They’ll be no more “happy endings” in this Brooklyn neighborhood.
A dozen Bay Ridge massage parlors that doubled as brothels and advertised “sweet young girl” and “best Asian massage” on Craigslist and Backpage.com were busted for prostitution after the seedy sex joints invaded the quiet south Brooklyn ‘hood, authorities announced today.
“There were 19 massage parlors in a relatively small area. Now we know that people in Bay Ridge have back pain, but we don’t think that it’s enough to sustain 19 massage parlors,” said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Raids on parlors with names like “Cherry Blossom” and “Dream Bodywork” yesterday netted arrests of three owners and 16 prostitutes.
The online ads – which featured photos of buxom Asian women – offered one-hour massages for $50, but a police source said the parlors sold sex for $100 a throw.
While prosecutors said the parlors were not directly connected, all the prostitutes had the same rehearsed answer when they were collared.
“They would say they had a child back in China and this was the first time they had been involved in something like this,” a police source told the Post.
“It seemed almost overnight that our bucolic neighborhoods of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights were becoming more like the old 42nd Street,” said city councilman Vincent Gentile.
“[Prostitution] can very quickly erode the quality of life and certainly debases women and encourages the scourge of human trafficking from Asia and other parts of the world,” Kelly said.
Prosecutors said the prostitutes included women from China and Korea, that the johns were from all over, and that the investigation is ongoing.
jsaul@nypost.com