Migrants at the Watson Hotel in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen refused to leave for the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal shelter established by Mayor Eric Adams.
The New York Post reported the Adams administration would open the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center in the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. It can house 1,000 adult single males:
“Our city is at its breaking point,” Mayor Adams said in a statement about the cruise terminal plan.Most of the temporary occupants would be people relocated from the city’s already packed Watson Hotel humanitarian relief center in Midtown, according to a letter obtained by The Post from Kevin Cho of the Mayor’s Office of City Legislative Affairs to City Council members.“Once open, this site will serve approximately 1,000 asylum seekers in a congregate setting and will offer the same services adult men have been receiving at the other humanitarian relief centers, including on-site medical, food, laundry, and reconnections,” says the letter. “The Watson Hotel humanitarian relief center will transition to serve arriving families with children seeking asylum.”
But on Sunday night, 50 migrants gathered outside the Watson Hotel with activists. Only a few migrants went on a city bus to the new shelter.
Some who went to the shelter over the weekend went back to the hotel:
One Manhattan activist told The Post the men outside were staying at the hotel and were prepared to stay outside overnight. Some were moved to the new shelter earlier this weekend, but opted to return to the Manhattan site, she said.“They feel that it’s not livable,” said Valerie, who declined to give her last name but said she was part of a mutual aid coalition helping migrants.“The hotel won’t let them in so they’re planning to sleep here,” Valerie added.
City officials claimed the migrants would have the same services at the terminal as they do at the hotel:
“More than 42,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last spring and we continue to surpass our moral obligations as we provide asylum seekers with shelter, food, health care, education, and a host of other services,” City Hall spokesperson Fabien Levy said in a statement.“The facilities at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will provide the same services as every other humanitarian relief center in the city, and the scheduled relocations to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal this weekend took place as planned. We remain in serious need of support from both our state and federal governments.”
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