Tenants, Elected Officials Condemn Upper West Side Landlord, Illegal Hotel Operator Ahead of Court Hearing

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The permanent tenants of an illegal hotel operation on the Upper West Side took to the courthouse steps Tuesday to rally against their landlord before a court ruling regarding the immediate removal of transient guests in the building. In June New York Supreme Court Justice Kathryn Freed signed a restraining order preventing landlord Michael Edelstein from accepting new reservations, but tenants said Tuesday he is still operating his illegal enterprise.

The tenants of the Imperial Court Hotel were joined by their legal representatives from the Goddard Riverside Law Project and elected officials including City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal and New York State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal. During the rally they called Edelstein a "bully," who is willingly breaking the law and ruin their quality of living.

"We are here today to ask judge Freed to immediately stop all illegal hotel rentals at the Imperial court," said the tenant's lawyer Rachel Hannaford. "In a word they're lawless, they're lawless people, they're lawless organizations and we're asking the judge to finally put an end to this activity which has gone on for years and years."

But despite the restraining order, Freed did not rule Tuesday that the Imperial Court Hotel must immediately cancel short-term rentals. The owners of the Imperial Court Hotel are being given a week-long period to prove that the immediate removal of the tourists would require a breach of contract with those residents.

One long-time tenant of the Imperial Court Hotel, kindergarten teacher Richard Amelius, said that the constant revolving door of tourists in the building has negatively affected the quality of life for the buildings' permanent residents.

"For the past 10 years my fellow tenants and I have been living in a hotel," Amelius said. "Anybody that's ever been in a hotel will tell you that people don't come to be quiet and respectful of their neighbors, they want to have parties, have friends over, smoke and drink and make noise."

Amelius said that he has seen tourists using drugs, fighting and soliciting prostitutes in the building.

"We don't feel like we should have to share our home with a constantly revolving door of people that we've never seen, that we don't know," Amelius said.

In May the city hit the Imperial Court Hotel with a fine of $65,000 for building code violations Hannaford told Patch. The court found that the Imperial Court Hotel was violating the Multiple Dwelling Law by renting out units for less than 30 days without having the landlord or building owner on-site during the duration of the rentals.

During Tuesday's court hearing the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement also put forth a motion to joined the case as a plaintiff.

The plaintiffs are unsure what the owners of the Imperial Court Hotel will do if they are ordered to shut down the illegal rental operation entirely, Hannaford told Patch. The defendant's lawyers claimed that it would not be financially possible to run the building if all the units were used for rent-stabilized single room occupancy, Hannaford said.