A street in Corona, Queens is turning people’s heads for a double-look after recently becoming well known as the city’s boldest open-air market for sex and is even being advertised on YouTube.
As authorities are being reduced and immigration surges, nearly a dozen brothels have opened up shop along Roosevelt Avenue near Junction Boulevard.
On a weekday in broad daylight, several scantily-clad streetwalkers brazenly solicit passersby, including a news reporter, as sidewalks are brimming with kids, legitimate shoppers, and merchants.
One sex worker even offered a ‘happy ending massage’ for $40 and another $80 for a ‘full body massage’.
The half-naked women think nothing of it and continue to loiter in front of pool halls, dentist offices, and massage parlors day and night. They even recruited a few neighborhood kids to hand out their X-rated business cards. According to terrified moms, about 20 of whom have banded together to form the Community of Young Values and Principles in Corona, brothels and sex workers are actively recruiting kids. Some have them hand out cards with a photo of a sex worker offering “delivery service”.
“How do they have this f–king going on in broad daylight?” one police source asked after seeing photos of the women in the street. “They’re not allowed to arrest prostitutes anymore, supposedly. But they gotta figure something out.”
It’s a perfect storm for prostitution in Corona and other NYC immigrant enclaves, experts say. Vulnerable migrant women unable to legally work are flooding the city, while local district attorneys have chosen to stop prosecuting sex workers.
The Roosevelt Avenue red-light district is blatantly advertised on a YouTube channel for Spanish speakers, with 10 minutes of footage showing the women working what they call the “Market of Sweethearts,” and two men guiding viewers on how to negotiate with them.
The brothels also appear to be working together instead of competing with each other. As one sex worker was being interviewed, others nearby filmed and photographed, appearing to warn each other of the journalists’ presence.
Cops no longer arrest hookers. The NYPD started focusing on johns a few years ago after a prostitute tragically jumped to her death during a police pursuit. In April 2021, then-Manhattan DA Cy Vance announced his office would stop prosecuting sex workers, and other borough prosecutors soon followed suit.
“I’ve lived here my entire life and I’ve never seen it get to this point,” said City Councilman Francisco Moya (D-Corona), who is sounding the alarm about the issue and says he’s asked Mayor Adams to help.
Moya was especially incensed by the “Market of Sweethearts” video by the group Comunidad Latina En Usa, which has more than 19,000 YouTube subscribers.
The two male guides in the clip are seen asking one Corona sex worker, “How much, for example, does it cost for a happy ending?”
The woman replies, “$200.”
“$200 with everything?” the man marvels, before telling the audience, “That’s how much that service costs here in New York. And how much does it cost in your city?”
Moya fumed, “This is put on Facebook, YouTube and saying, ‘Here’s a destination for you to come to, you know, learn how to negotiate with prostitutes.’ And they are literally telling you the price for whatever a sexual act that they’re willing to perform. It’s just unheard of. It’s in plain sight.”
He added, “We need to get enforcement in here to clean up Roosevelt Avenue because no community should have to be faced with the quality-of-life issues that we’re facing here each and every day.”
“You’re looking at prostitutes being in a hub area,” a law enforcement source said. “So your children are right there. It’s not fair to the people who live there.”
While human traffickers have long provided the local sex industry with a steady stream of Asian and Central American women trying to escape horrid conditions in their homelands, the recent flood of migrants in the five boroughs has created a larger and more desperate pool of potential prostitutes.
“We’re aware of the fact that many young people have immigrated here, kids 15 or 16-years old, and they’re not in school, they’re working, and these prostitutes find them and pull them in,” said Guadalupe Aguirre Gomez, the coordinator of Community of Young Values and Principles.
Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, said, “There are trafficking cartels from Mexico and Central America who ship women into Queens and parts of Brooklyn. I spoke to a young girl in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. She said she has seen vans at night picking up women from the shelters that house these new immigrants.”
