Mayor Eric Adams tried to fend off criticism over accommodations at the new emergency migrant shelter in Brooklyn by staying there overnight during the coldest day of the year.
“We are going to stay tonight with our brothers here and just let them know that we are all in this together,” said Adams, while playing video games late Friday with one of the hundreds of migrant men staying at the converted Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook. “This is how you get through things.”
The mayor highlighted the exchange in a video posted on Twitter Saturday announcing his off-the-books visit, which his office failed to list in the mayor’s public schedule.
Joining Adams on the overnight stay as frigid temperatures outside dropped into the single digits were Assemblyman Edward Gibbs, D-Manhattan, and homeless advocate Shams DaBaron. The mayor arrived around 11 p.m. Friday, slept on a cot alongside the migrants, ate breakfast with them and left around 9 a.m.
Hours later, the mayor’s press office released a prepared statement from Adams insisting the migrants are being well-cared for and that the converted cruise terminal is just as warm and welcoming as any other humanitarian relief center in the city.
“I would never ask anyone to do something I wouldn’t be willing to do myself, so last night, on the coldest night of the year, Assemblymember Gibbs, Shams, and I wanted to show the asylum seekers staying at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal the warmth of New York City,” he said.
“What we saw is what we have seen since the beginning of this crisis: individuals who are grateful to the greatest city in the world for providing them the opportunity to work towards the American Dream.”
Many of the migrants welcomed the mayor’s impromptu visit – including the opportunity to voice concerns that they were cold.
Although City Hall sources said temperatures at the facility never dropped below the city’s mandatory minimum overnight indoor temperature of 62 degrees, Adams and his team promised to turn up the heat and provided extra blankets to anyone who needed them.
“He was there feeling how cold it is, and he slept in the room with us,” said Mario Peña, 26, who arrived in the US from Venezuela three months ago. “It was good that he shared with us. He slept in the middle of all of us on a cot. We tried to speak to him with our bad English.”
Camilo Londono, 41, another Venezuela native, praised the mayor for showing up.
“It was great,” he said “I’m thankful for everything that [Adams] has given us: a place to live, food, clothes, healthcare. There are doctors here giving the chickenpox vaccine to those who want it. I just got mine 10 minutes ago. I’m thankful for everything he’s done – it’s all good.”
The cruise terminal setup is at the heart of the migrant standoff at the three-star Watson Hotel in Manhattan, which began Jan. 29 when more than 50 single, male migrants refused to be relocated to the new shelter in Brooklyn. It ended Wednesday night with the NYPD forcing about 25 remaining diehards to leave their sidewalk encampment.
Some progressive pols, including Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn), contended the new Red Hook accommodations are not very welcoming after a recent tour. However, others like Queens Councilman Robert Holden, a centrist Democrat like Adams, boasted about the new shelter, saying it’s clean, well-run and comfortable.
Adams, who declared a state of emergency over the migrant crisis in October, has said it will cost taxpayers as much as $2 billion to provide the migrant population — now 44,000 and counting — with shelter and other services.
