NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Police and sanitation workers on Wednesday night swept the encampment at Watson Hotel in Midtown where asylum seekers had been sleeping after refusing to go to the refugee camp at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
The city has been trying to move the single men who were previously housed in the hotel to the facility in Red Hook in order to move families into the hotel rooms.
Some of the men who the city bussed to Red Hook on Sunday found the refugee camp to be too cold, with no hot water, uncomfortable cots packed too close together, no privacy, no personal storage space and a lack of easily accessible transportation.
Unsatisfied with the conditions at the terminal, men started returning to the hotel, but they were denied entry. Word spread among residents at the hotel slated for eviction, and others started to refuse to board the buses.
Mutual aid groups rallied to their side, providing food, supplies and camping gear for shelter.
The city claims the refugee camp is heated, that there are personal storage lockers and that transit is accessible. Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro said he visited the site, and that accommodations were appropriate.
Around 4 p.m. on Saturday, about 15 of the roughly 30 men living at the encampment boarded a bus to Red Hook in anticipation of a coming cold front, according to mutual aid workers.
The NYPD and Department of Sanitation swept the remaining residents of the encampment around 8 p.m.
Some of the remaining men went to the refugee camp after the sweep, while others went their own way carrying their belongings with them.
City Council Immigration Committee Chair Shahana Hanif called on Mayor Eric Adams to allow the men at the terminal to return to the hotel.
“These are people, not pawns, and I condemn the administration’s actions,” said Hanif in a statement to Gothamist. “We know that the needs of asylum seekers cannot be met in this setting. I call on the administration to abandon this model and prioritize keeping people in proper brick-and-mortar facilities.”
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