Officer who cleaned up Kenmore named BID’s operations director

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 13 / December 22 - 28, 2006

By Albert Amateau

The Flatiron/23rd St. Partnership Business Improvement District has appointed Scott Kimmins, a decorated former New York Police Department officer who spent his 20-year career patrolling the Flatiron District, as the BID’s director of operations.

Kimmins, who retired in 2004 as an officer in the 13th Precinct, was a major investigator of drug-related crimes in the Kenmore Hotel on E. 23rd St., leading to the federal 1994 takeover of the hotel. The Kenmore has become a model supportive residence for formerly homeless people run by HSI (Housing & Services, Inc.), a nonprofit housing company.

“No one is more responsible for the turnaround of the Kenmore than Scott Kimmins,” said Larry Oaks, HSI executive director. “Scott committed himself to safeguarding vulnerable and elderly tenants at the hotel in the early ’90s when the Kenmore was one of the most violent, drug-ridden buildings in the city. We can’t thank Scott enough for never giving up on the Kenmore and its residents,” Oaks said.

Kimmins, known to Flatiron residents and merchants as “Stretch” because of his 6-foot-4 height, said, “I’m the type of guy who likes to do things — I like to know that I’m making things better.” Remarking on the change in the neighborhood since the influx of residential population, he said, “There’s a new dynamic, which is great to see.”

The recently organized Flatiron/23rd St. Partnership BID provides augmented sanitation, security and business promotion services for a 38-block district between 21st and 28th Sts. from Third to Sixth Aves. As the BID’s director of operations, Kimmins will oversee the new safety and sanitation services that the BID initiated in November.