NYC moving migrants into famed luxury Times Square hotel

 A luxury Manhattan hotel once touted as the “Lullabuy of Broadway” will soon be providing beddy-bye to hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants, The Post has learned.

Mayor Eric Adams plans to convert the Row NYC — formerly known as the Milford Plaza and located in pricey, tourist-packed Times Square — into an intake center and shelter for as many as 600 migrant families amid the city’s spiraling homelessness crisis, three sources familiar with the matter said.

“In a month or two, we’re about to open up for [the city Department of Homeless Services], for homeless,” a hotel staffer told The Post on Monday.

“They’re working on an agreement, a contract,” the worker said of the plan, which is designed to help handle homeless border-crossers bused to the city from Texas.

“It’ll be here at this hotel, but they’ll keep the DHS shelter on a certain floor. But that hasn’t started yet, they said a month or two.”

City Hall hasn’t said what the hotel plan will cost or provided any other details about it, including who exactly will run the operation.

Mayor Eric Adams plans to convert the Row NYC into an intake center and shelter for as many as 600 migrant families.

J.C. RIce

Row NYC was used to house homeless people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

G.N. Miller

The hotel plan was fast-tracked to try to help address the ongoing surge of asylum-seekers to the Big Apple, with the city striking the deal with the Row after DHS quietly issued a desperate request for proposals last week, sources said. The DHS’s move to try to snag a location more quickly was exclusively revealed by The Post.

“The population served by the selected vendor will be families with children, adult couples and individual adults,” according to the department’s Aug. 4 solicitation, which includes a request for bilingual staff.

Row NYC, at 700 Eighth Ave., is a 28-story, 1,300-room building located about three blocks north of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending busloads of migrants to protest what he calls President Biden’s “irresponsible open border policies.”

A Manhattan hotel once seen as the “Lullabuy of Broadway” will soon be providing beddy-bye to hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants.

City Hall hasn’t said what the hotel plan will cost or provided any other details about it, including who exactly will head the operation.

The migrants are being released into the US to seek asylum in immigration courts after being stopped by Border Patrol agents, either at established border crossings or after entering the country illegally.

Last month, Adams revealed that the city’s shelter system was being overwhelmed by migrants, some of whom The Post revealed were directed to New York by federal immigration officials despite having no relatives or other ties here.

When the hotel operated as the Milford Plaza, it made a name for itself during the 1980s with memorable local TV commercials that featured actors dressed as hotel workers who sang its praises to the tune of “Lullabuy of Broadway” while answering phones at the reception desk, carrying bags and presenting food flambé.

Migrants from Texas get off a bus at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Aug. 10, 2022.

AFP via Getty Images

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending busloads of migrants to protest what he calls President Biden’s “irresponsible open border policies.”

G.N. Miller

The migrants have “been through a lot, need somewhere to stay,” a Row NYC guest said.

G.N. Miller

Its $43-a-night rate per person at the time included a cocktail, dinner and breakfast, according to a video recording posted on YouTube.

The bargain price led the hotel to use mock marquee lights to advertise itself as Broadway’s “LULLABUY” — and have the singers emphasize the final syllable to help drive home the point.

The hotel was sold for about $200 million in 2010 and reopened in 2014 as Row NYC but is apparently starved for business, with its website offering discounts of up to 30% off its regular rates.

Row NYC was used to house homeless people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to City & State New York, which first reported it was under consideration as a shelter for migrants.

Hotel guest David Carpenter, 74, a tourist from Tennessee, told The Post on Monday, “I wouldn’t come back to this hotel if there were migrants staying here.

The hotel’s $43-a-night rate per person at the time included a cocktail, dinner and breakfast.

Row Hotel’s guests had mixed feelings about migrants living in the lodge.

“If they secured the border like they should, the migrants wouldn’t be here in the first place,” he added.

Other guests said they weren’t troubled by the plan.

Tourist Jennifer Hacking, 39, of Reno, Nev., said the migrants have “been through a lot, need somewhere to stay, and I actually think it’s pretty decent of the Row.”

“I would gladly stay in the same hotel as new migrants,” Hacking said. “It’s my first time in New York but it won’t be my last.”

Flight attendant Tania Carrara, who was staying at the Row between assignments, also said, “It’s better that the migrants stay in a hotel than a homeless shelter.

“These people have a lot of problems, it’s good they will have somewhere comfortable,” Carrara said.

Neither City Hall nor a Row rep immediately returned requests for comment.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/15/row-nyc-hotel-being-turned-into-migrant-shelter/