Room and Bx. board
2nd ‘mattress’ squeeze
A Queens business owner who illegally converted his furniture store into an overcrowded boarding house for migrants ran a similar makeshift shelter in The Bronx that was raided on Wednesday, officials and sources said.
A team of workers from the FDNY and Department of Buildings cleared out the commercial building on East Kingsbridge Road in the Fordham section after they discovered 45 beds packed tightly together on the first floor and cellar, according to the DOB.
Sources said eight people were inside when authorities arrived.
Building inspectors found extension cords, e-bikes, space heaters and hotplates strewn about the ad hoc sleeping quarters — less than two days after a Queens location in South Richmond Hill with comparable living arrangements was uncovered.
The DOB issued a vacate order at the former cellphone-store-turned-hostel due to “hazardous lifethreatening conditions, lack of natural light and ventilation, and severe overcrowding.”
The department also issued two violations to the landlord for failure to maintain the building and for occupying the building contrary to city records.
Migrants, mostly from Senegal, were ordered to gather their belongings and leave.
Dozens with suitcases waited on the sidewalk in the rain while officials from the city’s Emergency Management Department provided assistance.
Police sources said the man responsible for the illegal conversion is the same person who crammed 40 beds in the basement of Sarr’s Wholesale Furniture in Queens, where Senegalese migrants often slept in shifts.
Business owner Ebou Sarr, 47, admitted that he charged each man a $300 monthly “contribution” to live in his hostel.
“They don’t even have relatives here, nowhere to go, sleeping on the trains and the streets,” Sarr told The Post Tuesday of the Queens location. “So we have to intervene.”
Migrants at the Bronx spot told The Post they were also charged $300 a month.
Mayor Adams confirmed on CBS-2 Wednesday it’s believed the same person was responsible for renting out both locations.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore and Larry Celona