616 West 137th Street, Manhattan, NY 10031

616 West 137th Street, a 6-story New Law tenement built in 1905 in Hamilton Heights and currently owned by Gina Torres, is a 25-unit residential building with a complex maintenance history. The building has experienced recurring heat and hot water issues, with three separate complaints filed between late 2021 and late 2022, though in each case, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development was informed that services had been restored.

More recently, the building has faced ongoing rodent-related challenges, with the most recent inspections in 2025 showing "Rat Activity," though inspections from 2023 and 2024 also reported both passed inspections and rat activity. The building's systems and infrastructure have shown significant wear, with 2020 records indicating elevator safety concerns that resulted in a $1,250 penalty related to outside communication repair and door lock monitoring issues. The property has maintained an active bedbug reporting history from 2020 through 2024, consistently showing zero infested units or eradications, suggesting effective pest management practices.

Two notable violations related to elevator maintenance stand out - a 2020 ECB violation for not having proper door lock monitoring installed, and a 2019 citation for failure to correct defects identified in a 2017 inspection, though records indicate these were eventually resolved. The building's heat and hot water system has shown recurring issues, with emergency complaints filed in 2022-2022 for both entire building and apartment-specific problems. While the property has generally maintained compliance with bedbug reporting requirements and showed periods of proper rodent control, the persistent rat activity observed in recent inspections suggests ongoing pest management challenges.