Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse: We’re overrun by bums!
By Julia Marsh and Reuven Fenton
November 18, 2015 | 3:23am
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Michael Jordan's Steakhouse at Grand Central Station.Photo: Michael Sofronski
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The city’s homeless plague is so rampant that it’s threatening to put Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse out of business, according to a new lawsuit.
The entryway to the Grand Central Terminal eatery is being overrun by bums, thanks to a long-term construction project on Vanderbilt Avenue that has created a festering enclave of vagrants, restaurant owner Matthew Glazier says in court papers.
And business is so bad as a result that revenue has dropped 24 percent, according to the suit against his landlord, the MTA.
“The homeless situation? Forget about it,” said waiter Tudor Vanciuda.
Vagrants not only hang out in the enclosed area outside the terminal created by barriers and a chain-link fence, they also pass by the steakhouse tables just inside the terminal area, stinking things up for well-heeled diners.
“The customers ask, ‘What is that smell?’ and I tell them, ‘It’s that guy right there,’ ” Vanciuda said.
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Michael JordanPhoto: Getty Images
“I have to take out the bathroom spray and spray down the whole place.”
The “restaurant has become plagued by filth, garbage and urine” left by homeless people — yet the MTA has ignored the problem, court papers say.
An MTA spokesman declined to comment on the suit, but said the agency has been working on waterproofing the station for the past year. The MTA will reopen the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance between 42nd and 43rd streets by this Sunday, spokesman Aaron Donovan said.
But the suit notes that the MTA is also working with the developer of a 1,400-foot tower, One Vanderbilt, on changes to the transit hub.
“The customers ask, ‘What is that smell?’ and I tell them, ‘It’s that guy right there.'”
- Waiter Tudor Vanciuda
The MTA “will continue to work in the area in front of the restaurant for the foreseeable future,” the suit says.
Another steakhouse employee said the area has returned to the bad old days.
“It looks like ‘Gotham’ out there,” griped general manager Stephan Dorian.
“It’s the crazies, people talking to themselves, pissing on walls. I grew up in the city, and recently it’s been taking me back to the ’80s. We’ll call the police and they’ll do something, but it’s not like they’re patrolling out there. The same people are out there every single day,” Dorian said.
The suit, for unspecified damages, pleads with the court to “save this great New York restaurant — a beacon of Grand Central’s revival — from . . . the landlord’s unconscionable conduct” before the restaurant is driven out of business.
By Julia Marsh and Reuven Fenton
November 18, 2015 | 3:23am
Modal Trigger
Michael Jordan's Steakhouse at Grand Central Station.Photo: Michael Sofronski
MORE ON:
ROTTING APPLE
Most NYers think de Blasio is clueless on homeless crisis
Clueless City Council destructive to NYPD: Bratton
The quest to find New York City’s 'mole people’
NYC's homelessness may only get worse
The city’s homeless plague is so rampant that it’s threatening to put Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse out of business, according to a new lawsuit.
The entryway to the Grand Central Terminal eatery is being overrun by bums, thanks to a long-term construction project on Vanderbilt Avenue that has created a festering enclave of vagrants, restaurant owner Matthew Glazier says in court papers.
And business is so bad as a result that revenue has dropped 24 percent, according to the suit against his landlord, the MTA.
“The homeless situation? Forget about it,” said waiter Tudor Vanciuda.
Vagrants not only hang out in the enclosed area outside the terminal created by barriers and a chain-link fence, they also pass by the steakhouse tables just inside the terminal area, stinking things up for well-heeled diners.
“The customers ask, ‘What is that smell?’ and I tell them, ‘It’s that guy right there,’ ” Vanciuda said.
Modal Trigger
Michael JordanPhoto: Getty Images
“I have to take out the bathroom spray and spray down the whole place.”
The “restaurant has become plagued by filth, garbage and urine” left by homeless people — yet the MTA has ignored the problem, court papers say.
An MTA spokesman declined to comment on the suit, but said the agency has been working on waterproofing the station for the past year. The MTA will reopen the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance between 42nd and 43rd streets by this Sunday, spokesman Aaron Donovan said.
But the suit notes that the MTA is also working with the developer of a 1,400-foot tower, One Vanderbilt, on changes to the transit hub.
“The customers ask, ‘What is that smell?’ and I tell them, ‘It’s that guy right there.'”
- Waiter Tudor Vanciuda
The MTA “will continue to work in the area in front of the restaurant for the foreseeable future,” the suit says.
Another steakhouse employee said the area has returned to the bad old days.
“It looks like ‘Gotham’ out there,” griped general manager Stephan Dorian.
“It’s the crazies, people talking to themselves, pissing on walls. I grew up in the city, and recently it’s been taking me back to the ’80s. We’ll call the police and they’ll do something, but it’s not like they’re patrolling out there. The same people are out there every single day,” Dorian said.
The suit, for unspecified damages, pleads with the court to “save this great New York restaurant — a beacon of Grand Central’s revival — from . . . the landlord’s unconscionable conduct” before the restaurant is driven out of business.
?
RIGHT... 
food good? Prices good?
and talking to themselves.
