On a small block near Times Square, a four-story walkup is at the center of a fight over who really gets to call Hell’s Kitchen home: the longtimers who sleep there every night or the tourists booking it like a budget hotel.
Two veteran tenants of 417 West 44th Street say their rent-stabilized single rooms are being pushed aside and repackaged for short-term stays, even as the landlord accuses them of not paying up and moves to evict.
Who Lives Here And What The Court Said
Garratt Kennedy, 59, a retired Hell’s Kitchen electrician, and 66-year-old John Down are among the residents now staring down eviction at 417 West 44th Street. Kennedy has lived in a roughly 100-square-foot room for more than 25 years, the kind of small, rent-stabilized unit that has become increasingly rare in Manhattan.
The landlord, 417 West 44th LLC, moved to evict Kennedy, saying he was two months behind on rent. A judge put the brakes on that eviction and ordered Kennedy to show proof of his payments, according to THE CITY. For now, his case hinges less on emotion and more on paperwork.
Owners Market The Building As A Hotel
While rent-stabilized tenants fight to stay put, the same address is quietly marketed to travelers under the name “Aycee 417,” offering small, shared-bathroom rooms by the night.
Online booking pages list 417 West 44th Street along with nightly rates, positioning the building more like a low-cost hotel than long-term housing. Listings appear on LateRooms and Planet of Hotels, reflecting an effort to reach short-term visitors instead of long-term tenants.
Tenants Say They Paid; Owner Sued And City Offices Are Looking
Tenants say they paid rent by money order. The landlord says those payments never arrived. One tenant told reporters a postal supervisor said the money orders had, in fact, been cashed.
Kennedy says the conflict inside the building has gotten personal. He told reporters he broke a shower-room lock after access to a shared bathroom was cut off, and that the landlord later accused him of criminal mischief over the incident.
Over the past year, the owner has filed multiple lawsuits against single-room occupancy tenants while, tenants say, converting roughly a dozen of the building’s 18 rooms into hotel-style units for tourists.
City agencies are now taking a closer look at what is going on inside 417 West 44th. The Department of Buildings has opened an audit into the owner’s filings about the scope and nature of work performed at the property. The Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement is reviewing whether the building meets the city’s 30-room threshold that applies to hotels. The owner has also not filed a required certification of no harassment, according to THE CITY.
Legal Implications
The paused eviction buys tenants time to pull together receipts, bank records, and money order documentation to contest their removal. In landlord-tenant court, proof of payment often decides who wins and who is packing boxes.
If city investigations find that work at the building or tenant removals were tied to an illegal conversion or harassment, agencies can pursue enforcement actions that may include fines or orders to restore long-term housing. Landlords that move aggressively into the short-term rental market can also face civil suits and regulatory crackdowns that slow or even shut down tourist marketing.
For neighbors and housing advocates, the battle at 417 West 44th Street looks familiar. They see it as part of a broader pattern of single-room occupancy units across Manhattan being flipped into higher-earning tourist rooms, a shift that tenants say speeds up the displacement of older, lower-income New Yorkers.
Tenants like Kennedy say they are not leaving willingly. Instead, they plan to stay, stack their paperwork, and present their records as the courts and city agencies sort out whether 417 West 44th remains a home for residents or transforms into another address on the tourist map.
