The Bossert Hotel's Past, Present and Possible Future

While the Jehovah’s Witnesses have plenty of valuable real estate holdings in Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights, one of the grandest is the Bossert Hotel on Montague Street, which the group took over in the early ’80s and re-opened as a hotel last year. The property is the subject of a Times article about how Jehovah’s Witnesses can stay in the hotel for free (though they’re encouraged to make some sort of donation) that also profiles a few residents who have lived there for decades and have been allowed to stay in their apartments. One tenant is paying $800 a month for a two-bedroom she’s lived in since 1956 and says she remembers “the female screams she heard when part of the building was a seedy single-room occupancy hotel.” There’s also a mention of how Brooklyn Heights might change when the Witnesses leave for upstate and a property like the Bossert becomes available for conversion: “Members who work full time for the organization in Brooklyn are not allowed to have children or dogs or cars with them because their work is all-encompassing…’Right now, we don’t have the schools capacity to support an influx of residents with children,’ Judy Stanton, the Brooklyn Heights Association’s executive director, said.”
Free Lodging in Old-Brooklyn Elegance [NY Times]