*This article was produced for a class and not initially intended for publication.
Hotels and their neighbors clash over noise, trash in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
By Celia Heudebourg
When Cindy Rodrigo and her family came home after a trip out of town during the Fourth of July weekend this year, they found their backyard littered with cigarette butts, cups and a pair of black Calvin Klein boxers.
This is a regular occurrence in Rodrigo’s yard during the summer months of the year. In the past, she’s also had to pick up an umbrella and a disco ball.
But, the objects didn’t materialize out of thin air, they were thrown.
Rodrigo’s two family house and backyard on North 10th street is adjacent to the luxurious Williamsburg Hotel. Since the hotel inaugurated its rooftop bar in 2018, Rodrigo’s yard has been used as a receptacle for rooftop patrons’ discarded trash.
“They throw lit cigarettes,” Rodrigo said. “They throw their drinks, lime wedges, spit, gum. That’s another issue too, is the gum. With the hot sun it melts.”
A sample of debris Rodrigo has had to pick up from her yard. Photo courtesy of Cindy Rodrigo.
Every morning from May to August, Rodrigo’s father has to get up at 7 a.m. to pick up the gum before it hardens into the brick pavement and collect that night’s trash before it accumulates.
Rodrigo has had to take down their above-ground pool out of fear cigarettes would burn the plastic lining. She also worries about her 11-year old daughter’s safety when liquor-and-ice-filled cups regularly fall from the sky.
“It’s ridiculous that my daughter has to wear a hardhat to play in the backyard,” Rodrigo said at a public Community Board meeting on Tuesday.
After over a year of filing unanswered 311 complaints and negotiating with the hotel to install a glass barrier, Rodrigo turned to the Board as a last resort for help.
At the meeting, Rodrigo was met by a sympathetic crowd. This is a familiar issue in the neighborhood, as more hotels crop up to respond to the growing demand for tourism – especially in Williamsburg.
Last year, the McCarren Hotel and Pool, which is located a few blocks from the Williamsburg, was ranked the second noisiest hotel in the City by a study measuring 311 complaints.
McCarren has a long history of nighttime, D.J.-run rooftop parties. So much so, that 38 neighboring residents signed a petition several years ago asking the Community Board to not renew McCarren’s liquor license. The Community Board agreed just this past June and did not agree to the renewal.
This was part of a larger push by the Community Board to side with the residential community against hotels in the area.
In its 2020 Community Needs Request, the Community Board outlined a desire to see the City advance legislation that would limit the development of new hotels and hospitality establishments by requiring them to apply for special permits.
The document accused hotels in the area of having an “outsized, often disruptive impact in the community” and contributing to “gentrification and homogenization.”
But this stance doesn’t sit well with some local business owners, for whom hotels are an economic opportunity.
“[The hotels] helps obviously,” said Sahil Kapoor, who works at a wine and liquor shop just next to the McCarren hotel. “Obviously what the hotel is gonna sell is gonna be a lot more expense. I’m gonna be selling at retail price, it’ll be a lot cheaper. So I do get business from them. And that goes for any other businesses, the deli, the restaurants.”
But the Community Board is headstrong on this front.
After Rodrigo spoke at the meeting on Tuesday, a motion was made to reach out to the Williamsburg directly, on behalf of Rodrigo.
“We are gonna do what we are gonna do,” said Community Board Chairperson Dealice Fuller, although she acknowledged it was the first time she’d heard of an issue against this particular hotel. “We’re gonna send a letter.”
But for now, it’s unclear how much the City or Community Board will be able to resolve these neighbor-hotel conflicts as hotels are starting to sprout up in increasingly residential areas.
Just a few weeks ago, the Hotel Indigo, a luxury 187-room hotel in the very heart of Williamsburg opened its door.
The closest residential housing is a on the same block.
--
The Williamsburg Hotel was contacted for a comment on this issue, but I could only speak with the front desk, which was not permitted to comment.