Hotel Breslin holdovers await fate of new bohemia

The “labor rat” sits outside the Breslin last week, indicating construction was being performed with non-union workers.

By Chris Lombardi

Last week, the Hotel Breslin on Broadway bustled with the sounds of construction. Eight DOB notices were plastered to the front door, between 28th and 29th Sts.—some clear (“Install New HVAC System”) and others mysterious (“Conversion To Prior Use”). Just below the doorman’s cubicle, workers wearing protective masks tramped down to the basement, while the sound of power drills and other heavy equipment blasted from beyond the inner door. Just beside that door, a yellowed notice pleaded politely: “Please Remember That This is a Residential Building. Avoid Excess Noise.”

That note is a reminder of past years at the 104-year-old hotel, which had evolved over the years into a single-room-occupancy (SRO) building filled with artists and other New Yorkers drawn by its low rents and prime location. But now, workmen were in the process of turning the Breslin into a boutique hotel, not unlike its builders a century earlier. Last week, union activists planted their ubiquitous inflatable rat on the street outside, an indicator that the renovations were happening without union labor.

“Yes, it’ going to be an Ace Hotel,” said the doorman, placid amid the din of construction.


Chelsea Now photo by Jeremy Pelley, courtesy Ace Hotel A view inside the Ace Hotel, Portland lobby area, where the company’s self-described hip aesthetic extends to all facets of the hotel, including retro design elements.

Ace Hotel, a fast-growing chain hailed by Time Magazine as “the next generation of hoteliers,” was hired last December to convert and manage the property, scheduled to open this summer. Not all the hotel’s 300-plus rooms are empty, however; nearly 100 of the original tenants remain, most resisting efforts by their landlord persuading them to move to a common floor. And this week, a suit filed by the Breslin Tenants Association is getting its first hearing before a judge. The hearing will evaluate the association’s claim that tenants were harassed by their landlord, GFI Capital Realty, and that the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) failed to protect them. As all players decide their next steps in this quintessentially New York dance, the West Coast hoteliers continue with their plans to make the Breslin a home for upscale bohemia.

The Breslin, which opened on November 1904 with “throngs of visitors” marveling at its novel “ladies’ grill room,” was once among hundreds of other genteel residential hotels in Manhattan. They included the long-gone Hotel Wolcott on 32nd St., the venerable Hotel Chelsea on 23rd St. and the Hotel Imperial on 22nd Street, which advertised in 1939: “IF YOU CAN’T move your business closer to your home, YOU CAN move closer to your business in this centrally located hotel.”

Like many of the others, the Breslin became an SRO building in the 1960s, personifying many of the neighborhood’s transitions. Most recently it had become a haven for artists, writers and Asian newcomers attracted by the proximity of “the pink building” to Koreatown. As described in previous Chelsea Now articles, things began to change at the Breslin in 2005, when international capital firm GFI moved in to revive the hotel’s luxurious glory days.

According to both tenants and GFI, the new staff began to offer tenants “buyouts,” or cash in exchange for vacating their rooms. An effort by tenants to prevent HPD from allowing the building to be renovated failed last fall, after a contentious hearing and controversial decision by a city judge. Finally, GFI Realty bought the Breslin lease from former owner Edward Haddad in December for $40 million, and announced that the Ace Hotel Group would manage the new Breslin.

To Ace founders Alex Calderwood, Wade Weigel, Doug Herrick and Jack Barron, the Breslin fit into their self-created business model. “Our unique vision—it’s all about taking historic buildings to the next level,” spokesperson Ryan Bukstein told Chelsea Now in December. That vision, as articulated in their mission statement, is “to create a place their friends and acquaintances would want to stay—DJs, artists, magazine creators, graphic designers, musicians…”

The description sounds not unlike many of the Breslin’s tenants, such as composer Steven Colvin, president of the tenant association, or Nick Schlyer, whose film-in-progress, “Voices of the Breslin,” tells many of their stories. But with rates starting at a “budget” $174 a night for their West Coast hotels, the Ace demographic is more likely to be readers of the lifestyle publications that have praised it, such as Radar, Arena and the New York Times Style Magazine.

Those magazines praised Ace last year for transforming once-seedy buildings into design originals. Arena Magazine wrote of the Portland Ace, formerly known as the Clyde Hotel: “Built in 1912, it occupies an entire city block… Retaining period features, such as the deep, cast-iron baths and high, expansive ceilings, the Ace has a homey feeling that many other hotels lack.”

The company prides itself on tuning its decor to the unique character of each host city. Spin Magazine described the results in Portland: “Night tables are made of old, stacked books from the city’s second-hand bins and instead of CD players, most rooms have turntables.”

Ace’s own press material hailed its philosophy of developing “a characterful old building in an emerging location, a small budget requiring lateral thinking… an aesthetic that mixes uncluttered comfort with a bohemian vibe.”

By contrast, the just-announced Ace Palm Springs will scream Southern California, according to its press release. “Built as a Westward Ho Hotel in 1965, the property will be intimate, fun and consistent with the desert aesthetic. One pool will be open to the public as well as to hotel guests, creating a ’60s swim club feel.” The style magazines also cited the company’s use of name decorators and its retail partners; when the New York Observer got wind of the Breslin deal late last year, its critics swooned at the possible arrival of Stumptown, the hipster coffee chain serving Ace’s Portland and Seattle locations.

The landmark Breslin still has plenty of period details, from its signature pink facade to the old, unused Art Deco kitchens off the lobby. But perhaps the most singular, from a West Coast perspective, is the continuing presence of 90 long-term tenants, protected from eviction by the city’s SRO laws.

Since 1981, single-room occupancy hotels have been included in New York’s rent-stabilization laws, with special provisions that offer sometimes greater protections than those of conventional rent-stabilized apartments. If an SRO tenant has lived in the same room for 30 days or longer, whether or not they have a lease or had asked for one, they cannot be evicted without a court order. SRO building owners are specifically prohibited from harassing SRO tenants to get them to move, and from doing substantial work on the building without tenants attesting that they have not suffered harassment. When Haddad and GFI were granted such a certificate last fall, it was only after Breslin Tenants Association members testified for three days describing worsening living conditions, intimidation and high-pressure sales tactics if they refused buyouts.

The tenants’ lawsuit, first filed in late December, charges that the judge who ruled in their landlord’s favor wasn’t following the city’s own laws and definitions of harassment. Manhattan Legal Services attorney Susan Cohen, who represents the Breslin tenants, told Chelsea Now on Wednesday that after months of pre-trial discovery and collection of evidence, “The papers will be before the judge [on Thursday]. They will then decide whether they want to hear oral testimony in the case.”

Cohen added that “the two sides are talking” about a possible amicable settlement. GFI has made clear its desire for all of the 90 remaining tenants to move upstairs, between the 11th and 13th floors. Some have already done so. Neither Cohen nor the owners’ representatives would talk about the lawsuit further, or about how else the owners have suggested the association could coexist with the new order.

The ongoing demolition and reconstruction to turn the Breslin into an Ace has also been difficult for current residents. Numerous allegations of noise, debris and broken elevators are registered on the Department of Buildings’ Website. The US Postal Service also recently informed GFI that conditions at the Breslin are too hazardous for mail carriers, until the renovations are complete. “They have to go over to the GPO, and that’s not easy for some of my clients,” Cohen said. On Tuesday night, 30 tenants met with her at the hotel, discussing what they wanted for the future.

At press time, Ace’s Bukstein was still not ready to tell Chelsea Now much about his company’s plans for the Breslin. He promised a “big launch” in the next few weeks, and that founder Calderwood would describe in person his new hotel’s vision. He also promised that the new Ace Hotel New York, like the others, would be “linked to the local culture, a living part of the community—like the experience of staying with friends who are plugged into the local scene.” All other questions, he said, would have to wait until the launch—including why such an environmentally aware, progressive company was allegedly renovating its hotel with non-union labor.

Bukstein sighed, adding a phrase that might sum up the predicament amid the building’s tumultuous recent history. “These things... are really complicated.”