A long commercial strip in Queens, New York City, has become such a hotbed for open-air prostitution that when police raided a brothel there last week, the same cathouse was open for business again within 24 hours, an astonishing Fox News Digital video shows.
Fox News Digital visited the seedy strip of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens – part of which encompasses Democratic Squad Member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s district – to report on the law-breaking behavior in the area and was conducting an interview outside the nearby brothel when an alleged sex worker and her client walked out of the building.
The building, a former beauty salon, appears closed due to metal shutter doors covering the storefront, but a makeshift door has been cut out of it. Two CCTV cameras are stationed overhead.
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The woman, wearing tight gym shorts and a black top, briefly looks at the Fox News Digital camera and then makes a dash towards Roosevelt Avenue with her young client fixing himself and then following closely behind her.
The woman in the video was allegedly later seen soliciting sex along with other women around the corner from the Case Street brothel. The alleged sex workers are understood to pick up clients on the busy street and then take them to the brothel around the corner, which leads into a residential neighborhood.
The NYPD confirmed that three arrests were made during the Sept. 18 raid on the building. It is unclear why it wasn’t immediately padlocked.
The Queens District Attorney’s Office tells Fox News Digital it is in the process of shutting the brothel down and says it understands that the NYPD is separately seeking a “parallel nuisance abatement order against the establishment.”
Ramses Frías, a local resident turned activist who was being interviewed as the pair walked out, said he was not surprised that the building was operational again, given that the alleged sex workers advertise their bodies in the open during all hours of the day and night with few repercussions.
“This area has been run rampant with prostitution, especially on this corner,” Frías said. “This block itself, it’s just been out of control and the lawlessness continues to happen. This [raid] was done yesterday and as you can see, it looks like it’s still operational.”
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Known to locals as the “Avenue of the Sweethearts,” residents say the prostitution situation reminds them of the red-light district streets of Bangkok. Additionally, illegal vendors also overrun the sidewalks cooking hot food or selling used clothes “third world” conditions.
On one block along Roosevelt Avenue, Fox News Digital cameras recorded a line of no less than 19 alleged sex workers on the sidewalk. Around the corner, there were at least seven more, and a woman on the next block was witnessed soliciting sex for $60.
Frías says that the alleged prostitutes and their pimps continue to flout the law with little repercussions, while many elected leaders do nothing to stop the lawlessness.
Prostitution is illegal in New York.
In January, the NYPD raided six establishments in the area allegedly engaged in prostitution, which were issued closing orders.
The raid was well publicized, with embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams and local Democratic City Council member Francisco Moya present. However, the Queens District Attorney’s Office confirmed that no arrests were made, saying it was strictly carried out to serve court closure orders of nuisance abatement over which the NYPD has jurisdiction.
Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels and a Republican candidate for mayor, slammed it as a “show raid” and said there were no arrests.
“They didn’t arrest the johns, prostitutes, madams; they never went after the landlords, and they were back in business the next day,” said Sliwa, who joined Fox News Digital and Frías on a walking tour of the area. “This would never be tolerated in Manhattan. They tolerate it because it’s … a poor and impoverished area in the eyes of many New Yorkers, but that doesn’t give you a reason to allow this to exist.”
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