The one neutron removal from a secondary beam of14Be at 35MeV/A, produced at the LISE3 spectrometer, GANIL, has been used to study the near‐threshold structure of the unbound nucleus13Be. The relative energy in the12Be + n system has been reconstructed and suggests significant s‐wave strength in addition to a previously suggested d‐wave resonance at around 2MeV. The momentum distribution of the reconstructed13Be, parallel to the beam direction, consists of at least two components and requires the inclusion of d‐wave strength in the single‐particle structure of14Be, although it does not rule out the inclusion of p‐wave strength. © 2003 American Institute of Physics