Burst Pipe at Lefferts Hotel Floods Three Homes

A pipe burst on the second floor at the problem-plagued Lefferts Hotel in Clinton Hill causing major flooding yesterday evening according to a fire department spokesman. A tipster tells us that water also damaged a number of adjacent brownstones. Firemen were unable to shut off the vacant building’s water valve because the basement had flooded with seven feet of water and, says the tipster: “water was pouring out of windows and down the side of the building like a waterfall.” The Department of Environmental Protection had to be called to shut off the water main from the street. However, that took hours and in the meantime water spread to adjoining homes. Our tipster reports that neighboring 123 Lefferts had over four feet of water in the basement. The Lefferts Hotel has been a problem on this block for years as we wrote back in 2010 after the vacate order was issued: “Back in 2006, after an undercover operation exposed extensive drug and prostitution activities going on behind those shaded windows, the hotel somehow managed to maintain enough leverage to negotiate a deal that enabled them to stay open as long as they switched from being a short-stay hotel to a long-term residential one and installed some surveillance cameras.” Does anyone have any more information on this most recent calamity?

Lefferts Hotel Lockdown [Brownstoner] GMAP
Update on the Lefferts Hotel? [Brownstoner]
More on Hotel Deal, Shooting on Downing [Brownstoner]
Lefferts Hotel Cuts Deal with Tish James [Brownstoner]

---