Today In Illegal Hotels: 5 West 31st Street

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sojourning with some good friends of mine. One fellow— we’ll call him “Q”— took me on a tour of Inwood. Simply put, it was awesome.

In return I showed “Q”, being a good host, a not terribly unfamiliar sight in our fair city…

I speak of none other than a Vacate Order!

It is accompanied by a Red Cross notice. This is getting interesting!

A “restraining order”? This a whole new game. One which I felt compelled to investigate when I got home.

Behold the copious number of actions (94) and violations (103). Impressive!

Converting a three bedroom apartment into a five bedroom apartment with two bedrooms twhich sport no windows. Nope, our Bravest ain’t gonna like that one bit!

No sprinklers either? Oh boy.

So they converted three floors of residential space— seven, nine and ten respectively– into hostel space and were in the process of converting floors six and four— without permits naturally. That nonsense is for rank amateurs and these urbanoasisnyc.com folks are superstars!

However their clients seemed to have liked them enough. You can see reviews, photos, etc. of this super-sized and quite illegal former hostel on Trip Advisor. Obviously they have not heard the news yet…