By Lee Landor

[Note: This article and its accompanying photos originally appeared on LIHerald.com on May 12, 2011. This content is the rightful property of Richner Communications, Inc.]

At long last, the Courtesy Hotel has come down.

The notorious West Hempstead hotel lay in piles of rubble last week following its demolition, which marked the end of a decade-long fight to rid the hamlet of the seedy, crime-ridden building.

Hundreds of community residents, cameras in hand, joined civic leaders and town, county and state legislators at around 11:30 a.m. on May 12 on a vacant property adjacent to the hotel to watch as a backhoe tore it apart.

Dozens of media outlets showed up to document the long-awaited demolition. People cheered, congratulated one another and exchanged stories about their unwanted encounters with hotel patrons. They recounted the history of the Courtesy and how it blighted their community — bringing in prostitution, drugs and other crimes, posing a threat to the safety of area residents, increasing crime and diminishing home values.
But they also celebrated the potential growth in West Hempstead once a new development — the Alexan at West Hempstead Station — is constructed on the site.

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After years of complaining, the residents of West Hempstead finally got to see the demolition of the crime-ridden Courtesy Hotel.

“My face is tired from smiling,” said Rosalie Norton, president of the West Hempstead Community Support Association and a leader in the fight to close the Courtesy. “[I’m] delighted, exhilarated — I mean, every adjective you could think of. This is, like, the culmination of a very long journey for the residents of West Hempstead. I can’t be happier for all the … efforts they put into it because this isn’t one individual, this is a group of people living in the community who came together that wanted the same thing and we fought for it.”

Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray echoed Norton’s sentiments, saying it was high time the hotel was demolished. “Today is a victory all around,” Murray said. “I’m so excited for the residents of West Hempstead. At long last we’re going to get this absolutely blighted source of criminality out of our neighborhood. West Hempstead has suffered for a long time with this hotel.”

Mindy Bekritsky and her 26-year-old daughter, Tammy, are among the residents who have counted down the days to the Courtesy’s demise. “It really put a crimp in people’s lifestyles,” Mindy said. “I’m glad — it’s really good that it’s finally going, although I would have liked to see it implode or something.”
The Bekritsky family has lived in West Hempstead for 11 years. Within three months of moving into the neighborhood, Mindy recalled, they learned about the infamous hotel.

“It was my son’s bar mitzvah and I was looking for hotels for family members to stay in,” she said. So she checked out the Courtesy. “I walked in — it was very sleazy — and I told the guy at the counter, ‘I’m looking for a place —,’ but he shook his head before I even finished the sentence and said, ‘Honey, I don’t think this is the place you’re looking for.’ I got myself out of there as fast as I could.”

According to Tammy Bekritsky, the crime and other nefarious activities associated with the hotel were not confined to its premises. “You always had people in cars trying to pull people in, and condoms on the street corner,” Tammy said. “You just didn’t want to step foot in this part of town.”
When she came home from college on weekends and vacations, Tammy said, she couldn’t even take the public bus that traveled near the hotel, fearing for her safety. “You’re growing up here,” she said. “You don’t want this kind of danger level here.”

The danger is now gone, according to Murray, Norton and Town Councilman Ed Ambrosino, who has also been active in the fight to close the hotel. They expect the development that will rise in its place to be a catalyst for community revitalization. The developer, Mill Creek Residential Trust, is replacing the hotel with a 150-unit, four-story complex that features market-rate rental apartments.

Maria Rigopoulos, a managing director of MCR, said it would take about two years to complete the complex, but that the company expects its first units to be finished in the fall of 2012, when it will begin leasing units. Residents, she added, should not expect to see much vertical activity on the site until much later this year.

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Hundreds of West Hempstead residents gathered to celebrate the demolition, an event they had been awaiting for more than a decade.