UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The New York City Police Department shut down a spa on the Upper East Side on Friday after city officials accused it of operating as a brothel.
The spa, Zen Body Works, on East 73rd Street between First and Second avenues, was permanently shuttered on Friday, according to a large orange notice posted to the door.
The spa, which was visible from a street-level window, was fully vacant, and the number on the sign went straight to voicemail when Patch called.
This is the second spa shut down on the Upper East Side on accusations of sex work in the past two months. On April 22, the No. 8 Spa on East 86th Street between First and York avenues was also shut down.
City officials filed the case against Zen Body Works in the Manhattan Supreme Court back in November, targeting the building at 330A East 73rd St., its owner 330 Real Estate Associates LLC, and the unnamed operators of the spa, and a judge ordered the space temporarily padlocked on Feb. 18 while the case proceeds in court, according to court records.
The space was permanently closed on May 15, according to the legal notice on the door.
In the lawsuit, city attorneys accuse the spa of selling sex on multiple occasions.
The lawsuit cites two undercover investigations in 2025 in which workers unknowingly offered sex and manual stimulation to an officer for an additional charge, as part of their massage treatment.
According to city lawyers, a worker offered an undercover cop a massage for $60 and a sexual act for an additional $100 on July 3, and on July 8, a worker offered sex to an undercover cop for $200 and an $80 "house fee."
Officials also said the address tied to the business appears on a website featuring explicit language, called hot.com.
One Upper East Sider told Patch that he'd been a loyal customer of Zen Body Works, describing the experience as a "free for all."
"You go in there, it was like $200, there were five girls in there," Mark Evan, a 63-year-old Upper East Sider, said.
"They were beautiful girls, and it was a free-for-all," Evan told Patch.
In the ongoing lawsuit against the Zen Body Works spa, the city is seeking to prohibit any future illegal activity at the site and allow authorities to seize materials connected to the alleged operation.
The city is also seeking civil penalties of $1,000 per day for each day the alleged conduct continued.
City lawyers argue the building’s owner and operators knew or should have known about the activity and failed to stop it.
The defendants have not publicly responded to the lawsuit.
Know of a business opening or closing in Manhattan? Email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.
Sign up for free local newsletters and alerts for the
Upper East Side, NY Patch
Patch.com is the nationwide leader in hyperlocal news.
Visit Patch.com to find your town today.