344 West 48th Street, Manhattan, NY 10036

344 West 48th Street is a 5-story, 15-unit Old Law Tenement building located in Hell's Kitchen and owned by Margarita Hernandez. The building, constructed in 1900, has experienced several recurring maintenance issues over recent years, with particular concern regarding rodent activity and plumbing systems. Most notably, there has been an ongoing pattern of rodent-related complaints, with the most recent inspections in 2025 (passed), 2024 (passed), and 2023 (failed for Other Reasons).

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found violations related to rodent conditions in March 2023, followed by scheduled follow-up inspections. The building has also faced multiple water supply and plumbing issues, classified as emergency complaints, particularly evident in 2021 and 2022. Heat and hot water problems have been documented several times from 2021 to 2023, including an entire building outage in October 2022.

Sanitation concerns have emerged as a recurring theme, with multiple complaints about garbage/recycling storage in 2022 and 2023, though these were inspected without violations being found. In terms of more recent developments, the building passed its most recent rodent inspections in July 2025 and remains free of bedbug infestations according to reports from 2024-2025. The property has also undergone inspections for security-related issues, with violations noted in April 2023 regarding self-closing doors at the first story vestibule, though these were ultimately closed. An environmental violation was recorded in October 2021 concerning the oil line installation and maintenance, with a resolved penalty of $312.