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BY GABRIEL SANDOVAL
THE CITY
Citing “new evidence,” city
offi cials have withdrawn
their bid to deny an owner
of the legendary Chelsea Hotel
clearance to complete renovations
— allowing the transformation of
the weathered landmark into an
upscale hotel.
A few tenants who’ve lived for
years amid construction are questioning
whether the evidence is to
be trusted while others just want
to see the work get done.
“I’m waiting for it to get back
to normal,” said resident Mickie
Esemplare. “We’ve been sitting
too long like this.”
On Tuesday, an attorney for
the city’s housing agency wrote
a letter to a city administrative
judge to pull the case against
Ira Drukier, owner of the famed
Manhattan hotel on West 23rd
Street where iconic artists, writers
and musicians once resided.
Early last March, the city
Department of Housing Preservation
and Development argued
in a Manhattan courtroom that
unsafe conditions caused by
years of renovations amounted
to tenant harassment — and that
Drukier should not be granted
a “certifi cate of no harassment”
required to convert hotels into
permanent lodgings.
HPD acted after some tenants
sued Drukier and the city in 2019,
arguing that construction was illegal
because the Chelsea Hotel
lacked such a certifi cate. City law
asks owners converting hotels to
obtain the documents from the
city to help ensure that remaining
tenants aren’t disrupted during
reconstruction.
But the end of 2020 brought
a plot twist, via a document excavated
from city archives by a
consultant working for Drukier.
The record, dated 1997, shows
the Chelsea Hotel’s then-owner
had obtained an exemption to
the standard requirement for a
certifi cate, based on the building’s
status as a “luxury hotel.”
The city’s letter this week to
Judge Noel Garcia noted the
exemption “only came to HPD’s
attention and its counsel on December
30, 2020.”
The HPD attorney wrote that
City suddenly drops crusade to
block Chelsea Hotel upgrade
The Chelsea Hotel. PHOTO BY BEN FRACTENBERG/THE CITY
the agency’s own database, containing
such records only from
2006 onward, did not reveal the
exemption. Nor did the piece of
paper turn up when lawyers for
the owner fi led a freedom of
information request seeking such
records.
With the case closed, offi cial
orders halting construction have
been lifted, city Department of
Building records indicate.
Said Jennifer Recine, an attorney
for the hotel, in a statement
to THE CITY: “The owners are
relieved to be able to get back to
work after more than two years.”
Lawyer Casts Doubt
An attorney representing tenants
who’ve been battling the owners in
court declared HPD’s decision to
drop the case “highly suspicious.”
“After nearly a decade of abuse,
and years of providing documentation
of systemic harassment by
the owners of the Chelsea Hotel
to HPD, HPD took the fate of the
Chelsea hotel owners out of the
judge’s hands and threw in the
towel,” lawyer Leon Behar said in
a statement to THE CITY.
“HPD based their decision on
a document from 1997 that they
had no record of, knew nothing
about, and was incomplete; HPD
doesn’t even know if the document
is authentic or not.”
He is demanding an investigation
of what happened.
HPD was not immediately available
to comment Thursday night on
Behar’s remarks.
As THE CITY reported in 2019,
Drukier and co-owner Richard
Born were generous donors to
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s political
projects as he readied a run for
the Democratic nomination for
president, while their request for
a certifi cate of no harassment was
fi rst pending.
‘Sitting Too Long’
In a statement to THE CITY
earlier, a spokesperson for the
housing agency said the city doesn’t
tolerate tenant harassment.
“While HPD has withdrawn
this particular legal challenge,
New Yorkers should use every right
available to them to hold bad landlords
accountable,” said spokesperson
Anthony Proia. “That means
contacting HPD’s Anti-Harassment
Unit by calling 311, or the Mayor’s
Offi ce to Protect Tenants. Make no
mistake: if New Yorkers feel unsafe
at home, their city will stand up for
them.”
As the administrative hearing
continued in recent months
— moving to online sessions as
COVID took hold — tenants have
been at odds with one another over
the fate of their storied home, and
over HPD’s intervention.
While a small number of tenants
sued Drukier and his partners to
stop the conversion, many neighbors
have trained their furor on
HPD, blaming the agency for
holding up progress on the work
and leaving them living in an
unfi nished building.
Esemplare, a third-fl oor resident
of the Chelsea Hotel, told THE
CITY he felt relief when a neighbor
told him about HPD’s decision to
drop its case.
“My hope is that they can get
it done, so we won’t be living in
a construction area zone all the
time,” said Esemplare, 58, who’s
lived in the hotel since 2001.
Sybao Cheng-Wilson, 65, who
lives on the 10th fl oor with her
family, said 10 years of construction,
starting under previous owners,
have been awful.
She said she got sick and suffered
an infection that left her eyes
swollen and droopy. She ultimately
needed eye surgery.
“We’re dying to get this place
completed,” Cheng-Wilson said.
This story was fi rst published
on Jan. 8, 2021, by THE CITY,
an independent, nonprofi t news
outlet dedicated to hard-hitting
reporting that serves the people
of New York.
Schneps Media January 14, 2021 3