Troubled Kew Gardens hotel closed, manager charged

The Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens closes after New Year’s shooting proves to be last straw for Mayor. Photo courtesy of Daniel Rosenthal

By Rachel Vick

The manager of a bullet-riddled Kew Gardens hotel marred by violent crime is facing criminal charges days after the city shut down the troubled lodgings. 

Gulshan Gandhi, the night manager of the Umbrella Hotel in Kew Gardens, was arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said Tuesday. 

Gandhi, 68, was allegedly maintaining “conditions that endangered the safety and health of hotel guests and the community at large,” Katz said. 

The hotel has been the site of large “unsafe gatherings” and at least three shooting since June 2020, including a New Year’s Day murder that marked the city’s first homicide of 2021.  

“This hotel has been a danger to the community,” Katz said.

Three days after 20-year-old Rosedale resident Robert Williams was killed at the hotel early Jan. 1, Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the closure of the hotel, which he called a “blight on the community.”

The hotel, located near the Queens district attorney’s office and the Queens Criminal Court building, has been under scrutiny from local residents and elected officials for months due to illegal partying and alleged sex trafficking.

The hotel once catered to airport travelers and people visiting Queens on courthouse business. But when the COVID pandemic limited tourism and shut down the courts, the Umbrella Hotel lowered rates, allowing people to rent out blocks of rooms to host large group gatherings, said Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal.
There were 15 summonses and fines issued against the hotel in November 2020 alone, according to local officials.

“For months, we have joined the Kew Gardens community in calling for this location to be shut down,” Rosenthal said. “City Hall’s failure to act in a timely manner resulted in [a] preventable and atrocious tragedy.”