A 20-year-old woman died Friday night at a Brooklyn loft space that neighbors said has become a nuisance for hosting wild, illegal parties.
Officers responded to a 911 call at 84 14th St. in Gowanus around 11:20 p.m. and found the woman unresponsive, according to an NYPD spokesperson. The woman was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where police said she was pronounced dead.
Police did not provide the woman’s name and said the city medical examiner is investigating her cause of death.
“On Friday night, I didn’t know what country I was in,” said Mary Ellen Fagan, 62, who’s lived her whole life in a house across the street from where the party was held. “It was like a war zone.”
Jason Farr, 44, said he and his girlfriend watched from their apartment window down the block as EMTs took the woman out on a stretcher.
“I was shell shocked, but I wasn’t surprised,” said Farr. “It was only a matter of time before something happened.”
Farr is one of a group of locals who in September 2021 filed a lawsuit against the building’s owners and groups that organize events inside the loft space.
The building’s address is linked to Hamilton Eastman, a real estate holding company comprised of several entities, including the Joyland Group – a real estate investment company for both residential and commercial properties – and Joyland Management, linked to the same address.
Joyland Management manages more than 35 properties across the city, according to its website.
A voicemail left with Hamilton Eastman was not immediately returned. The owner of Joyland, LLC, the event space’s operator that’s named in the suit, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The event space, which is on the building’s third floor, is allowed to hold no more than 74 people, according to its certificate of occupancy. But the neighbors said the parties usually draw 200 to 300 attendees.
Neighbors have complained about the parties at the space since 2020, when…
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