Brooklyn Heights

Rooftop bar at Hotel Bossert coming soon?

CB2 to review; Owners promise to restrict hours and music

December 30, 2015 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle
A Community Board 2 committee is scheduled to review a liquor license for a planned rooftop terrace lounge atop the storied Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn Heights on Jan. 6. Rendering courtesy of Gwathmey, Siegel, Kaufman and Associates Architects
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The return of a lounge to the rooftop terrace of the storied Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn Heights is inching ahead with a liquor license review before a Community Board 2 committee scheduled for Jan. 6 at 6 p.m.

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UPDATE: The Jan. 6 license review has been postponed, according to CB2. Check back for details of new schedule.

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David Bistricer and Joseph Chetrit have been slowly remaking the Bossert, long known as the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn, into a luxury boutique hotel, crowned once again by its famed Marine Roof restaurant and lounge on the 14th floor.

As previously reported by the Brooklyn Eagle’s Lore Croghan, Bistricer bought the Renaissance Revival-style property at 96 Montague St. with developer Chetrit for $81 million from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who had used it to house members of their flock during Big Apple visits.

The reopening has been delayed several times. In May 2013, a spokeswoman for Bistricer told the Eagle that the hotel was projected to re-open in approximately 12 months.

While Montague Street merchants look forward to the revenue and night life that hotel visitors will bring to the street, some Brooklyn Heights residents worry about potential noise and traffic issues.

In 2013 the Brooklyn Heights Association (BHA) opposed the rooftop bar and the planned increase in the number of hotel rooms, before the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA).

In response, the owners agreed to reduce the proposed number of rooms from 302 to 280 and to restrict the operating hours and music levels of the bar.

Following the BSA approval, Michael Sillerman, an attorney with Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, the spokesperson for the owners (Clipper Equity, operating as Bossert LLC), said that the owners believe their agreement is “a model of responsiveness.”

“We have agreed to the prohibition of all outside music on the terrace. We have agreed to limit the number of people to 60 outside and to closing at 10 p.m.,” he said in a statement.

A rendering of the proposed lounge, presented in 2013 to CB2, pictures an upscale venue populated by staid, silver-haired business types.

BHA told the Eagle at the time that it remained in opposition to any amplified music anywhere on the top floor, inside or out.

The CB2 Health Committee, which oversees the review, will meet in Dining Room A, off of the cafeteria at The Brooklyn Hospital Center, 121 DeKalb Avenue at St. Felix Street.

 

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