The city buildings department temporarily halted construction at a Hells Kitchen SRO where the owner is moving to evict rent-stabilized tenants so he can convert the building into a Times Square-adjacent hotel where rooms go for $220 a night.
Several tenants have already fled, but those who’ve stayed put have found themselves under siege, with the owner shutting down the communal bathrooms for months at a time, ripping up the central staircase and — in one case — having a resident who broke a lock to take a shower arrested.
In response to a May 28 article by The City Reporter’s detailing the chaotic events at 417 W. 44th St., inspectors with the Department of Buildings performed an audit on a work permit filed with the agency and found “multiple code and noncompliance issues that should have been caught by the applicant,” spokesman Andrew Rudansky said Friday.
They ordered all work under the permit halted immediately “to ensure the safety of lives and properties,” and required the owner to resolve all of the inspectors’ objections “or else the permit will be revoked,” Rudansky said.
Last fall, as the owner, 417 West 44th LLC, began filing eviction lawsuits against nearly all of the tenants, management called the cops on 59-year-old retired electrician Garratt Kennedy, who broke a lock on a shower because the facility on his floor had been blocked off by plywood. Kennedy was arrested on one count of criminal mischief, but the Manhattan District Attorney soon after dismissed the case.
Another city agency, the Department of Consumer & Worker Protection (DCWP) has also scheduled an inspection of the building in response to The City Reporter’s story noting that the owner is advertising the single-room occupancy building as a hotel where the 100-square-foot rooms rent for $220 a night. DCWP says the 18-unit building does not have a license to be a hotel, which are required to have at least 30 “sleeping rooms.”
Friday morning tenant Kennedy said the owner is still booking hotel guests non-stop.
“I let three people in the door this morning. They’re nice people,” he said of the tourists, “but they’re still doing it.”
The eviction lawsuits, meanwhile, continue to work their way through housing court. On Friday Helene Hartig, an attorney for tenant John Down, 66, said she intended to renew her request for the court to dismiss the case “due to the recent developments.”
The owner’s attorney, Howard Chun, said he would ask his client if he wanted to comment on the stop worker order. As of late Friday there had been no response.
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