The Hotel That Owed Over $300,000 in Water Bills

Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll find out about the city’s efforts to collect on what it says are delinquent water bills. We’ll also see why a judge decided not to punish Donald Trump’s onetime fixer for fake legal citations concocted by an artificial intelligence program.

Credit…John Taggart for The New York Times

The Hotel Hayden promotes itself as “a buzz-worthy boutique for trendsetters, stylists and sophisticates.”

City officials found it buzz-worthy for something different — its large unpaid water bill.

The city said the hotel owed $372,026, the largest overdue balance among 2,400 chronically delinquent accounts — and enough for Mayor Eric Adams to stop by on Wednesday. He put a water shut-off notice on the hotel’s front door on West 28th Street as the city moved to collect a total of more than $102 million from tardy owners.

The city says that the bill scofflaws have used six billion gallons without paying. That’s enough water to satisfy the city’s thirst for four full days, as well as its needs for teeth brushing, showering and toilet flushing.

Looked at another way, the daily average for water use is about 191 gallons for a single-family home and 142 gallons per unit for a multifamily one. The city charges $11.63 for every 100 cubic feet of water (748 gallons), which includes a charge for wastewater services. That works out to about a penny a gallon.