Hotel called a blight on Brooklyn to be auctioned off

New York

MUCH like Machiavelli's The Prince, with which it shares a name, the small hotel that has stood on a corner in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn for four decades is valued by some and loathed by many more - those who see it as a neighbourhood blight that has endured despite what appears to be a long-standing disregard for rules of any kind.

Now, the Prince Hotel is set to be auctioned off by the city, following a raid on the building in February, the culmination of what for some in the neighbourhood has been a 40-year campaign against the budget hotel. In particular, neighbours have been rankled by what they say are unsavoury characters and behaviours - prostitution, fights and drugs - that the hotel's low prices and loose policies draw to their sleepy neighbourhood.