NYC migrants beg to be let back into luxury hotel or get access to 'vacant ... trends now
Migrants who have landed in New York City are protesting the decision to send them from a luxury midtown hotel to a ferry cruise terminal in Brooklyn by camping outside of their affluent lodgings.
Activist Sergio Tupac Uzurin told a group of reporters and residents of the area around west 57th street this week that the reason for the protest was that the 'cold' shelter was 'not meant to be inhabited' and that the beds are made of 'hard materials.'
Uzurin also argued that Mayor Eric Adams and New York Governor Kathy Hochul should give the newly arrived migrants access to the luxury apartments in the area around The Watson Hotel known as 'billionaire's row.'
More than 43,000 asylum seekers have flooded the Big Apple since last spring, leading the city to set up emergency shelters at hotels while constructing mass housing for the migrants.
Rooms at The Watson Hotel usually go for around $450 per night, the cruise terminal is around 45 minutes away. It comes equipped with a buffet food service, over 100 toilets and is temperature controlled.
Activist Sergio Tupac Uzurin told a group of reporters and residents of the area around west 57th street that the reason for the protest was that the 'cold' shelter was 'not meant to be inhabited' and that the beds are made of 'hard materials'
Accommodations set up for the migrants at the ferry terminal include a ping pong table
Uzurin, who attended Manhattan's most exclusive high school Stuyvesant, told ABC New York in an interview: 'So the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is a large structure, it's not meant to be inhabited. It is a thousand beds, beds made out of hard material.
'There's not space for personal belongings. If you have personal belongings you have to put them in a locker. That's out of your control. There's only four bathrooms for a thousand men which is unsustainable for anybody who's working.
'It's in an isolated part of the city away from where many of them work and it's cold.' While touring the facility on Monday, Mayor Adams noted that he saw a man wearing shorts.
The Queens-born activist continued: 'The immediate resolution is that the Hotel Watson needs to accept these men back and put them back into their rooms.
'The longer-term solution is to reallocate funding from over-funded departments like the NYPD into housing vouchers and into other programs that get people into permanent stable housing.'
A video showing Mayor Eric Adams vist also showed off a buffet at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook
The photos show a mass of roughly 1,000 of cot-style beds, all in close proximity to one another
A photo provided by one of the migrants shows rows of beds set up at the terminal
More than 43,000 asylum seekers have flooded the Big Apple since last spring, leading the city to set up emergency shelters at hotels while constructing mass housing for the migrants
Rooms at The Watson Hotel usually go for around $450 per night, the cruise terminal is around 45 minutes away
Sergio Uzurin, of Queens, called on the mayor to open up luxury apartments for migrants
While some migrants have been moved outside the hotels, many at The Watson have refused to take up the city's offer to ship them to the Red Hook housing facility in Brooklyn, causing headaches for longtime residents in Hell's Kitchen
The city's office of immigrant affairs said that the shelter is temperature-controlled with free-food, security, over 100 toilets and that residents are given vouchers for public transportation to get them to where they need to be.
While some migrants have been moved outside the hotels, many at The Watson have refused to take up the city's offer to ship them to the Red Hook housing facility in Brooklyn, causing headaches for longtime residents in Hell's Kitchen.
The migrants were given the option to tour the facility before moving their belongings there, but most refused.
One who did see the shelter, named only as Labrador by NewsNation, told the station: 'The conditions are so bad we have to cross the street to take a
