Development soon to begin at the Rikers next door

Queens Chronicle 

The Adams administration has awarded a $3.9 billion contract to design and build the new Queens community jail.

The city’s Department of Design and Construction has chosen the Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corp. of Elmont, LI, for the project. In a related matter, the DDC awarded a $2.9 billion contract for the new Bronx jail.

In an email, a DDC spokesman said construction on the Queens facility will start in August.  It will have a maximum height of 195 feet, and will total 764,350 square feet. Construction is scheduled to begin in August. It will be built behind the Queens Criminal Courthouse, on Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens. Work on adjacent buildings and a nearby parking garage already are well underway.

The DDC email stressed while the contract with DeMatteis runs through 2031, that does not mean construction will take that long; and that the city will work with the firm to find some time savings.

The city by law is required to shut down Rikers Island as a jail by 2027, though Mayor Adams and numerous other public officials have expressed concern over whether it will be accomplished on time. New jails in each borough except Staten Island are slated to have space for just over 4,000 inmates. The present population of Rikers is about 6,000.

The jail will have 1,040 beds. Queens is the only site for female detainees and will have 590 beds for men and 450 for women. It will require duplicate admission and transport areas, visiting areas, health services, cafeteria and elevators. It also will have a nursing area for women. All that, the DDC said, accounts for the higher cost.

The DOT's spite delineators

 

 Queens Chronicle

When a loyal reader wrote us about new posts clogging up traffic crossing Queens Boulevard where 83rd and Hoover avenues meet, above, the Chronicle went to the scene.

The posts are set too far into the street, the resident wrote, preventing cars headed straight across the boulevard from going around those that have to stop to make a left. Thus traffic on 83rd Avenue, second photo, is getting backed up all the way to Kew Gardens Road, making things more dangerous for children going to PS 99 [see Letters to the Editor].

The delineators, which are popping up all over, are meant to protect pedestrians and calm traffic. But the ones on the boulevard at 83rd and Hoover take up space that had been actively used by cars, and the writer suggested the city Department of Transportation go back to the drawing board.

Then on Tuesday morning as the snow fell, at least one motorist drove right over the crosswalk to get around them — right in front of the courthouse, no less.

Shown the top photo, a city Department of Transportation spokesman said via email, “Last year New York City had the second fewest pedestrian fatalities on record thanks to street improvements that prioritize safety. Anyone who drives in a crosswalk or other pedestrian space should be ashamed and held accountable for endangering others.”

 

"Affordable housing" lottery is open for S%!thole building in Kew Gardens

 

QNS 

Applications are open for an “affordable apartment” at 81-07 Kew Gardens Rd.

Rendering courtesy of NYC Connect

It’s pitched as an affordable apartment in Queens, yet the rent for a one-bedroom is $3,140 a month.

NYC Housing Connect has opened a lottery for 16 “affordable apartments” inside a new 8-story, 51-unit development in Kew Gardens.

The building, located at 81-07 Kew Gardens Rd., has been developed by FBL Development, and includes a range of amenities, such as a gym and a rooftop terrace.

The units are designated for residents whose income falls within 130% of the area median income (AMI). The range accommodates potential tenants with incomes spanning from $107,658 to $198,250, depending on family size.

There are 11 one-bedroom apartments on offer through the lottery, which will rent for $3,140 and are available for those with an income ranging from $107,658 to $165,230.

There are also five two-bedroom apartments on offer with a monthly rent of $3,753. They are open to individuals and families with incomes ranging from $128,675 to $198,250.

The apartments are being touted as offering modern conveniences, such as a dishwasher, washers and dryers within the units, and recessed lighting. The kitchen areas are also equipped with appliances and finishes from reputable brands.

Applicants have until Jan. 5, 2024

 Wow,. When I rode by this last month it had 5 stop work orders on it. Guess it got the DMO treatment for the "City of Yes"

 

Highway Star

 

 QNS

Generations of motorists in central Queens would scoff at the notion of “award” being used in the same sentence as Kew Gardens Interchange, but this is now true. Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Aug. 4 that the $937 million Kew Gardens Interchange reconstruction project that was completed by the State Department of Transportation last winter was recognized with an award at the 2023 America’s Transportation Awards competition.

The Kew Gardens Interchange project was named a winner of the Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials region in the “Best Use of Technology & Innovation, Large Project” category. This year, 36 state transportation departments participated in the competition, nominating 81 total projects.

“The Department of Transportation’s Kew Gardens Interchange project was a massive undertaking that utilized innovation and technology to improve the transportation infrastructure in Queens, all while reducing bottlenecks and helping keep traffic moving,” Hochul said. “To be recognized on a national level for this work is a testament to our efforts to make the lives of New Yorkers better.”

The America’s Transportation Awards competition recognizes the projects and programs that make their communities better places to live, work and play. Now in its 16th year, the awards help to showcase why transportation infrastructure is so vital and, as the drivers who spent a good portion of their lives trapped in bottlenecks on the Interchange can attest, the reconstruction project that was nearly four decades in the making was indeed vital.

The award-winning project revamped one of the metropolitan area’s most heavily traveled corridors, creating faster travel times, safer merging and exiting, and more reliable connections for the hundreds of thousands of commuters, travelers, and local businesses who use it daily to reach JFK and LaGuardia airports and other key destinations throughout the region.

 

LIRR Proposing to End Essential Link from Kew Gardens to Forest Hills

Over this past summer, the Long Island Railroad & the Metropolitan Transit Authority, announced that the LIRR East Coast Corridor, with service to the new Madison Station Platform at Grand Central Terminal, will commence by the end of this year - winter 2022.

Initially this was great news and that which LIRR commuters have been awaiting to hear for two decades. Unfortunately for us, with the release of the LIRR's proposed new train schedules for service, we now see that the LIRR-MTA is actually taking away vital service between Kew Gardens and Forest Hills.

 

 

 

 

 

Click here to view the draft LIRR schedule for Kew Gardens and Forest Hills, which eliminates all train stops between the two, in either direction! Thus one would no longer be able to take the train at Kew Gardens and get off at Forest Hills, and vice versa. However, this two-minute ride provides a CRITICAL LINK between our two communities which MUST BE MAINTAINED.

The MTA & LIRR want to hear from communities how they feel about the new schedule. This is our chance to tell them!

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO COMMENT AND LET THE LIRR-MTA KNOW THAT SERVICE BETWEEN KEW GARDENS & FOREST HILLS IS ESSENTIAL TO US AND MUST BE RETURNED TO THE SCHEDULE.

IN DETAIL HERE'S WHY:

1. This link between the two stations enables Kew Gardens residents, especially the elderly, young families and the differently abled, to reach quickly and easily healthcare facilities and businesses unavailable in Kew Gardens.

Forest Hills is the hub for many medical facilities, especially ones that are UNAVAILABLE in Kew Gardens, e.g, specialized medical offices, medical labs, radiology services, hospital, clinics etc. In addition, the Kew Gardens community both needs and supports the many Forest Hills small businesses which have no counterpart in Kew Gardens. 

                                                                                               

2.  Given the new alternate Manhattan destinations, i.e., Penn Station and Grand Central, the destination link between Kew Gardens & Forest Hills helps to move traffic. For example, if you miss the KG train to the Eastside, you may be able to switch at Forest Hills for their next train to the East side, etc. and arrive in good time.      

 

3.  Such links between stations/communities continue to exist on many, if not all other LIRR lines - just not for Kew Gardens. Moreover, those using LIRR to access those local stations even have a special reduced fare, while Kew Gardens riders pay the full fare (as much as $6.50) to just Forest Hills, the same as if they were going to Manhattan or the Hamptons.  In just one example, the two-minute ride between Manhasset and Plandome LIRR stations, remains on the new schedule, costs seniors and the disabled $1.50, regular-fare payers also pay just a small percent of the final destination fare to and from Manhattan.

 

The link between Kew Gardens and Forest Hills is critical to our community, and now especially with the stifling of Queens Blvd for local motorist and public buses with under utilized bike lanes, the underground Subway stations in constant disarray - the massive jail structure and all the chaotic traffic it will bring, looming heavy - it is essential that the LIRR link between our two, interdependent neighborhood eco-systems, must be maintained.

Thank you.

Sylvia Hack

Biking to work on Queens Boulevard

It was bike to work day Friday so I thought I would see if other riders would be making the trek on the longest bike lane in Queens. Considering how perfect the weather was, very little decided to participate. Which is how it is every day on this route.

Kew Gardens tower jail already is a pain in the ass

 

NY Post

New York City is ramping up construction of a new jail in Queens as part of its plan to phase out problem-plagued Rikers Island — sparking outrage from residents, The Post has learned.

The presence of a lockup became more tangible for Kew Gardens locals recently when the Department of Design and Construction sent out a notice that it was restricting access to the area around Queens Borough Hall to lay the groundwork for the jail.

“We are upgrading the infrastructure in your community. These temporary access restrictions are necessary to facilitate preliminary work for the offset of a 48” Trunk Water Main for the Queens Borough Based Jail in the above-mentioned location,” the DDC said.

The community bulletin was a gut punch for many residents who said they don’t want their neighborhood to house accused criminals.

“I oppose the jail. It’s simply a safety issue,” said 31-year-old neighbor Michael Brocking.

Yan Lin, a mother of three boys ages 7 to 14, added: “We don’t need the criminal element around here.”

  don’t like the jail. We have a good community. I love this community,” the concerned mom said.

Howard Cohn, a 75-year-old retired school teacher, said, “I don’t want to be living next to criminals.”

“A jail is going to lower the property values here,” he added.

Mayor Eric Adams had promised to deliver on former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $8.3 billion plan to shutter Rikers Island’s troubled jail complex and replace it with four smaller, more humane high-rise lockups in each of the city’s boroughs but Staten Island.

Update:

This was found at one of the borough tower jails development site in Chinatown. The DDC is being quite defiantly defensive about what they are doing.

City construction notice signs are now editorialized… pic.twitter.com/oxFPFiiEx3

— Reza Chowdhury (@RezaC1) May 16, 2022

Pimp raped and forced teenage girl to sell her body at the Umbrella Hotel

 

Queens Post 

A Brooklyn man who trafficked a 16-year-old girl across Queens for sex—including at the now shuttered Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens—has pleaded guilty to an array of sex crimes and is expected to be sentenced to eight years in prison.

Jordan Adderley, 32, pleaded guilty Tuesday to sex trafficking of a child, sex trafficking, rape in the third degree and other crimes for manipulating a 16-year-old runaway to perform sex acts for money.

According to court records, Adderley met the victim in September 2020 and rented a room at the Hillcrest Hotel in Queens where he taught her how to make money by selling her body for sex. He also had intercourse and oral sex with the girl at the hotel.

Adderley, according to the authorities, drove the teen to various hotels in September and October 2020 to meet strangers who would pay for sex.

He was busted by an undercover NYPD unit while prostituting the teen at the now-defunct Umbrella Hotel, which was located at 124-18 Queens Blvd. Cops found him in the parking lot waiting for the victim. When officers nabbed him, he had dozens of glassines of cocaine in his possession.

“No one can undo the trauma inflicted upon this young teenager by this defendant’s callous actions, but as a result of his guilty plea, secured by my Office, the defendant will serve prison time and be held accountable for these egregious crimes,” said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz in a statement.

Pedestrians fears about intersection gets pedestrian response by the D.O.T.

 

QNS

Several residents of the Kew Gardens and Forest Hills communities joined Community Board 9 members on April 14 at Park Lane and Union Turnpike to demand that the Department of Transportation (DOT) make the intersection safer for pedestrians to cross.

According to Community Board 9 District Manager James McClelland, the community submitted a request to the DOT last November asking for either the timing of the traffic lights to be changed or for the installation of a leading pedestrian interval. The latter would give the green light to pedestrians to cross several seconds before parallel traffic, allowing for extra time to make those who are crossing appear more visible to turning drivers. However, the request was struck down by the DOT last March.

McClelland said the DOT denied the request out of fear that it would’ve further backed up traffic. However, several residents doubted that excuse, citing a lack of traffic buildup on Union Turnpike.

 

Kew Gardens hotel New Year's Day murder suspect caught

 

 QNS

A Bronx teenager was indicted by a Queens grand jury for murder and related charges in the New Year’s Eve fatal shooting of a Rosedale man, and wounding two other victims, outside the Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.

Richard Swygert, 19, was arraigned Monday before Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant on a seven-count indictment charging him with murder, two counts of attempted murder, assault and possession of a weapon in what was the first murder in the city of 2021.

The fatal shooting outraged the Kew Gardens community who demanded the hotel’s closure claiming the Umbrella had been a hotbed of criminal activities, including prostitution, drug dealing and human trafficking. Mayor Bill de Blasio on Jan. 5 said he would move to shut down the hotel that had also received over a dozen violations last year.

According to the charges, Swygert allegedly pulled out a gun after a disagreement between two groups of revelers celebrating New Year’s Eve at the now-shuttered Umbrella Hotel on 82nd Avenue and Queens Boulevard.

At around 1 a.m. on the morning of Jan.1, Swygert allegedly shot 20-year-old Robert Williams, a standout athlete who was just one day shy of his 21st birthday, and two other men. Williams died at the scene and the other two victims were taken to area hospitals for medical treatment.

“The defendant’s alleged actions led to the first homicide in New York City this year,” Katz said. “Senseless shootings have brought grief and heartache to far too many families in our neighborhoods. My office will continue to work with our law enforcement and community partners to stop the proliferation of guns in Queens and to hold accountable perpetrators of gun violence.”

Women's Plaza needs a shave

 NY Post

You’re sneezing for a good cause.

Outrage over a “sexist” statue in Queens prompted its removal and a nearly $1 million project that transformed its base into a planter — but neglect has led to a bumper crop of allergy-causing ragweed right outside Borough Hall.

The centerpiece of the 1922 monument “Triumph of Civic Virtue” — a nude man with a sword standing over two female figures representing vice and corruption — was exiled to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery nearly a decade ago.

The move came in response to complaints of sexism from activists and pols, including since-disgraced, then-US Rep. Anthony Weiner, who proposed selling the 17-foot, white marble statue on Craigslist.

But following the statue’s removal, the fountain on which it stood fell into disrepair until the city spent $960,000 to restore its stonework and add lighting and benches to create the “Women’s Plaza in Queens” in 2017.

The fountain was also turned into a planter.

At the time, former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman — who had called for the statue’s removal while in office — said the renovation work created “a beautiful space at Borough Hall where people can relax and women will now be celebrated rather than denigrated.”

But since then, it’s again suffered from a lack of upkeep that includes ragweed growing in the former fountain.

Borough President Donovan Richards on Monday called the conditions “shameful” and said he wanted to finally replace the original statue with a new one.

 

Better not shout you better not cry you better not pout I'm telling you why, the tower prison is coming to town

 

Queens Post

Workers have broken ground on a community space and parking garage near Queens Borough Hall — the first major step in the construction of a borough-based jail in Kew Gardens, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday.

The new facility, which will be 105 feet tall, will include a 25,000-square-foot multi-purpose community space and more than 600 public parking spots.

The facility is being built adjacent to the future site of a 195-foot-tall jail — where the decommissioned Queens Detention Complex at 182-02 82nd Ave. is located. The detention facility will be demolished while the garage is being built.

The garage/ community space building will be erected on the west side of an existing parking lot at Union Turnpike between 126th Street and 132nd Street. The future 886-bed jail will eventually span both the site of the former Queens Detention Complex and the east side of the parking lot.

However, the east side of the lot, with 140 parking spots, will remain open for public usage during construction of the parking garage — which is expected to be completed in early 2023.

The facility is being built ahead of the new jail — which earlier proposals slated design and construction to begin in 2023. 

 The future jail is part of the city’s larger $8.3 billion plan to close the jails on Rikers Island by 2026 and replace them with four smaller jails in every borough but Staten Island.

“Today we move one huge step closer to our goal of a fairer and more equitable jail system for all New Yorkers,” de Blasio said in a statement. “Closing Rikers Island will make our city stronger and more just, and I’m proud to deliver a system that better reflects this city’s values.”

Borough Hall address honors illegal lobbying practitioner

From the Forest Hills Post:

The entrance to Borough Hall has been adorned with a new address to greet visitors for years to come.

Queens Borough Hall has been given a new vanity address in honor of late Queens Borough President Claire Shulman.

The address of the Kew Gardens building, where Shulman served as the borough’s first female borough president for 16 years, was designated “One Claire Shulman Way.”

They forgot to mention this tidbit in Claire's bio. In related news, there is now a push to name the proposed Kew Gardens jail after Donald Manes, Claire's mentor. (J/K, but would it surprise you?)

The Lefferts Blvd. bridge isn't over for small businesses

 

 QNS

Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal and Senator Leroy Comrie on Tuesday, March 30, announced passage of their legislation to protect the character of the Lefferts Boulevard bridge amidst restoration, and to give protections to existing small businesses atop the structure. 

“The Lefferts Boulevard bridge serves as both a historic landmark and a community hub for Kew Gardens,” Rosenthal said. “Over decades, the diverse small businesses along this corridor have been entrenched in the civic and cultural life of our neighborhood. To destroy their livelihoods without cause during a pandemic is both unconscionable and preventable. I am grateful for the partnership of Senator Comrie and all the advocates who worked to bring this issue the attention it deserves.”

Since the late 1920s the Kew Gardens Lefferts Boulevard bridge over the Long Island Rail Road has been home to mom-and-pop stores that give the town its character and serve the shopping needs of the urban village in the city. 

In October 2020, the MTA, which owns the property, announced that the compromised structural integrity of the storefronts atop the bridge would require major capital investments. The MTA introduced a request for proposal (RFP) for a new master leaseholder to manage the stores on the Lefferts Boulevard bridge with no provisions for existing tenants. 

According to Save The Kew Gardens Coalition, a broad-based group of civic and resident organizations and Kew Gardens businesses, the RFP also specifically stated that the stores will be delivered empty. Existing small mom-and-pop stores who have served the community for over 20 years and are already hit hard by the pandemic would be forced to close under these conditions. 

To save the stores which are central to the neighborhood’s economic life, Kew Gardens community organizations partnered with the Mutual Housing Association of New York (MHANY), a nonprofit housing and commercial property development organization, to submit a unique response to the MTA’s RFP.

“The Lefferts Boulevard Bridge has suffered from years of MTA mismanagement. Because of this neglect, approximately $11 million in capital improvements will be required for the buildings, and an additional $5.5 million will be necessary to repair structural work on the bridge,” the organizations said in a petition that was shared in January. “The MTA expects the master lessee to bear the considerable cost burden of these repairs even after the city has given money to the MTA in the past to make repairs to this structure.”

City prioritizing new Queens jail despite pandemic and lawsuits

To all KGCA members with email addresses on file and Friends of KGCA:

Today we were apprised of the attached plans and drawings prepared by the NY City Department of Design and Construction ("DDC") for the proposed Kew Gardens Jail Parking Garage and Community Space. They are to be presented by DDC via Internet to Community Board 9's Land Use Committee for discussion (via Internet) Thursday evening, March 25.

Aside from confirming that the City is proceeding with the multi-billion dollar, four-borough jails project -- even while the various court cases contesting the project are still pending -- they came as a sickening surprise. These plans had NO community input and they are very different and far removed from those concepts described or implied during previous discussions over the last two years. In this they are like the plans for the jail project itself -- developed in secret by a small group in the Mayor's office with no input from any affected community or the Community Board and let loose upon us as a done deal.

We are not even sure what the City expects from this meeting -- consent, feedback or is it just another procedural box to be checked off and any input from the Community will be irrelevant?

To avail yourself of the DDC presentation, open the attachment below.

Sincerely,

Dominick Pistone, President, KGCA
Murray Berger, Executive Chairman, KGCA

Kew Gardens jail parking lot and community space by queenscrapper on Scribd

The forgotten rent-stabilized residents of the sleazy Kew Gardens Hotel

 

Queens Ledger

 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.

Homeowner hangs banner condeming Joe Biden socialism

 

 

LIC Post

A local candidate for city council has taken issue with a large banner hanging in front of a house in Kew Gardens that claims Joe Biden’s inauguration marked the beginning of socialism.

Aleda Gagarin, who is running as a progressive to represent District 29, came across the banner at 82-28 Abingdon Rd. Sunday and posted an image of the house and the sign to Twitter.

The banner reads: “January 20, 2021, Death of Democracy, The Beginning of Socialism.” The date marks the day Joe Biden was sworn into office as the 46th President of the United States.

The banner also features a hammer and sickle as well as an image of Lady Liberty crouched over with her hands in her face. The banner drapes between two flag poles in the middle of the front garden that each fly the USA flag.

“It’s just so silly, the person is clearly misunderstood,” Gagarin told the Queens Post. “Joe Biden is certainly not a socialist.”

Gagarin noted that Biden doesn’t even support universal healthcare.

“The sign also uses communist imagery that shows a clear lack of understanding,” she added.

Michael Ricatto, who owns the house and put up the banner, disputed Gagarin’s claims and said he knows exactly what he is talking about. Biden’s policies are socialist, he said, and all hardworking taxpayers will have to pay more due to his left-wing policies.

Ridgewood EMS is coming to town

 

Queens Chronicle

The Ridgewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps recently announced that its plan for 2021 involves extending community-based volunteer EMS services to Woodhaven, Richmond Hill and Kew Gardens.

In December, the RVAC submitted a formal application of area expansion with the New York City Regional Emergency Medical Services Council to provide services into those communities.

A few years ago, the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Corps lost its right to operate due to administrative troubles, according to Kevin Mahoney, RVAC board vice-chairman. Eager to resume coverage, the board of the defunct South Queens volunteer group reached out to the RVAC to partner and get back up and running under the Ridgewood banner.

“It’s easy for us to put in an expansion as opposed for them to start over as a new ambulance service,” said Mahoney.

Mahoney said the group is hoping to get the expansion on the agenda in a February NYC REMSCO meeting, when the body would vote on it. If approved, the application would then head over to the state.

The move comes after a series of successful mergers for the ambulance corps.

In 2019, RVAC, which serves parts of Brooklyn as well as Queens, incorporated the Glendale VAC and Middle Village VAC. According to a press release the group sent out, the mergers have allowed it to centralize its clinical services and operational efficiency. The three entities now serve together as one unified EMS service.

The mergers have reinvigorated the RVAC’s volunteerism and allowed a stronger response to the pandemic, it said.

Front desk worker of sleazy Kew Gardens hotel is arrested

 

 

QNS

The front desk supervisor of a troublesome Kew Gardens hotel home to a slew of shootings and sex trafficking charges in the past year, was arrested on Monday, Jan. 11, after an investigation by the Queens District Attorney’s Office.

Gulshan Gandhi, the front desk supervisor at the Umbrella Hotel, located at 124-18 Queens Blvd., faces two counts of criminal nuisance in the second degree, Katz said. In his role as front desk supervisor Gandhi, 68, created “conditions that endangered the safety and health of hotel guests and the community at large,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.

The infamous hotel has been the scorn of residents and local elected officials for the past year. 

 The four men involved in the street killing are still on the loose.

City finally orders closing of sleazy Kew Gardens hotel following murder and pandemic parties

 

 

    NY Post 

A notorious Queens hotel that was the scene of the city’s first shooting homicide on New Year’s morning — and which has long been considered a danger and nuisance by neighbors — has closed.

The Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens Friday night had “hotel closed” signs posted at the lobby entrance, informing neighbors and potential customers that it is no longer in business.

The hotel — at Queens Boulevard and 82nd Avenue — is located across from Borough Hall and near the Queens courthouse.

After months of complaints, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday he was moving to shut the hotel after a triple shooting early New Year’s morning left 20-year-old Robert Williams dead and two others injured and hospitalized.

Neighbors filed more than 100 complaints to authorities and local lawmakers, saying the hotel had become a hub for drugs, prostitution and violence.

They also complained the hotel housed illegal clubs set up by partygoers who rented rooms at cheap rates during the pandemic.

A shooting took place at the Umbrella over the summer; the local 102 Pct. had been stationed outside virtually 24/7 for months.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and local legislators had joined neighbors in calling for the hotel to be shut down.