Slain near posh hotel

Twin sees Chelsea horror

A 25-year-old man was shot dead in front of his twin brother early Thursday outside Manhattan’s high-end Dream Downtown hotel, according to cops and relatives.

Byron Morales, of Brooklyn, was blasted in the lower torso in front of the posh Chelsea hotel at about 12:20 a.m., possibly after leaving dinner at the trendy Tao Downtown restaurant, authorities and police sources said.

EMS rushed Morales from the scene at West 16th Street and Ninth Avenue to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Morales’ distraught father, Earl, told The Post Byron was out on the town with his twin, Brandon, when the gunman fired.

“They just went out to eat,” Earl Morales said. “They don’t bother nobody.”

The shooting was the bloody conclusion to a dispute between Byron — who was not a hotel guest — and another man, cops said.

“It was a loud pop and I knew,” said a Chelsea resident who gave her name only as Liz, describing hearing gunfire from her apartment overlooking the scene.

“He was on the stretcher and I saw his face,” added the 28-year-old, referring to Byron. “His eyes were kinda rolled back and he was unconscious.

“I just moved here so I thought this was a nice neighborhood,” she added, explaining that she recognized the sound of gunfire from having grown up in Baltimore. “I would never think this kind of thing would happen here.”

The gunman took off in a Jeep with other occupants, according to police. It was unclear whether he was the driver or a passenger.

Police sources said Byron Morales was a member of the Outlaws street gang, and the slaying is being investigated as possibly gang-related.

But Earl Morales flatly disputed that his son was in a gang, simply saying “no” when asked about police investigators’ theory.

Added Byron’s grieving grandma, Norma, “I’m hurting so bad . . . He’s so young and he didn’t know anybody, anything.”

Hours after the shooting, rapper Busta Rhymes was spotted near the scene, although it wasn’t immediately clear why he was there, and his representatives did not respond to an inquiry.

The rapper, wearing an orange-and-black patterned shirt, was one of several people shown in photos congregating along the nightclub-lined block at around 4 a.m.