Breslin Hotel Ghettoized: Will Chelsea Be Next?

There’s an article about the Breslin Hotel in this week’s Chelsea Now.  The Breslin, you’ll remember, is, like the Chelsea, an SRO hotel that houses a lot of people in the arts.  It was taken over by developers at about the same time as the Chelsea, and their aim was the same, to evict the rent stabilized tenants and turn the Breslin into a fancy boutique hotel.  In this update, we find that most of the Breslin’s tenants have by this point been evicted or taken buyouts.  The name of the Breslin has been changed, obnoxiously, to the “Ace,” and the few remaining tenants have been to some extent ghettoized, forced to enter through a separate entrance from the more important (ie. higher paying) tourists, and also given their own, smaller lobby.  Additionally, tenants are forced to use one elevator while the guests have access to six elevators.  Long term tenants are also having trouble getting heat and hot water.  The developers attempted to segregate the permanent tenants on the upper two floors, but tenants were able to resist what they perceived to be an attempt to compromise their rent stabilized status.

The Breslin is no more.  The difference between this hotel and the Chelsea: a Certificate Of No Harassment (CONH), which allowed the Breslin’s developers to engage in disruptive construction designed to drive the rent stabilized tenants out.  If we allow Marlene to get a CONH here, then we may as well just let her rename this place the “Ass” Hotel. -- Ed Hamilton