A Noisy Paradox on West 73rd Street

"She was already frustrated with her apartment on West 73rd Street - the leaky ceiling, the broken intercom, and a toilet that seemed to flood at random - but this seemed kind of weird. Then, while doing her laundry one day, she noticed the door was cracked open: Inside, there were people chopping vegetables and rushing around the room, which was now lined with shelves full of bowls and silverware."

"What had started as a cute date spot had quickly turned into a noise menace, Feder-Johnson and other tenants say. Parties in the backyard dining shed - draped with faux greenery and advertised as spacious enough to seat 100 - carried on into the evening. (Malta did not even have a permit for the backyard setup.) "The first year we were like, 'This is so charming,'" one tenant said of living near the restaurant."

Tenants on West 73rd Street experienced persistent apartment problems—leaky ceilings, a broken intercom and an intermittently flooding toilet—while a neighboring restaurant owned by their landlord expanded operations into building space. Arte Cafe apparently repurposed the trash room for food prep, and backyard dining sheds draped in faux greenery hosted loud events advertised for up to 100 people without proper permits. Tenants reported constant noise from parties, DJs and wedding-rehearsal speeches that rattled glass and echoed through courtyards, disrupting daily life. Many tenants requested anonymity when criticizing their landlord. One tenant moved out after seven months and filed a small-claims claim to recover her security deposit.

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