Poor PLG: Prince Hotel Approved for Parkside
After letting 205 Parkside rot away for years, the longtime owners in 2007 started trying to turn the squatter-filled building into an “apartment hotel,” which sounds like an improvement until you realize what kind of places these guys specialize in. (The Lefferts Hotel in Clinton Hill has a well-documented history as a haven of drugs…
After letting 205 Parkside rot away for years, the longtime owners in 2007 started trying to turn the squatter-filled building into an “apartment hotel,” which sounds like an improvement until you realize what kind of places these guys specialize in. (The Lefferts Hotel in Clinton Hill has a well-documented history as a haven of drugs and prostitution and the violence that often accompanies them, as does the Schermerhorn Prince Hotel.) The DOB rejected the duo’s efforts in 2007 and again earlier this year, but, according to the blog The Q at Parkside, they have just been granted a permit to create a 19-unit complex. How’d they do it? Evidently by saying that the apartments would be used for stays of 30 days or more. Hopefully the community can get the cops to ride this place hard. It’s appalling that landlords with this kind of track record can continue to get approval from the city to do business. As TQAP writes, “We’ll need to be vigilant – any building of this size so close to the Q at Parkside is bound to make or break the feel of the neighborhood.”
Snooze/Lose Rules Applies at 205 Parkside [Q at Parkside]
DOB Rejects Whorehouse at 205 Parkside [Brownstoner] GMAP
In the NY Sun in 2006, Moses Fried is quoted as follows re his Clinton Hill dive: “I’m a Jewish religious man. I would never permit to run prostitution there.” Maybe it’s time for local residents to protest outside his synagogue, since he so far seems to have no shame, but does seem to have a gift for sweet-talking elected representatives like Yvette Clark and Tish James despite their constituents’ loud calls for relief.
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/police-shutter-prince-lefferts-hotel-citing/35689/
This isn’t about short term housing, if only it were. It doesn’t matter what they have applied for and what the C of O says, M Fried and D Tepper have a history of breaking the law and going against the C of O for buildings that they own. On Lefferts Place they still do/did illegal hourly rentals even after they made a deal with they city to cease this activity, and when raided a few months back the entire hotel was full of used needles and other paraphernalia. They have illegal/hazardous signs mounted on the hotel roof which for which paperwork has never been filed which were improperly mounted. For some reason the DOB will not enforce this. They knocked a hole in the foundation wall between the Hotel and 125 Lefferts Place , a residential building, causing structural damage and were funneling customers into that building for illegal profit. This is the primary reason the hotel is closed according to the signs on the door. When the time came to issue another permit to these landlords for a new venture it seems to me the DOB just didn’t care about previous illegal activity, background checks, accountability and doesn’t have any desire to enforce the laws in place at a landlord’s existing sites. It appears that the DOB treat each property as a separate entity and will allow such landlords to do what they want, where they want, without consequence. But god forbid you put up that one story scaffolding to seal a window on your parlor floor sans permit cuz they are on you like a hawk!
There is absolutely a need for legitimate low-income and short-term housing in NYC. There are several developments currently in the process of adding more low-income housing to PLG. Perhaps this is what will happen at 205 Parkside Ave. However, as Brownstoner and several posters have indicated, these particular landlords have a history of creating buildings that foster drug use and prostitution. That is not acceptable in any neighborhood and folks living nearby should never be expected to just accept this as “City living”. Grand Pa, PLG is certainly not a neighborhood of “investment bankers”, but that doesn’t mean that we are any less concerned with the safety of our children and quality of life in our neighborhood.
wasder, those ladies gotta make their money too you know.
*rob*
Grandpa–given the track record of the people who own this building there is little reason to believe that this will be legitimate short term housing. All expectations are for this to be another one of their brothel-tels.
also you don’t live next to this thing.
There is a need for short term housing in this City. If not here, then where? Should all potential social ills be dumped on poorer neighborhoods or should we have a balance?
If you live in NYC it is about time you recognize that not everyone is an Investment Banker and that the poor were in this neighborhood long before any Brownstoners showed up.
This is just City living, get used to it or move to Greenwich which is likely more your style.
while this is true rob, no one likes getting mugged by a crackhead.
you do realize you can’t have a city without a few of these kinds of hotels/motels around, right? they really do serve a need, if might not be a need you enjoy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
nothing wrong with a little sketch.
*rob*