Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Village Inn hostel on Seventh Street closed by city

In recent weeks the city shuttered The Village Inn, the hostel that has been operating at 27 E. Seventh St. near Cooper Square.




The Village Inn is one of four in the city operated by the NYC Hostel Connection. (The Chelsea International Hostel, the Manhattan Inn and the Wanderers Inn are the other three.) Responding to a message on Facebook, a hostel rep said, "The status of the Village Inn is still pending."

The city has said that there are illegal hotel rooms in the residential building.

There's also a fairly lengthy discussion by an NYC Hostel Connection rep on Facebook regarding why the hostel was shut down:

[T]he big Hotel chains (e.g. Holiday Inn, Marriott, W, ad infinitum) have strong unions who's leaders have friends in high places in New York's political landscape ... When you're charging minimums like $300.00 per night and you start realizing your numbers are down because there are better options (i.e. Hostels) who do you complain to and/or attack. Answer: (Fill in this blank with your favorite Hostel). Despite the fact that this task force no longer reports to the Department of Buildings New York, they have taken to renegade tactics like unrelenting harassment in order to please their superiors (i.e. politicians, hotel union leaders – who, you got it, PAY THEM UNDER THE TABLE). ... So as our legal fees mount and we are forced to pay our Mortgages out of our own pockets...
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3 comments:

  1. blueglassApril 15, 2010 at 12:25 PM

    for many months i have walked by the hostel wondering why there is a vacate order on the door and lots of young folks inside.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 15, 2010 at 2:14 PM

    I have also wondered about that vacate order and whether it deterred people from staying there. I guess it did not since there were always at least a couple people out smoking whenever I passed by in the morning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 18, 2010 at 10:14 AM

    The staff and management are rude and insulting to customers for example ME. This is no way to run a business, I am sure there lack of professionalism is not restricted to the customer service side of their business. Their reasoning for the closures (a second hostel has now been shut down) defies belief. The city are picking on them because the hotel unions bribed them. come on are you going to let them insult your intelligence by expecting you to believe that. If it was the case why have they not filed a lawsuit

    ReplyDelete

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