19 Rock

If you value your money do not move here. I have lived in this building for a year and could not be happier that my lease has ended and I can get out. Like one of the other reviewers here, at first glance this building seems amazing and after two months I thought it was great too but things slowly but surely came up to ruin that image. The building is made VERY cheaply. The walls feel like chalkboards and scuff EXTREMELY easily, the cabinets in both the kitchen and bathrooms do not open properly as they all either hit a wall (creating dents from the handles) or they hit the other appliances. The granite counter tops actually stain because the stone is not sealed. The wood around the doorways is already cracked and is so thin that one of my door frames actually broke off just from opening the door.
Besides the cheap quality that is designed to disguise itself as luxury there is also the absolutely terrible management team. Your emails will never be answered and any repairs that need to be done will never happen. Packages being stolen is an ongoing problem for the entire building. I have actually had packages go missing and then days later show up at my door opened. There were also «maintenance» personnel in my apartment without my knowledge or consent and without notice (which is against the law). These people not only disheveled my living room and damaged my apartment but also left me locked out of my apartment waiting for the super to come open my door (this is due to an ongoing problem with the cheap locks on the doors that resulted in me being locked out of my apartment more than once and the locks being changed twice because of malfunction, I eventually stopped using that lock altogether and did not have a key for it).
If you are looking at these apartments do so at your own risk. Do not believe the ads for this building. There is no «zen garden» or «shuttle to the PATH». The virtual concierge is now finally usable. This feature was a big selling point to many of the buildings tenants including myself and it was unusable my entire lease up until a few days ago when the tenants actually had to rally against the management team for changes (that fact alone should show you how little this management team cares). This place is overpriced (especially since the area is not very good) and terribly managed. You can find much better places around this area.

If you are thinking about living in this building you should stay clear. The quality of the building is very poor and the management, although responsive, refuses to do anything productive to address any problems. If, like me, you are looking for, i.e. granite countertops, hardwood floors etc. and you come across this building, you should know about some of the issues below the surface.
There is NO INTERCOM for the building, whatsoever. You will be told that there is a «virtual concierge» that allows you to «buzz» people into the building from your smartphone whether you are home or not. That is a lie that the building managers and their realtors, liberty, have been telling for over a year. The truth is that the tablet-​looking device by the front of the building only unlocks a front gate (which has been broken and perpetually unlocked for about six months) but does not provide any access into the building at all. The end result is, expect to have to walk down the street to accept any deliveries and expect to encounter many difficulties in receiving packages or shipments. If you are used to ordering food or items online this is a horrible place to live.
The owners of the building will enter your unit without informing you or giving you any notice. They just let themselves in when they want to. For example, on December 8, I received an email letting me know about service performed in my apartment on December 4, without any prior notice. Pretty sure thats not allowed.
The building was built poorly. Your kitchen cabinets will open into each other, if they open at all. Windowshades are installed in such a way that prevents you from opening the window! There is very little unnatural light in the individual apartments (so much so that the realtor will offer to write in to the lease that they will change out your extremely dim lightbulbs, but nobody will actually do that). Yet, your apartment will be unbearably bright in the morning (because of the cheap shades).
It is impossible to get any maintenance work done. If you email and request maintenance, you will get a response but nothing ever gets done. Maintenance appointments will be «scheduled» four or five different times and nobody will show up on any of those days. I’ve had problems like a refrigerator that emits an unbearably loud jackhammer noise all day long, and I cannot get anyone to address the problem.
When things break in the common areas they are simply left broken. Imagine paying $ 200/​month for a parking garage, only to find out that the door that connects the garage to the elevators has not worked for almost a year, and the building refuses to fix it.
The bottom line is that when you combine the shoddy worksmanship and poor management, it’s just not worth living here. One personal horror story involves the time I came home to my apartment at around midnight only to find I was locked out. As I could not get in touch with anyone at all (poor management) I had no choice but to (1) shell out $ 150 for a locksmith or a hotel, or (2) sleep in my car until someone from management could unlock the door. So I slept in my car. The next day I waited around about 6 – 8 hours for maintenance (who kept telling me they’d be there within the hour). I come to find out later on that the building knew that it had purchased broken locks, and that the locks had previously failed in over 20 different apartments in the building, and the building never told anyone about this problem, or made an attempt to fix it. They just let people get locked out of their apartments. Why would you ever want to live in a building where everything was built cheaply and poorly and management will not fix any of the problems that inevitably arrise?

My partner and I moved from Portland, Oregon, to the NYC area back in September. With two dogs in tow (a Great Dane and a Labrador), finding an apartment in the city was no easy task, so we started looking in Jersey City. Thankfully, we stumbled upon 19 Rock, and after being here for about two months, we couldn’t be happier. The building is designed well, the units are large, the management company is great and the price is just right. It’s a quick walk to the Path, and if you’re into fitness, there’s an amazing BLINK fitness center right up the street. There’s also a really nice (but small) gym in the building.
I’m giving the building 4 out of 5 stars because it’s a gem in a not-​so-​great neighborhood. The neighborhood is safe and the people are friendly, but very few people take pride in keeping the area clean. There’s always trash and broken bottles on the sidewalks, and nobody seems to ever clean up after their dogs. There’s also not a lot to do in the neighborhood — no coffee shops or fun bars or pubs. However, if you have a car or want to hop on the path, you’re only minutes away from a ton of great restaurants and bars in downtown Jersey City and Hoboken. There’s also a great dogpark about 2 miles away in Lincoln Park.
All in all, I would definitely recommend living here. Hopefully the building acts as a catalyst for more development in the area. Fingers crossed.