Partners Split as Long-Delayed Hotel Bossert Applies for Liquor License

Is the long-delayed reopening of the once glamorous Hotel Bossert on the horizon?

A recent walk past the historic hotel at 98 Montague Street showed new greenery-filled planters tucked in front of the windows and a notice for a liquor license review tacked to the front door. The Community Board 2 hearing on the license is scheduled for May 1.

Meanwhile, Joseph Chetrit of Chetrit Group has bought out former partner David Bistricer of Clipper Equity, Bistricer told Brownstoner this morning. He declined to disclose the price. The building’s temporary certificate of occupancy expired in February 2019, building department records show.

The greenery could be temporary, perhaps related to the movie “The Photograph,” which has been filming in the neighborhood in recent weeks.

Built in 1909, the once-busy social hub and hotel is a survivor from the neighborhood’s days as a destination spot in the early 20th century. Its rooftop restaurant — named the Marine Roof — became a famous hangout spot starting in the 1920s. When the Dodgers won the World Series in 1955, the team celebrated there.

The glamorous hotel hit hard times before being bought in 1988 by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which used it for housing. The religious organization sold it to Bistricer and Chetrit for $81 million in 2012, who said they planned to renovate and open a boutique hotel. The opening of the hotel has been delayed several times.

In 2018, Chetrit and Bistricer were searching for a hotel operator and hoped to open that summer, a developer rep told Brooklyn Paper at the time. The last noticeable change on the exterior was the installation of a new awning in the summer of 2018.

Chetrit and Bistricer also partnered to buy the storied Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, which they sold in 2013. Chetrit Group also developed the hotel-apartment-retail complex at 500 Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg. Chetrit Group partner and sibling Meyer Chetrit owns the S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse in Red Hook, which recently burned in a fire the NYFD deemed “intentionally set.”

[Photos by Susan De Vries]

Related Stories

• Is Brooklyn Heights’ Long-Awaited Hotel Bossert Reboot Ready to Open?
• Hotel Bossert Gets a Spruce-Up With a New Awning
• Hotel Bossert: The Opulent Destination Hotel of Brooklyn Heights

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