Owner Of Crime-Ridden Hotels Can Now Develop Near Prospect Park

PROSPECT PARK SOUTH, BROOKLYN — The owner of a notorious Bay Ridge hotel that was shut down after locals reported ongoing prostitution and drug use has the city’s permission to build a hotel on Parkside Avenue, records show.

Moses Fried — the owner of the Prince Hotel which was shut down in 2016 when he failed to pay $100,000 in fines — can now build a 19-unit apartment hotel at 205 Parkside Ave., Department of Buildings records show.

The four-story building at the corner of Parkside Avenue and Parkside Court has been a home to illegal squatters for more than decade, when Fried first filed permits to develop an apartment hotel (an apartment building where residents can check in and out when they please), according to bloggers at "The Q At Parkside".

Fried's plans to alter the multi-family dwelling — zoned for permanent residency — into a 19-unit apartment hotel were first filed in 2007 and approved in 2010, city records show. But the building permits were only filed recently and approved by the city in March and April of 2018.

The news was not welcomed by "The Q At Parkside" bloggers, who noted Fried’s long history of running Brooklyn hotels that were plagued by crime.

"Thou Shalt Not Allow Your Apartment Hotel To Become a Brothel As You Have Done Elsewhere," they wrote in a post entitled "The Ten Commandments of Moses Fried."

"You Risk the Wrath Of Neighbors - Got It?"

Fried’s most infamous project was the Prince Hotel, which was also originally an apartment building that Fried divided into about 40 rooms, the New York Times reported.

The Bay Ridge hotel became “a notorious hot spot for drug dealing and prostitution, made worse by a slew of building code violations and zoning-related problems,” spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Real Deal.

Fried is the former owner of the Little Princess Hotel in Park Slope and the Prince Lefferts Hotel in Clinton Hill, both of which were closed when residents complained of prostitution and drugs, according to the Daily News reports.

Fried did not immediately respond to Patch’s request for comment.

Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Nov. 2016