Joe Germanotta, a restaurant owner since 2012 in New York City’s Upper West Side and the father of liberal pop star Lady Gaga, is outraged by the City of New York’s response to the escalating illegal immigrant crisis. His own part of the city is now grappling with the consequences as a surge of illegals have inundated his once-peaceful, upscale neighborhood.
Formerly a safe, quiet area where businesses and families thrived, Germanotta’s community has undergone a huge transformation due to the city’s decision to house hundreds of illegals within a former residence hall intended for music, art, and drama students.
In his dual role as a community leader, Germanotta is aiming to force city hall to address the dangerous conditions that have arisen. The New York Post reported that the Stratford Arms Hotel is now housing hundreds of illegal aliens.
Germanotta highlights that the neighborhood’s safety has eroded, with young illegals partying through the night, drinking, doing drugs and dangerously riding unregistered motor scooters and e-bikes through the streets at all hours.
There’s also the issue of littering and loitering, not to mention a surge in open prostitution and used hypodermic needles that are suddenly all over the area.
Months prior, the city entered into an agreement with the American Musical and Dramatic Academy to relocate the artistic students from the Stratford Arms Hotel. In their place, approximately 500 illegal immigrants were installed. The hotel granted the students a two-week period to vacate the property. However, neither AMDA nor the city informed the local community that the intention was to populate the hotel with illegals.
The complete takeover of the New York hotel was orchestrated through deceit.
“It was a stealth operation. They were bused in the middle of the night, like when they flew them into Westchester, they didn’t want anybody to know what was going on,” Germanotta said. “It was all pretty rapid.”
“There’s now 500 migrants living in that dormitory. That’s when all the mayhem began,” Germanotta told the Post.
“Since the arrival of the migrants, the restaurateur said the quality of life in the area has taken a hit, with impromptu block parties outside the hotel that last into the early morning, prostitution, kids getting catcalled, and reckless e-bikes and motor-scooter drivers wreaking havoc on one-way streets,” the Post reported.
“[New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corporations’] answer was, ‘We’ll build a bike corral,’” Germanotta scoffed. “You’re just enabling ’em,” he added.
Germanotta has joined a group of fellow business and property owners, forming the West 70th Street Association. Through this coalition, they are conveying their concerns regarding the migrants to New York’s City Hall.
Germanotta also worries about the safety of girls and women within the vicinity. He highlights that groups of rowdy, jobless, and sexist young men have begun gathering in gangs, harassing women of all ages, including girls as young as 14, on the streets.
Residents are now afraid to walk their dogs out of fear of encountering these gangs of illegals who don’t work and have nothing to do.
Nevertheless, Germanotta maintains that he isn’t opposed to having migrants in his community.
“I don’t mind having them there. They’re gonna be there for three years. That was the contract, I understand. But at least manage it. Put the proper security in place, have a police presence and a code of conduct,” he said.
However, he added, “They’re guests in our neighborhood, and they have basically taken over.”
Despite Germanotta and his association members alerting authorities about the problems the illegals are causing, the city appeared to lack any real answers.
Germanotta also slammed AMDA, the company that owns the building being leased by the city to accommodate the illegals.
“AMDA is getting very, very rich off this, and they screwed the neighborhood,” Germanotta complained.
“In my opinion, you should have just suspended ‘sanctuary city’ status until we had enough housing,” Germanotta said. Then, once more housing was obtained, he said more could come. But instead, the city allowed hundreds to flood the city before the housing was arranged.
“The really sad part is that in the neighborhood, we still have our share of veterans and homeless — but we’re not taking care of our own. They don’t get food every day. It’s really sad. I feel for them,” Germanotta concluded.
Mr. Germanotta is feeling what the people of Southern California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas have been feeling for years and years. Wait until the English language within the communities starts being replaced little by little with Spanish as it has in many communities within the states previously mentioned.
New York isn’t the only state dealing with this dangerous surge in illegal. The same surge of illegals is taking place all across the nation, bringing disease, sexual abuse and crime to our communities and forcing states to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to address the problems.
