Tenants inside crime-ridden Kew Gardens hotel now have no heat

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Permanent residents of the building that houses the Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens say they have been abandoned by management. Streetview via Google Maps

Permanent residents of the building that houses the Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens say they have been abandoned by management. Streetview via Google Maps

By Rachel Vick

Seven tenants with apartments inside an embattled Kew Gardens hotel have lived through a surge in violent crime, three shootings and the first murder of 2021.

Now they have no heat or hot water.

The tenants say they have been abandoned by the management company that runs the building that housed the hotel before it which was shut down by the city earlier this year. The hotel was the scene of months of violent crime — including a New Year’s Day murder — drug sales and regular partying in defiance of COVID rules.

The remaining residents told the Queens Ledger they have gone without heat or hot water while two of three elevators are out of service.

“It’s like we’re squatting in an abandoned building,” resident Jonathan Kastin told the Ledger. “There’s nobody to talk to, it’s just silence.”

Kastin said the management company Good Karma said goodbye in a letter the day after the building closed, advising the tenants that there would not be a maintenance crew available and that they should start looking for a new home.

Good Karma Property Manager Manny Kumar did not respond to phone calls from the Eagle. “It’s not my problem,” he told the Ledger.

Tenants filed four complaints with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development last month, records show. One tenant said the temperature has hovered below 50 degrees in their apartment. 

Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal, who urged the city to take action against the hotel starting last summer, said his office is working with outside agencies to ensure the tenants can remain in place, with the services and utilities they are entitled. 

"This is yet another example of the operator's complete disregard for people and the community," Rosenthal told the Eagle.  "NYC HPD must act immediately on behalf of these families." 

HPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.