Migrants Opt to Sleep on NYC Streets Instead of “Inhumane” Center at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal
GIULIA MCDONNELL NIETO DEL RIO
AND FISAYO OKARE
FEB 01, 2023
MIGRANTS CAMP OUTSIDE THE WATSON HOTEL AT 440 W. 57TH STREET. PHOTO: GIULIA MCDONNELL NIETO DEL RIO
For more than two days, some migrants have been camping outside the Watson Hotel in Hell’s Kitchen. The sidewalks next to the hotel were still occupied while we wrote this. They returned to the hotel after seeing the conditions at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal where NYC is relocating them.
What happened outside the hotel?
The hotel has been housing single adult male migrants and asylum seekers since last year. But now, the New York City government is trying to transition the hotel to house migrant children and families. As a result, the City arranged for men at the hotel to be transported in buses to the new humanitarian relief center it opened this month at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook.
When some of the migrants boarded City buses and arrived at the center in Red Hook, they said they found conditions were much worse than the hotel. Some returned to the hotel but were not let back in, so they slept on the street.
One of those migrants was Ivan Pereira, who is from Venezuela and has been in New York for about three months. He had lived in the Watson hotel for almost two months until, along with many other migrant men, staff asked him to leave the hotel. He acted accordingly on Monday morning.
https://documentedny.com/2023/02/01/early-arrival-hotel-brooklyn-cruise-terminal-shelter-migrants/
