Over 200 migrants set up ‘mini-city’ with ‘nighttime market’ under Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
More than 200 migrants are living al fresco under stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, setting up a makeshift mini-city with its own bustling nighttime market — where asylum seekers peddle everything from food to haircuts, fed-up neighbors said.
Despite initial efforts by cops and Sanitation workers over the summer to clear out a dozen or so migrants living in tents under the BQE at Park Avenue and Hall Street in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill, the spot is now hotter than ever.
Although the tents remain down, migrants continued to flock to the area the past few months after leaving a shelter at 47 Hall Street, a block away, along with others throughout the Big Apple.
“The problem hasn’t gotten any better, it’s gotten worse and continues to get worse,” raged a Clinton Hill dad of two.
“I’d rather see the tents. It literally looks and smells horrible down there now.”
The migrants have set up temporary, open-air homes by cramming mattresses, tables and other accessories between rows of parked vehicles along a garbage-strewn section under the BQE.
Most are from Latin American countries or are French-speaking Africans.
There’s smells of urine and trash everywhere, and it’s just sad that the city doesn’t seem to care about the people that live here, that are from here, that pay taxes,” another brick-and-mortar neighbor fumed.
“New Yorkers seem to be second-class citizens in all of this — and that’s the most upsetting part of it all.
On Friday, a Post reporter saw six men sitting in folding chairs peddling Nike and other name-brand sneakers lined across two tables.
Ecuadorian migrant Byron Espinoza, 35, set up what appears to be a thriving barber business that includes its own mirror and white chair for customers to sit in.
Espinoza uses barber tools and said he charges “$15 per haircut” and gets about eight customers per day.
Many migrants said they want no part of staying in city-run shelters, or were booted from them after staying the city maximum of 30 days and couldn’t find permanent shelter.
Jose Caiza, 48, of Ecuador, said he arrived the United States six months and spent 30 days at the Hall Street shelter before moving to the street since he was out of options.
“It’s very hard,” he said. “[The immigration system] has no heart. We are human beings. We have the right to seek opportunities in our lives.”
In July, The Post reported that dozens of migrants then living in what was a mini-tent city had also taken to drinking and smoking in the nearby children’s playground and milling about in the surrounding streets, according to Clinton Hill residents.
Some also carried guns, according to residents.
