Tenants that live in the same building that housed the Umbrella Hotel
just off Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens have lived with a constant
barrage of criminal activity, culminating in a fatal shooting on New
Year’s Day that eventually led to the hotel’s closure.
However, the seven remaining tenants say they are now living in their rent-stabilized apartments without heat or hot water.
Rohini
Singh, a mother who has lived there since 2017, said the owners and
management company have abandoned the building, leaving tenants to fend
for themselves.
“We are on our own,” Singh said. “The temperature
in my apartment was at 47 degrees this week. I’ve put in two tickets at
311 for heat and hot water. No one has showed up at my apartment to
check anything.”
She added that the front doors are locked, which
means that mail cannot be delivered, while basic maintenance like trash
removal have completely vanished.
Jonathan Kastin, another
resident in the building, has heat, but no hot water. He has taken it
upon himself to serve as a make-shift tenants’ association leader.
“People
are worried, scared and they’re suffering,” Kastin said. “They’re
sitting there, living in their winter coats. I don’t know how they
manage it.”
He said a worker came to the building on Friday to fix his hot water, but refused to hear any other tenant complaints.
“I
said, ‘There are other tenants here and they are having heat and hot
water problems,’” Kastin said. “She’s like ‘I’m just responding to my
own ticket. Let them put in their own ticket.’ It was crazy. She just
didn’t want to know about anything.”
He also worried about the elevators in the building. Two out of the three do not work, with the third being unreliable.
“The next time the elevator breaks, those of us on the top floor will be stranded,” Kastin said.
A
notice posted in the building the day after the hotel closed advised
residents to begin looking for another apartment immediately.
“It’s
a hilarious notice, if it weren’t so awful” Kastin said. “They never
communicated about conditions in the building. They would never send us
emails, they would never talk to us.
6 comments:
If you want a horror show check out the reviews of a good chunk of the hotels north of Queens Plaza in Ravenswood.
Are they built to be homeless shelters for an area that does not have a real civic?
(well there are a few: one at the south end and one at the north end, but the south end gets generous funding for a community that has pretty much disappeared and the northern one specializes in dog and pony shows for the connected.)
hotels north of Queens Plaza in Ravenswood
What tourist, visitor would ever go there, not to mention stay there in a hotel?
What tourist, visitor would ever go there, not to mention stay there in a hotel?
The better question is what community board, elected official, civic group, would let something like that in their community?
What a shitshow. Can you fight it? Who knows. They've met with a terrible fate.
The better question is what community board, elected official, civic group, would let something like that in their community?
Very good question, but I think we all know the answer to the question.
Self explanatory if you ask me.
@Tommy
Don't complain, liberal mindless policies on display.
Post a Comment