Update on the Lefferts Hotel?
We spent a lot of time talking about the problem-ridden Lefferts Hotel last summer and we haven’t heard much talk in the neighborhood since. According to one commenter In last week’s discussion of the near-by Broken Angel, things have not improved: The stipulation agreement entered into by the City and the Prince Hotel Group is…
We spent a lot of time talking about the problem-ridden Lefferts Hotel last summer and we haven’t heard much talk in the neighborhood since. According to one commenter In last week’s discussion of the near-by Broken Angel, things have not improved:
The stipulation agreement entered into by the City and the Prince Hotel Group is killing the Lefferts Hotel; he can’t make any money as a legitimate business concern. The place is dead and appears on the brink of shutting down. At the same time, property values are soaring all around the hotel and this section of Clinton Hill. If there was every a good time to get Mr. Fried to sell this beautiful building it is now.
What can other residents of Lefferts Place tell us about recent problems with the hotel? Why wouldn’t the owner, Moses Fried, be dying to sell? He could make a lot of dough and free himself of numerous headaches.
More Details on the Broken Angel Project [Brownstoner] GMAP
More on Hotel Deal, Shooting on Downing [Brownstoner]
Lefferts Hotel Cuts Deal with Tish James [Brownstoner]
Putnam-denizen, your questions were answered long ago, at 9:32.
Again, I await alternative solutions. I am supposed to allow a prostitute to turn a trick in a bread van at 6:30 am in front of my house? I guess it isn’t that hard to go line by line through my thoughts and put a spin on it. I just don’t get what your vision of activism is, “11:03.” Are you saying drugs should be legal and regulated (okay, I am willing to try that out). Are you saying prostitution should be legal and regulated (that is okay too by me). But condoms on the sidewalk (at least they are having safer sex) is not okay.
It seems to me by your argument I shouldn’t turn my light on at night, because it might push a mugger to another block.
At this point I am not sure “we people” need to be more creative. More active, more vigilant, more willing to add social services and not just rely upon policing – sure.
But again, as I read this thread, I don’t see a single other suggestion for addressing these kinds of problems. I am serious. Share. Don’t just criticize.
(or is this just a joke to you? It isn’t to me and my neighbors.)
11:03 Why are you blogging? Shouldnt you be collecting from your bitches or slinging your rock or something? Getting some new rims?
Your assumptions that only white folks want to have high property values and run the scum out of the neighborhood are ignorant.
Cleaning up your block is not passing the buck. It’s a tired argument.
Your simple like Bush. Go get your thug on so you can keep our block shitty so no one will call the cops on you
It’s so clear that the Greed Monsters/Community Rapists at the Prince Hotel Group are feeling some serious pressure. So much that they are now blogging on Brownstoner to defend their disgusting flophouse. If you can’t stand the heat then get out of the kitchen. Sell the damn building and move on.
If it’s truly your heart’s desire to own and operate a hooker hotel then why not open up a flophouse in Gravesend near your offices on Avenue J. This way the hookers can shower at Moses Fried’s house during their lunch breaks.
Burn down the methadone clinic, The Lefferts Place Hotel, and The Pleasant Stay.
Actual advice from an actual cop on how to improve the neighborhood. Oh, if I only had the balls. Burn, Baby, Burn
I think I should have been taking drugs when I read this thread. All the anonymous posting made it very hard to follow – especially when it was anonymous cursing at anonymous! I hope the folks on Lefferts Place have accomplished a real improvement of their block. Some folks in my neck of the woods – Putnam Avenue – have spoken of creating our own block association to build upon the victories on Lefferts. The problem is that Putnam is really still underpopulated, and thus vulnerable. I know some of the larger neighborhood associations – Society for Clinton Hill, Fort Greene Association – have worked in the past to help start up block associations. I imagine that PCC does similar work. Obviously the building of larger efforts to reduce the opportunities for unfettered drug dealing and prostitution will reduce the chance of it just being moved from one block to another. I certainly saw the downside of that this summer when the police activity on Grand moved the addicts over to Irving (thanks to Ben the drug dealer in the red house about three doors down from Putnam on the east side of the street).
I am still at a loss to understand the point of criticizing the Lefferts Place efforts to use legal measures to close down a facilitator of illegal activity. While of course anyone is able to post their opinion without offering other solutions, it is not to me a very persuasive argument. (Nor, for that matter “shut your pie hole”!) Cocaine use (unlike heroin use) is not steady, and is dependent on ease of access. Similarly the reduction of venues for open prostitution doesn’t mean that the prostitutes necessarily end up somewhere else. Increasing the opportunity cost of these activities reduces their prevalence. The answer is more, and coordinated, efforts like that on Lefferts. Of course there are some who believe open drug sales etc are an innoculation against an increase in property values or a change in community make-up. Some of those people may be long term residents fearful of being driven out by upper class and white newcomers. Some of those people may in fact be “hipsters” who enjoy seeing black folks perform for them in their fantasies of an “authentic” New York neighborhood.
I would love if the person who keeps insisting that closing the hotel and cracking (no pun) down on crime will just move it to somewhere else.
My point about NYC in 1993 is that a lot of areas have been cleaned up and its not like that crime just moved.
It is possible for a neighborhood to get better, then the next area gets better.
Fort Greene used to have a lot of the same problems. Now its better, does that mean Bed-Stuy has gotten worse?
Absolutly not.
Also, I dont adhere to the idea that if theres going to be crime on my block I better just get used to it because otherwise Im just sending it somewhere else.
I really dont see it being a race issue either. The block association has been here longer than the whites and the whites havnt really added too much. Its a primarily black block and its not like it was just a shithole till us rednecks from alabama came and showed blacks how to live clean.
Final Score:
Lefferts Activist 34
Hooker Hotel Schiller 0
That was pure entertainment!
9:32AM, I’m actively engaged in all of the above and so are most of the lcoal activists who fought to clean up the Lefferts Hotel. Drug abuse counseling and prevention? I do it! Teen prostitution prevention? I do it! Employment programs for ex-cons? I do it! I could go on if you like but I think that you’re geting the picture. I’ve been involved in this community for the past twenty five years. Please don’t lecture me on issues of personal and community responsibility. Now lets agree to disagree and move on.