Creepy NYC construction workers film, use binoculars to spy on female students in college dorm
Creepy Hudson Yards construction workers are brazenly ogling female fashion students through their dorm windows, using binoculars, filming them — and even setting up chairs to gawk, according to disturbed co-eds and nearby residents.
The workers at Two Manhattan West, a $2 billion, 58-story skyscraper in Hudson Yards that opened in January, peer across West 31st Street into rooms at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Kaufman Hall, videos shared with The Post show.
They do the same to residents of The Eugene, the apartment building next door, according to a resident who said she “can’t escape them.”
Construction on Two Manhattan West, the final piece of the eight-acre Manhattan West complex from Brookfield Properties as part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment, began in 2019 and is continuing on some floors, where the peeping Toms have still been spotted.
The workers, who appear to be from different construction companies, are so notorious they even have a nickname — the Kaufman Creepers, students said.
A video shared on TikTok last week by a 23-year-old resident of The Eugene showed a man in a hard hat peeping into the student quarters through a window. The post has since gotten over 2.5 million views.
Dozens of former and current students commented that they have experienced the Kaufman Creepers, too.
One former student said it would happen “on the daily.”
Another FIT grad said she once woke up to a construction worker on scaffolding staring at her sleeping.
“One time I saw a worker with binoculars in that building,” another raged.
The Eugene resident who shared the video, Lilyan, a social media influencer and singer, requested to only have her first name shared out of privacy concerns. She said she has caught construction workers recording at least five times, and has also seen them use binoculars and set up chairs to view the dorms.
In September, she saw the men “gawking” at and seemingly filming a nude co-ed changing after a shower.
“You feel helpless, like you can’t do anything for them. You can’t scream across the hall and be like, ‘Oh my god, close your blinds!'” Lilyan said.
Most of the dorm windows have blinds but several women said that they don’t have overhead lights in the rooms so they keep their windows open.
“You shouldn’t be scared to have your blinds open to experience daylight in your room — it shouldn’t be a fear to open your window,” sophomore Naomi Mitchell, 19, told The Post.
She said it has been unsettling for her and her friends in the 1,100-student dorm to hear about the regular ogling.
“It is gross to catch someone staring at you, especially when it’s a man and a female dominated dorm,” she said.
Another FIT student, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said she and her friends noticed construction workers and security guards staring into their windows over the years. When they complained, they were simply told to email FIT’s office of residential life.
When Lilyan tried to talk to one of the construction crew members about the lecherous behavior, she said she was dismissed.
“He kind of laughed at me and he was like, ‘Well, what do you expect? It’s New York,'” she said.
Since her video went viral, she noticed several of the dorms have been closing their blinds, and the construction workers covered the building’s windows with a massive sheet of paper.
Various construction companies have been hired, including by new tenants, throughout the course of the massive project.
Structure Tone, a recent contractor hired by a tenant and whose employee was believed to be the one in Lilyan’s video, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Post.
The general contractor on the initial project was AECOM Tishman.
“We completed work and have not been on this site in over a year and have no record of complaints when we were there,” a spokesperson told The Post.
FIT declined to comment but students said the administration emailed Thursday saying it was in contact with Two Manhattan West and was taking the allegations seriously.
