Man stabbed in the chest outside of NYC hotel housing migrants: cops
A man was stabbed outside of a New York City hotel that has been converted into a migrant shelter.
The victim was involved in a dispute outside of the Watson Hotel on W. 57th Street when he was stabbed in the chest and forearm by another man, according to police.
He was privately taken to Mount Sinai West Hospital in stable condition, cops said.
No arrests have been made and the investigation remains ongoing.
A parking attendant working at the lot next to the hotel told The Post that the two men were fighting before the stabbing. The victim, he said, started it.
“The guy who got stabbed was the instigator,” the attendant, named Cisco, said. The stabber was trying to avoid it, he noted.
“He didn’t seem like he wanted to fight him,” he said about the perpetrator.
The two squared up and the victim, who Cisco said was shorter, rushed his opponent — who promptly threw him to the ground. The victim’s wife then started yelling at the taller man to get off her husband.
The victim chased the other man with a stick and, at some point, the taller man drew a knife and stabbed him, the witness said. He said the stabber leaned against a wall for 10 seconds before heading towards 10th Avenue.
“The other guy was calm, cool and collected. He never raised his voice. It seemed like he was trying to avoid problems,” Cisco said of the stabber.
“He seemed to me like he was avoiding problems. The guy who got stabbed was the problem,” had added.
The Watson, a three-star hotel in Hell’s Kitchen, was refashioned to house migrants as tens of thousands have inundated the city.
Scores of migrants were living in tents outside the hotel for a time when it reached capacity.
The hotel was the site of tense standoff with migrants last year who refused to leave the hotel for new living arrangements the city had made for them at the Brooklyn Cruise terminal.
It’s not clear if the victim or attacker were migrants or living at the hotel.
Cisco said he sees police regularly called to the hotel to break up “little fights” but Saturday’s stabbing was the most serious he’d seen.
