Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

High-End Restaurant Would 'Destroy' Quiet UWS Neighborhood, Locals Say

By Emily Frost | November 24, 2015 4:01pm
 The hotel owner wants to put a restaurant on the ground floor, but neighbors are adamantly opposed. 
Riverside Towers Hotel Denied Liquor License
View Full Caption

UPPER WEST SIDE — The destruction of a quiet residential stretch of Riverside Drive will start with the opening of a high-end restaurant inside a budget hotel that will bring "disgusting" odors, rats and trash to area, locals told Community Board 7 Monday night. 

Members of the board's Business and Consumer Issues committee unanimously voted down an application for a liquor license from the Riverside Tower Hotel on Riverside Drive at West 80th Street, which wants to open the fowl-focused eatery for dinner between 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. 

"It’s going to destroy the entire neighborhood," said Frank Schtuel, who has lived near the hotel for 27 years. 

The owner wants to open the 42-seat restaurant, with a menu devoted to serving dishes like wild Scottish wood pigeon, Cornish hen, duck and ostrich, among other birds, board members said. 

But the plan would bring "noxious smells, garbage, [and] rats," to a residential area, said resident Martin Flusser.

"I just can’t imagine having to smell a restaurant from 5 to 11 [p.m.] seven days a week. I won’t be able to open my windows," said resident Susan Herring, who said she lives about a block away from the hotel. "I’ve lived near restaurants before — it’s disgusting."

Hotel guests gather on the sidewalk outside the lobby, and residents are worried the restaurant will bring in even more crowds.

The high-end eatery won't "jibe" with a hotel that describes itself as a budget option, noted resident Alex Losilevich.

When the restaurant concept fails, it will morph into something else that will "will attract a group that is entirely inconsistent with the neighborhood," added resident Lynn Beller. 

Unlike the commercial corridors on Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, people moved to Riverside Drive and West End Avenue to live in a residential oasis — and allowing a liquor license in this area creates a "slippery slope," said resident Marian Casati.

People have made real estate investments collectively worth "hundreds of millions of dollars," in some cases people's "entire net worth," to live in the quiet area and a bad precedent could change all that, she explained.

Martin Mehler, who represents the hotel, argued that while the hotel is zoned for residential use, the city's zoning laws permit the inn to operate a restaurant for guests and the public. 

"Just because something’s allowed, that never sways us," board member Brian Jenks responded. 

The hotel wants to work with neighbors to make the restaurant as little a burden as possible, by amending the hours, agreeing to install soundproofing, coordinating deliveries and making sure the sidewalks are clear of patrons, among a list of 25 stipulations residents formulated, Mehler said.

"He’s truly looking to put a good quality restaurant on the Upper West Side," Mehler said of hotel owner Don Lewis. 

Information regarding the name of the restaurant or who would run the kitchen was not available. 

Committee members said they needed to represent the community in their decision. 

Approving the restaurant for a liquor license would "set a precedent that I’m not comfortable with," said George Zeppenfeldt-Cestero, co-chairman of the committee. "I've always felt uncomfortable with the increasing encroachment [of commercial operations] into residential districts," he added.

The hotel can apply for a liquor license from the State Liquor Authority, but board members said the SLA takes the board's opinion seriously in issuing licenses. 

City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, who attended the latter part of the meeting Monday night, agreed with the committee members.

"The idea to me of this place getting a liquor license just makes no sense whatsoever," she said, noting she would write a letter to the SLA in support of the committee's "no" vote. "This is just not the right neighborhood for it."

Subscribe to DNAinfo's Upper West Side podcast: