On a June afternoon in 2018, a man named Mickey Barreto checked into the New Yorker Hotel.
He was assigned Room 2565, a double-bed accommodation with a view of Midtown Manhattan almost entirely obscured by an exterior wall.
Instead, he made the once-grand hotel his full-time residence for the next five years, without ever paying another cent.
In a city where every inch of real estate is picked over and priced out, and where affordable apartments are among the rarest of commodities, Mr. Barreto had perhaps the best housing deal in New York City history.
Now, that deal could land him in prison.
Persons:
Mickey Barreto, Barreto, Christopher Columbus’s
Organizations:
New
Locations:
Midtown Manhattan, New York City, California