By the point the police took him away, Garratt Kennedy had already been at warfare for months along with his landlord, a brand new proprietor who was making an attempt to show the gritty Hell’s Kitchen SRO Kennedy referred to as dwelling right into a slick Occasions Sq. lodge.
Kennedy is 59 and had lived in his cramped, 100-square-foot, rent-stabilized SRO room for greater than 25 years when the proprietor started tearing the place up, ripping out the staircase and blocking entry to a shared toilet on his flooring. Which was why he says he needed to break the lock on a bathe room a flooring beneath to wash.
The following morning the police arrived. The owner accused him of breaking the lock “with a hammer,” which “brought on items of the doorframe to chip off.” Kennedy was charged with legal mischief.
“That Saturday they handcuffed me and introduced me down the steps, the entire 9 yards,” he recalled. “I needed to go to Midtown North precinct. They put me in a cell, then they let me go.”
Kennedy’s Nov. 28 arrest was a small engagement within the raging warfare over actual property and inexpensive housing in New York. Single-room occupancy residences — the place residents share frequent loos in alternate for lower-cost housing — are probably the most threatened type of inexpensive housing within the metropolis. Within the early twentieth Century, New York had an estimated 100,000 SRO models; at the moment, it’s round 30,000.
Weeks after Kennedy’s arraignment, his lawyer, Kathy Huang, bought the cost dismissed, however the landlord quickly moved to evict him, alleging he was two months behind on hire.
Kennedy says he paid his hire — as he has because the constructing modified house owners in 2024 — with cash orders, whereas the owner says it hasn’t obtained them. A decide lately postponed the eviction request, ordering Kennedy to offer proof of the funds.
The retired electrician’s eviction case is one among 9 lawsuits the proprietor has filed in opposition to SRO tenants within the constructing over the past 12 months; a number of packed up and left. As of final week, 12 of the property’s 18 rooms had been transformed to lodge rooms, their key locks transformed to code pads.
The four-story tenement at 417 West forty fourth St. is a relic of a bygone age when Hell’s Kitchen was dwelling to tons of of SROs and the hire went for tons of slightly than 1000’s of {dollars} a month. Again within the day, the Irish-American gangsters the Westies claimed Hell’s Kitchen as their very own, as did Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the long run statesman and U.S. Senator who grew up there.
These gritty streets have slowly receded, reworked by financial forces. Occasions Sq.’s popularity as a haven for mob-controlled porno theaters was changed by Disney-oriented leisure on forty second Road that’s attracted a brand new wave of family-oriented vacationers searching for lodge rooms in Manhattan’s new sizzling locale.
Final 12 months the house owners who acquired Kennedy’s constructing started promoting the constructing on reserving websites because the 417 Aycee Resort, describing it in stilted English as “nestled within the Broadway Theater district, merely 1.5 KM from sports activities points of interest, such because the multi-purpose indoor enviornment ‘Madison Sq. Backyard‘.”
The “Aycee” provides small rooms with free Wifi, air-con and never a lot else for $220 an evening. The advertisements don’t point out the SRO tenants residing down the corridor who’re combating eviction. On a latest day, THE CITY watched as SRO tenants and lodge company handed one another within the corridor.
For generations, SROs served a much-needed function in a metropolis with a persistent dearth of inexpensive housing. Changing these lower-priced SRO models with lodge rooms would diminish the already anemic provide of desperately wanted housing that for years provided hire these with restricted means may afford, mentioned Helene Hartig, a lawyer representing one other tenant in 417 W. forty fourth.
Hartig says changing an $800-a-month SRO unit to a lodge room that might internet $6,600 a month has created an inconceivable dynamic for longtime residents.
“The owner is earning money hand over fist, which incentivises them to kick out the outdated timers,” Hartig mentioned. “If he cleans out the constructing, it is going to be a lodge — not an SRO. Though this can be technically authorized, it goes in opposition to the necessity for inexpensive housing.”
“All they need is to pay their hire and be left alone,” she added. “I imply, the place are they going to go?”
Hartig questioned whether or not the proprietor is following the legislation in ripping up the constructing whereas shifting to evict the SRO tenants, all of whom stay in models which are hire stabilized. She notes that as a result of the constructing is designated as “SRO restricted,” the house owners should first file a Certification of No Harassment with the town — documentation wherein the tenants attest that they haven’t been intimidated by the owner — earlier than performing main renovations.
“I imagine {that a} certificates of non-harassment is required to amend the certificates of occupancy. Vital renovations had been made — together with loos that had been closed for months,” Hartig mentioned.
The restricted legal responsibility company that owns the property, 417 West forty fourth LLC, has filed no such certification, although they’ve already carried out main renovations and a few tenants allege that the house owners have launched a harassment marketing campaign to get them out.
The proprietor has moved to evict Hartig’s shopper, John Down, 66, who additionally insists he’s paid constantly and on time by cash order. In a court docket submitting, Down charged the proprietor with making an attempt to evict “all of the outdated timers,” and accused him of harassment.
“My imply spirited landlord even lately closed off the toilet on our flooring,” he mentioned. “I used to be pressured to make use of the native gymnasium to bathe. I used to be pressured to climb up and down the steps in the midst of the night time — risking a fall — to make use of the toilet.”
Following THE CITY’s inquiry about whether or not Certifications of No Harassment are required on the constructing, Andrew Rudansky, a spokesperson for the Buildings Division, mentioned the company has opened an audit of the proprietor’s filings relating to the scope and nature of the work carried out there.
In New York Metropolis, solely properties designated both as SROs or accommodations — dubbed B-Buildings — are permitted to hire out rooms for lower than 30 days. However to be declared a lodge, because the proprietor of Kennedy’s SRO is doing on reserving websites, the constructing will need to have at the very least 30 “sleeping rooms.” This constructing has 18. An official with the Mayor’s Workplace of Particular Enforcement, which enforces the legislation relating to transient leases and accommodations, mentioned they had been trying into the 30-room requirement at 417 W. forty fourth St.
On a latest go to, one of many house owners, who declined to present his identify, mentioned the conversion was authorized as a result of it’s a B-building. A lawyer for the house owners, Howard Chun, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Kennedy — who says he’s lived at 417 West forty fourth for greater than 25 years — plans to battle his eviction by tracing the cash orders he says he wrote for his hire. He lately stood in his small room, his knee wrapped in a makeshift brace product of duct tape after he broke his leg in a latest slip-and-fall, exhibiting a reporter receipts for these funds.
His room included a double-bed that took up practically a 3rd of the area, a flat-screen TV on the wall, a small fridge and sizzling plate. Packing containers of clothes and his life’s accumulations crammed a lot of the remainder of the area.
Down the corridor Hartig’s shopper, Down, mentioned he, too, should show that he’d paid the owner with cash orders the owner denies receiving. He says he spoke with a postal supervisor who advised him his cash orders had been cashed.
His arms folded throughout his chest, Down mentioned: “I’m not going nowhere.”
