A high-end hotel converted into one of New York City’s latest shelters is getting top-notch reviews from its new migrant residents who are thrilled with the “spectacular” conditions — but unhappy locals say the absence of tourists is already majorly impacting business.
The Collective Paper Factory’s newest guests started arriving at the industrial-hip hotel in Long Island City last week after it was turned into an emergency migrant shelter amid the Big Apple’s ongoing struggles to house the relentless influx of asylum seekers flooding in.
“Muy bonita,” Columbian migrant, Cledys Maria, 42, told The Post this week of her new, modern digs.
“It has two beds. The bathroom is spectacular. Everything is nice,” the mom-of-three, who is sharing a room at the hotel-turned-shelter with her husband and their 29-year-old son, added.
Her son, Freddy Osunam, was in awe of the “very large” rooms, saying, “How it looks inside everything is very nice. It’s very good.”
The lodgings — located at 37-06 36th Street — are so appealing that one shelter worker, who has helped staff another asylum seeker site at a Holiday Inn elsewhere in the city, said she Facetimed a friend to show off the inside of the lobby.
“I told my friend, ‘Imagine like coming from another country to America. And this is free housing, free food, free electricity, free water.’ It’s nice,” said the 24-year-old female worker, who didn’t want to be named.
“When you say shelter, you don’t think of this. The other one actually looked like a shelter. This one doesn’t.
“It looks sleek. Very sleek. It has like the hanging lights by the staircase. They have art hanging down — it’s like different colored threads. It’s pretty. I was surprised,” the worker added.
A Venezuelan migrant, who didn’t want to be named, agreed they had it good at the four-star hotel.
“The floor is polished concrete. The shower is very, very big. Beautiful tile and stone. There is a little kitchen,” the asylum-seeker said.
“We’re very happy to be here.”
Some locals, however, weren’t so thrilled with the sudden influx of new guests.
Manuel Roman, who owns the All American Coffee Shop across the street, told The Post his business is dropped “50% since the tourists left” and were replaced by asylum seekers.
“Just two weeks ago, my place was packed during lunch hours. Now, take a look around. There’s no one here,” he fumed.
“I came to this country from Mexico 30 years ago. I worked hard. I saved. I built a business. Now the city is destroying it. I’m not making enough money to survive. I’ve got rent to pay, taxes to pay.
“These people moving in, they don’t have taxes,” he continued. “All their needs are taken care of. What a great city this is — for them. But it’s killing me.”
Meanwhile, Valerie, a lifelong LICer in her 70s, said the community had spent years trying to turn the neighborhood into a desirable place to live — but she now fears it will all come undone.
“I remember when they renovated this hotel. There was a lot of fanfare. It represented the turning around of this community, because the neighborhood was pretty gritty back in the day,” she said.
“The Paper Mill Hotel had that urban chic quality that a lot of the boutique hotels were going for and still are. To see it fall into the hands of the city as a migrant shelter is truly disheartening.”
She added: “It represents a total 180-degree turn from all the progress we reached, and is such a screw-you to all the people who’ve worked so hard to make the city livable. Well, it’s livable alright — too livable, and that’s the problem.”
The once-funky 125-room hotel includes a gym, communal spaces, meeting rooms, a bar, and restaurant.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many migrant families the city plans to put up in the five-story hotel-turned-shelter.
There are currently roughly 60,000 asylum seekers being housed in the nearly 200 city-run emergency shelter scattered across the five boroughs.
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan