Lefferts Hotel Lockdown
It never ceases to amaze how a business can be busted for drugs and/or other criminality and yet still be allowed to stay open. Such was the case with the Lefferts Hotel, which has plagued the southeast corner of Clinton Hill for years. Back in 2006, after an undercover operation exposed extensive drug and prostitution…
It never ceases to amaze how a business can be busted for drugs and/or other criminality and yet still be allowed to stay open. Such was the case with the Lefferts Hotel, which has plagued the southeast corner of Clinton Hill for years. 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. Seems that it’s hard to teach old dogs new tricks. The shadesters who run this place clearly aren’t the type of folks to follow rules, so it should come as no surprise that the DOB issued a Full Vacate Order a couple of weeks ago for numerous violations including fire code, egress and C of O issues; they had more than double the allowed number of units and were renting out rooms in the cellar. Time to put these folks out of business for good. The community should not have to put up with this crap in our backyard! Update: According to a post on The Forum, the Lefferts’ sister hotel at 211 Schermerhorn Street has also been hit with a Full Vacate Order.
Update on the Lefferts Hotel? [Brownstoner] GMAP
More on Hotel Deal, Shooting on Downing [Brownstoner]
Lefferts Hotel Cuts Deal with Tish James [Brownstoner]
I live on the same block as the so-called “hotel” on 12th Street. Sleazebags own that place but we do not see any hookers or drug activity–used to be a problem, apparently, before my time.
Isnt the owner of this and the other properties an Hasidic Jewish male? Then obviously they bought someone’s vote.
Actually cleaning up this hotel has nothing to do with gentrification and everything to do with the families who live on this block and have for a long time deserving a better quality of life. They have been putting up with this hotel for years and years and have been complaining about it forever and it seems finally somewhere someone is listening to them. The prostitution and associated drug usage that takes place in this establishment and the adjacent park is directly related to abuse and violence against women and is abhorred by all intelligent people in this nabe. It always has been. Allowing the hotel to stay open while opening the shelter for abused women around the corner was a slap in the face to all of those victims seeking shelter there. The fact that the owner tries to hide behind the “holocaust survivor” shield as a reason for excusing it all is an even bigger disgrace to those that suffered and died during those times. He is scum.
I suggest all you down with the hood wannabes from Art School get down to that hotel Friday night for the underground needle exchange program and free HIV giveaway and see how ‘cool’ it is. Just try not to piss your pants when you get attacked walking past the adjacent unlocked children’s park by some crackhead who holds a dirty needle to your neck. Like Brownstoner said, these families don’t need to have their sons and daughters witness this on a 24/7 basis.
quote:
I’d rather have this place around than another Nero Doro(expensive italian coffee shop on Classon.)
AMEN!! The hookers that come out of the Lefferts Hotel look cleaner than most of the hipsters that have moved into the ‘hood.
This hotel was one of the few reasons that my block has been able to keep it halfway real as the gentrification encroaches. I mean sure, clean up the crack in the neighborhood, but don’t replace it with artisanal fucking gelato and mod pet stores. PLEASE.
I read this woman’s review on Brooklyn City search.. Pretty hilarious, as long as it was not me.Apparently, she was out of town and chose this place to stay sight unseen.
http://brooklyn.citysearch.com/profile/7394222/brooklyn_ny/princess_lefferts_hotel.html
Its not easy living near a place like this, we did a couple of years ago, and things can get pretty bad when you startle a junkie sorting through your garbage or someone really high starts tripping…
The same owner runs the Princess Hotel on Schermerhorn next to the A/C stop. It was padlocked a couple weeks ago with a full-vacate order posted (as well as a hand-written sign that they were closed for renovations…..sure). Anyone know if their Park Slope “hotel” on 12th St. met the same fate?
the difference here, gang, is obvious
this place drives the neighbors crazy, causes collateral damage from crime, noise from cars, looks like hell
ask the people who live on the surrounding blocks all else is theory
By Brownstones Half Off on April 12, 2010 12:13 PM
“It never ceases to amaze how a business can be busted for drugs and/or other criminality and yet still be allowed to stay open.”
Think Wall Street.
***Bid half off peak comps***
I admit to engaging in certain illegal activities. I also drink quite a bit. But only quality stufff in both regards.