease.
Rent increase was an incredible 8%-10% per year. Despite this after 2 years I was looking to upgrade to 2 bedroom apartment in the same building, but my «leasing representative» essentially refused to assist me by not returning my phone calls or emails! She suggested that I wait until the week of my renewal deadline in order to get a better rate if I wished to stay in my unit. I accepted that advice, but turns out it effectively screwed me because my rate did not charge, and thus I had to make a quick decision to move out and find a new place in a short amount of time.
When I decided to move, I received a ridiculous 3 ½ page email with a list of move out instructions. It included a pre-​move out inspection to be scheduled 2 weeks prior to move out date. Again, I could not get a response by phone or email in order to schedule this inspection. Similarly, no one would even respond to me to confirm my move out date and elevator reservation!
On move out day an inspection was performed. We were not allowed to make an appointment for this so we waited 45 minutes for a maintenance staff member to be «free». The apartment was spic and span in ready to rent condition, and the only fault found was a stain on the floor of the oven. Although the apartment’s good condition was documented on the inspection form, Equity withheld money from my security deposit, including $ 120 for «cleaning» and $ 56 for carpet shampooing.
I spent over a month trying to get a valid explanation from the management for these charges. As previously, it was enormously difficult to get anyone to return my phone calls or emails. I finally contacted the General Manager. I requested receipt to show that their vendor charges $ 120 for cleaning an oven stain. The receipt I was given clearly shows they have charged me for cleaning the entire one bedroom apartment!
As noted in the previous review, it’s appalling that the tenant is assuming all of the costs for routine building maintenance IN ADDITION TO my exorbitant monthly rent. I have been a renter in Manhattan for 12 years and never experienced anything like this.
Even more troublesome is the management’s lack of basic courtesy and professionalism, for example in returning a phone call!
I have given a 2 star review because the building was generally pleasant to live in, but unfortunately a nightmare to move out. Horrible customer service. There are many better options for luxury rental properties in this neighborhood.

AVOID. Management is incompetent (and complacent about it), policies are obnoxious, they nickle and dime you constantly (where else do renters pay for SEWER service?), and move-​ins /​outs are a nightmare.
I should have known things weren’t going to go well when, on our move-​in day, I showed up with a truck full of our belongings and a six-​person crew — having informed the building of our move in writing on multiple occasions — only to be told that we couldn’t move a single box until a particular staff member showed up to do a walk-​through with us. The concierge at the front desk was embarrassed and vaguely sympathetic, but entirely ineffective. («I can’t make him come here,» she complained to me at one point. Seems like a problem if your staff can’t work together!) ONE HOUR LATER, the staff member finally appeared to let me into the apartment and seemed annoyed when I pointed out the urine drips (I kid you not) on the toilet seat. Makes you wonder what else the cleaners skipped. At least we were finally allowed to move in.
We discovered pretty quickly that Equity’s strategy is to make as much money as possible from their tenants in the short-​term, rather that worrying about long-​term value and retention. Expect surprise charges. Surprise! You have to pay for your own water, sewer, and gas heat! (For us, it came to an extra, unannounced $ 65 or so a month in expenses for a 1-​bedroom apartment.) And you even get to pay a setup charge and administrative fee for the privilege of creating your new account to pay for utilities you didn’t know you’d have!
We were there on a short-​term lease while renovating our apartment around the corner, so our move-​out came fairly close on the heels of our move-in…which I was glad for. The shenanigans continued. We were commanded (in an email heavy on ALL CAPS DIRECTIVES!!!) to schedule not one but two walk-through’s of the apartment to identify potential post-​move charges for repairs. No one replied to my attempts to schedule an appointment; no one even confirmed that our move was on the calendar. Ultimately, I was told to come back after we moved out and go to the front desk to request a walk-​through. When I did, the concierge alerted me that it’d be «a long time» before anyone would be available (flashback!), and I should just forget about it. A week later, I found out I was being charged for carpet shampooing, even though we’d only lived in the apartment for three months and always removed our shoes. This is in addition to the required $ 120 cleaning fee. But, hey! If you can get your tenants to assume all the cost of maintaining your building, that’s a pretty sweet deal! Maybe I should be in real estate.
It’s the myriad small indignities that get you here. I just knew that if I ever needed anything from management, it was going to be a pain. The doormen and concierges are well-​intentioned and generally pleasant to deal with, but they can’t counteract the pervasive incompetence and laissez-​faire attitude of management.
I voiced my complaints to Equity management about each of these issues in turn as they arose and received uniformly unsatisfying responses. I believe that if a business is falling down on customer service, the first step should always be to tell them and let them try to fix it. Unfortunately, Equity is missing the customer service gene.

I’ve lived at 160 Riverside Blvd for over 6 years and I love it, except for the management company, Equity. There are two reasons why I am not giving Equity at Trump Place 5 stars, which has nothing to do with the overall service here or the amenities, but the issue of how Equity Management treats their current renters. Equity raises rents every year by 8% or more automatically, which can be quite high, when you’re rent is $ 3,800 per month. Equity doesn’t care about keeping renters at Trump Place, they only care about how they can maximize the rent increases yearly, which may explain the constant move-​out and move-​ins every month at the buildings.
When I have tried to negotiate my rent with Equity, they always tell me that it’s market price and that it’s a fair deal on the rent, which is not true, when I look at comparable comps in surrounding buildings, such as The Ashley, Brodsky, Silver Towers, 1 River Place, Related, or Archstone (before Equity recently bought them). Trump is a money grab for Equity.
The second reason that I am not giving 160 Riverside 5 stars, is the fact that Equity now wants to start charging renters for water, in addition to raising the rent by 8%. I have lived my entire life in NYC and lived in various buildings, and this is the first time that I have ever encountered a rental building that charges for water. It’s obvious that Equity is trying to find other ways to charge as much as they can from their renters.
Equity Management does not care about keeping their renters, only about turning them over to increasing the rents every year to maximize their profits. I, as a business person understand maximizing profits and increasing ROI, but I also know that keeping renters is cheaper than having to acquire new renters every year, when you look at the overall profit margins. Maybe, Equity needs to justify the payroll of all of the property managers they have to sell new apartments.
Because of the constant high increases of rent and additional water charge, I am now having to consider leaving Trump.