City Accuses FiDi Sex Club of Prostitution but Building Home to Other Mysteries Too

If they don’t catch you coming, they might catch you going.

This was the “clever” lead a reporter thought of when he heard of an alleged “brothel”—disguised as a swingers’ club— above an allegedly “popular” cop bar near the World Trade Center and the city Law Department’s efforts to shut down the alleged “brothel.”

The idea was rife with possibilities, all of which the reporter wanted to see for himself, both for professional curiosity, and his intimate— if perhaps not quite that intimate—bond with you, our readers.

The name of the alleged “brothel” is TemptationsNYC, and it occupies the top two floors of 108 Greenwich Street, a narrow seven-story-tall commercial building between Rector and Carlisle streets. According to the New York Post, which broke the story, the bar, Whiskey Blue, which occupies the building’s second floor, is “popular with various law enforcement officers.”

Superficially, this sounds plausible. The block has two hotels—Courtyard by Marriott and the Tribeca Hotel—and both the World Trade Center Memorial, with its abundance of tourists and cops, and Wall Street are nearby.

Speaking to the Post, Temptations’ operator, Johnny, denied the prostitution allegations, noting that the space was sometimes rented out by other party promoters, and vowed to fight the city’s effort to shutter the club.

Whatever has or hasn’t happened in TemptationsNYC, there is years of evidence in the form of event announcements that the space was used for a wide variety of sex parties catering to, at different times, swingers, cuckolds, fetishists, bi-, gay and trans people, and more—all consensual, legal, and without known incident.

So why would Temptations have become a “nuisance” now?

As for Whiskey Blue, for a “popular” bar, they have very little internet presence: four posts on Instagram, three of food, one for “Whiskey Blue Restaurant Bar & Ultra Lounge”—a name matching that of the illuminated sign facing Greenwich Street, which adds the alluring phrase, “A Hidden Gem.”

The “popular” bar in the eyes of the Post, according to the State Liquor Authority, however, was only granted a temporary three-month liquor license on Jan, 13, 2025 which expires on March 13, 2025. The license was issued to a shell company, JRZAC LLC. There was no contact person listed on the SLA web site for the bar and its temporary license holders.

More photos, including the bar’s interior, appear on Alignable.com, though none show any people. A WhiskeyBlueNYC.com homepage shows a menu (15% discount for First Responders, 10% for Hotel Guests) and a telephone number but no posted hours.

The fact that Whiskey Blue has no online reviews or notices was also strange, though when looking for them, one did find traces of another Whiskey Blue—a cocktail lounge that was inside the former W Hotel at 541 Lexington in the 2010s.

When Straus News visited 108 Greenwich St. on Saturday March 1, Whiskey Blue NYC was closed, with no indication it was opening, or had been open, anytime soon. In the building lobby, a podium with a Whiskey Blue menu attached was covered in dirt and shoved into a corner. Outside, a Yeungling-branded chalk board announcing Happy Hour 5-7 and a “We Back the Blue” police flag sign likewise appeared neglected.

While the Whiskey Blue saga might seem tangential to the alleged brothel story, its opaque presence affirmed the implication by Crain’s New York Business that 108 Greenwich is a building of some mystery.

Especially notable in the Crain’s account was an ongoing dispute between the building’s owner, Jian Feng Dai, and his shell company, CYP Enterprise LLC, of Fresh Meadow, Queens, and its former first-floor tenant, a bar called Suspenders.

Seasoned downtown drinkers might recall Suspenders as an ex-fireman-owned bar at 111 Broadway, between Pine and Thames streets, that served as a notable refuge after both the 1993 and 9/11 Word Trade Center attacks. Opened in 1988, a huge rent increase forced its closure in May 2014.

By 2017, Suspenders had reopened—on the ground floor of 108 Greenwich St. Though it survived COVID, as well as many nightmare months of sidewalk scaffolding, Suspenders closed without fanfare in 2022, with six years—and $2.7 million— remaining on its lease.

This money is the subject of ongoing lawsuit between Dai and Suspenders, with the bar claiming, according to Crain’s, that it “became overwhelmed by frequent repairs to pipes that became jammed because Temptations’ customers allegedly kept flushing prophylactics down toilets.”

Meanwhile, around September 2023, the ground floor had been re-leased to a so-called “dispensary” called Indica Diamond. As with many alleged illegal weed shops, Indica Diamond was shut down in 2024. Today, a deli named Flavor Taste appears to be opening soon.

Interestingly, despite Suspenders’ and the city’s complaints against Temptations, two other business appear to have thrived here for years: Fabio Doti Hair Salon on the third floor and Hideaway Spa & Lounge on the fourth floor. Both are well reviewed and both were open when Straus News visited.

The building’s fifth floor appears unoccupied, though at some point, according to the building’s outdated and incomplete lobby directory, Greenwich Capital Advisors LLC—seemingly now defunct—could be found here.

On the sixth floor, a simple, non-visually suggestive flyer taped to the door reads “TEMPTATIONSNYC – Give in to your TEMPTATION...”

Two heart-shaped helium balloons were also seen floating nearby, remnants of a recent Valentine’s Day party.

On the stairwell leading to the seventh floor hang a number of erotic-themed artworks, including a large painting that shows a fair-skinned woman wearing red heels with black lace panties around her shapely calves.