Hotel Carter Settles U.S. Suit Over Access to Disabled

By Sewell Chan

Hotel CarterMichael Nagle for The New York Times The Hotel Carter was one of five theater district hotels accused in January of not providing adequate access to the disabled.

The owners of the Hotel Carter, a somewhat seedy fixture of the Times Square entertainment district, have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department charging that the hotel’s public areas, restrooms and guest rooms were not sufficiently accessible to disabled people.

Under a consent decree signed Tuesday by Judge Victor Marrero of Federal District Court in Manhattan, the Alphonse Hotel Corporation, which owns the Hotel Carter, will, within the next three years, make its public entrance, registration counter and public restrooms accessible to the disabled; designate 13 rooms with roll-in showers for disabled guests; and set aside 22 other rooms for guests who are deaf or hard of hearing. The hotel also agreed to make it easier for disabled guests to make reservations, bring service animals and get help from hotel staff.

The hotel, at 250 West 43rd Street, was one of five — all in or around the theater district — sued in January by the Justice Department. The others were the Moderne, at 243 West 55th Street; the Ameritania, at 230 West 54th Street; the Amsterdam Court, at 226 West 50th Street; and the Radio City Suites, at 142 West 49th Street.

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Perley J. Thibodeau October 7, 2009 · 4:45 pm

What good does it do to ramp and otherwise make available these facilities when they probably won’t even be rented to disabled individuals anyway?
I kept after NYCHA until it renovated several apartments in this building for wheeled chairs, and when they were finished they didn’t even give one of the apartments back to a neighbor who had a young daughter in a manual wheelchair and had been moved out of it due to the renovation.
They opted to give it to an older couple who didn’t have any disabilities requiring Physically Challenged Accessibility.
As a matter of fact, I had to write to the free Long Island newspaper “Able” which is billed as, “For and About The Handicapped,” in order to shame housing into even renting to the wheel chair bound at all.
We now have several chair bound and legally blind young individuals in this building and they are delightful to meet up with and talk to whenever we happen to come across each other in the building’s halls, elevator’s, front lobby or the outside promenade.

Mike October 7, 2009 · 4:58 pm

Given the Hotel Carter’s reputation as the “Dirtiest Hotel in America” (according to Tripadvisor.com), is it really a victory to get handicapped-accessible rooms?

MJS October 7, 2009 · 10:34 pm

This will make it easier for the handicapped to leave the Hotel Carter.

George October 8, 2009 · 11:07 am

The “regular wisecrackers” here should sometimes think before clicking in their “snarky” comments..

This commericial building owner has just as much of an obligation to provide access and accomodation for the handicapped as does the Waldorf Astoria.

What is there alternative theory? That if you keep your builiding in crappy condition – you get excused from obeying the equal access and accomodation laws?

That would be a very perverse incentive by encouraging discrimination against the physically-disabled.

Liberty Lover October 8, 2009 · 11:33 am

Actually, the Hotel Carter isn’t all that horrible any more. A friend of mine stayed there a few months ago; and while it wasn’t exact;y the Four Seasons, for less than a hundred bucks a night, he thought it was a pretty good deal, comparatively speaking. Hell, it’s cheaper than renting most small apartments in Midtown.

-LL