By Lorraine Swanson, EditorNews-Star
Court advocates are being sought for a troubled transient hotel in Uptown that is headed to Cook County Circuit Court next week. Billed as one of the city's last "chicken wire" single room occupancy buildings, city building inspectors turned up 44 code violations at the Wilson Men's Hotel at 1124 W. Wilson Ave. on Jan. 23.
Violations ranged from cockroaches sited in the basement, problems with the plumbing and sewage, inadequate ventilation, holes and cracks in the ceilings and floor, loose handrails and no fire doors in the building's boiler room, according to a city building inspection report obtained by News-Star. (photo courtesy John Howard)
Continue Reading:
Update: Could our own readers be the ones who triggered this inspection on January 23? Look back at this post dated January 9 where we encouraged our readers to call the city to report the countless code violations in this building. It appears you are making a difference folks. Keep it up!
And Uptown Business Partners wants Jay Bomberg, owner of this dump, on it's board?
ReplyDeleteI guess the thing I don't understand is how is it that none of these problems were known about until now? Bomberg bought the place a year ago and I have my doubts that former owner Sean Derrig removed the fire safety doors when he sold it. Derrig gave Shiller over $5,000 in campaign contributions. I'm wondering if he also paid off building inspectors.
ReplyDeleteAnd as the City of Chicago now devotes all these resources to taking over the building and forcing a cleanup, guess who been funding the Wilson's Men's Club all along? None other than the City of Chicago.
ReplyDeleteSource: City Clerk’s Ethics List 2008 available online for City Contractors being paid > $10,000 listed as Wilson Men’s Hotel 1325 Wilson LLC
The News-Star story indicates that this is a single room occupancy building. In the true technical sense of that term, I don't that is correct. This entity operates under a City Hotel license only and does not have an SRO license so far as I can find. Yet, loosely speaking, Lorraine is correct in saying that this building has single "rooms" created by chicken wire walls.
ReplyDeleteThe WILSON MEN'S HOTEL's License for Hotel operations was issued on January 22, 2008 for 1124 W WILSON AVE per Everyblock.com which reports all city licenses issued by the Dept of Business Affairs and Licensing.
Isn't it amazing that neither the 23rd District Police or the Fire Department two blocks away took that opportunity to object to the license renewal?
Yet, in Uptown we've never seen any city departments step up in the license renewal process, which requires their approval, to do the right thing and object to a license renewal or application unless corrections are made.
License inspections are an administrative process that don't work in Uptown and don't work citywide. Instead they are just rubber stamped approvals for anyone who asks even when a long paper trail of violations exist in the city records of that department.
I called 311 and the fire inspectors following that post on Jan 9! I hope others did too. Whether or not our calls triggered it, I'm thrilled that this inspection took place!!
ReplyDeletekeep up the good work, call 311/911 whenever appropriate - the constant pressure is key -
ReplyDeleteJay Boomberg is in deep doo-doo. Show up at court on May 29. The more people who show up, the more this will influence the judge.
ReplyDeleteIf you come to housing court, the fact that you show up registers with the judge. Court advocates generally sit quietly and their presence is noted. You won't testify or speak in open court. Showing up is what counts, and your silent presence speaks volumes about community concerns.
ReplyDeleteHere's an interview with Bomberg in the Tribune... His office is close by, so you can always complain to him directly!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0320heatwavemar20,0,973003.story
Jay is actually a really good person. He does care about this community. Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, he purchased the hotel to eliminate it. To make all of his other properties on Wilson grab better tenants. He brought Nicks there, he brought Jimmy-Johns, and alot of the others.He has been one of the ONLY property owners across from Truman, trying to make that more upscale.Dont hang him out to dry just yet. Knowing Jay I would lay my money on him having a plan for all of this.
ReplyDeleteDont jump to conclusions.
7:33: I don't disagree with you and I don't know anything about Mr. Bomberg. But isn't being taken to housing court a weird way to show you want to eliminate the hotel? I hope he has a good, solid plan to eliminate all the problems that he'll reveal in court.
ReplyDeleteClosing the hotel to totally rehab it and finding permanent housing for the residents that don't involve chicken wire would be a really good start.
To anon 7:33 a.m.: I don't buy your story. If he wants to improve things, then why the hell can't he just DO IT and not waste local community members' time by having to haul themselves down to housing court?? I'll stop "hanging him out to dry" and "jumping to conclusions" when he makes it so that I don't have to take a day off work to make sure he follows City Ordinances!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHow self-centered can someone be to think that none of us have anything else better to do with our lives than try to get slumlords to follow the law when our own government is slow to do it for us? This is outrageous!
I have no idea how the Wilson Club Hotel didn't make TripAdvisor's 2008 list of dirtiest hotels. Maybe we should all chip in and send them on a fun-filled vacation to Chicago to check out Hotel Chateau and Wilson Club Hotel?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tripadvisor.com/dirtyhotels
Looks like they are doing a little more work to "spruce" up the Wilson Club Hotel exterior. They are re-staining the door entrance and doing something to the entrance hallway this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteclose it down and throw those fools living out..send them to gary..
ReplyDelete