GAWKING ON WATER: Bikini babes their stuff on a platform se in the Gansevoort Park Avenue’s pool during one of the trendy hotel’s raucous Sunday summer pool parties. (
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SOUND & FURY: Mary Ellen Maher looks out from her apartment at a party at the Gansevoort Park Avenue pool, where bashes can attract up to 300 revelers, though a sign indicates a limit of 66. (
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So much for peaceful Sunday afternoons on Park Avenue.
Hundreds of booze-swilling, scantily clad scenesters have been jamming the rooftop pool deck of the posh Gansevoort Park Avenue hotel on Sundays, making life miserable for neighbors — and apparently flagrantly violating city building codes.
“I try to not be home on Sundays. The last thing you want are a bunch of crazy people with loud techno music until 8 or 9 p.m.,” said frustrated local Greg Housset, 24, looking down from his apartment Sunday at the mob of hard-partying revelers packed like sardines on the hotel’s pool deck as turntable star DJ Chuckie spun booming dance tunes.
“Even when the windows are closed, you feel like there’s a sub-woofer in your apartment.”
Housset said he has complained, to no avail, to the Midtown hotel and called 311 to alert officials to the racket generated by the weekly Summer Series parties.
Mary Ellen Maher, another neighbor of the hotel at Park Avenue South and East 29th Street, said that when she and her husband bought their nearby pad in December, “we had no idea about this party.
“The bass will start, and the windows will vibrate. The windows literally move,’’ said the homemaker, 49, of the wild goings-on above the street. “It’s like South Beach.”
This past Sunday, about 300 party people filled the hotel’s 19th-floor pool deck — nearly five times the number indicated by an occupancy sign posted by the hotel — starting at around 3:30 p.m.
The city’s Buildings Department has set the maximum capacity for that area at 54, even less than the 66 posted, a DOB spokesman said.
The posted capacity for the rooftop’s interior allows another 200 in the enclosed bar and lounge, the agency rep said.
But the majority of guests chose to stay outside and pack the deck, where two bikini-clad dancers gyrated on platforms set above the pool’s surface.
Even if they all had stayed indoors, the crowd of 300 far exceeded the combined maximum of 254.
Neighbors said the lines of wannabe revelers stretch around the block from Park to East 29th Street through early evening — all hoping to pass a doorman’s muster so they can fork over $2,750 for a table-service bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne.
Cheaper bottles go for $200 — but the well-heeled guests buy those only to spray one another, said pool worker Dylan Nowik, 20, of Bushwick, Brooklyn, who wore earplugs to work Sunday.
“People start drinking, and it gets crazy,” he said.
A bevy of sexy beauties smoked, drank and tossed beach balls as the dance music pounded thanks to DJ Chuckie, a Dutchman who is one of several top DJs to make the Summer Series parties.
Others signaled their approval by blasting air horns as they downed shots from table-service bottles of Absolut vodka.
Specialty cocktails — such as the Bambi Lane, made from Belvedere vodka, citrus and ginger ale — start at $15.
A bottle of Patron Grand Platinum runs $850.
The parties are scheduled from 3:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. every Sunday until Labor Day weekend — but neighbors say that they last longer and that the bashes turn into drunken, impromptu street parties when the guests finally straggle out.
Neighbors also charged that the crowds swell to as many as 500 on some weekends.
But Kelli Carucci, food-service manager at the rooftop space, said the crowds hover at about 300.
“We try our best to respect our neighbors. We know that there are people who are at home trying to enjoy their Sunday,’’ she said. “Some of the neighbors understand that we are trying to run a business.”
Community Board 5 District Manager Wally Rubin said residents, cops and the hotel’s owners recently met to try to resolve the dispute.
“We brought everyone together last week to meet face to face and will continue to work toward an amicable resolution,” Rubin said.
A hotel rep said there have been no safety issues.
“At the Gansevoort Park Avenue Summer Series, ample security is provided, ensuring a fun and safe environment for our guests,’’ the rep said.
“To date, we have had zero safety incidents.”
A law-enforcement source said the NYPD’s cabaret unit will monitor the parties on future Sundays checking for excessive noise and other rowdy behavior
Additional reporting by Rebecca Harshbarger