The hotel site still boasts a Japanese restaurant and bar in its lobby and “Art Nouveau styled hotel rooms” with “sophisticated furniture, plush beds with down comforters and deluxe linens, flat-screen televisions with cable and C.O. Bigelow toiletries.”
But recent visits to the Square Hotel found a much different scene.
A National Guard soldier is seen stationed at the entrance of the lobby.
A couple with carry on luggage walked into the hotel on Sunday, but were escorted out by National Guardsmen.
One critic said “lazy” hotel operators even in the Great White Way have concluded that it’s more profitable to take the easy money from the city to fully occupy their rooms with migrants rather than book tourists.
“These hotels could be doing a fine tourist business right now, but they are being lazy, and a sure-thing 100-percent occupancy on the city dime, and without having to provide traditional hotel services, is just too good a deal to pass up,” said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Other pro-business advocates said it’s sad that the city and the hotel industry are turning the Broadway District into a migrant district.
“We consider the Broadway District a key to the city’s economy. There is only one Broadway —in the entire world!” said state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar
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