The Roosevelt Hotel — the century-old Midtown mainstay that served as the arrival center and home for tens of thousands of newcomers during the city’s migrant crisis, and came to symbolize the humanitarian challenge that vexed the New York City and the nation — has ended its run as a migrant shelter. What’s next for the property at 45 East 45th St. isn’t yet clear, though indications are that a sale is likely.
The last newcomer to be housed at the Roosevelt left the premises on June 22, and all migrant-related operations ceased there on Wednesday, according to the Adams administration. At its peak, the hotel accommodated some 2,900 migrants a night. The number receded as an influx of migrants coming into the country began to ease in 2024, after the Biden administration instituted new restrictions.
The city has said little about where the former Roosevelt guests ended up. In the past, officials said migrants leaving the city’s shelter system found their own housing or left the area altogether, or officials indicated the departing migrants’ whereabouts were unknown. Some migrants staying at the Roosevelt or other emergency shelters being shuttered were moved into the city’s traditional shelter system, which is operated by the Department of Homeless Services.
City officials have painted the closing as a positive, with Mayor Eric Adams calling it a “milestone” when he announced the closing earlier this year. But Nathaly Rubio-Torio, executive director of Voces Latinas, a Queens-based nonprofit serving Latin American immigrants, said the closing of the hotel and similar sites made her “extremely worried.”
“It’s a problem because many migrant individuals are still struggling to find work and permanent housing,” Rubio-Torio said. “Many have families to support, and many are still working in their legal process.”
A declining need
The Roosevelt opened as a migrant shelter and intake center in May 2023. It very quickly became known as the “new Ellis Island” and came to symbolize a then-nascent surge in immigration. At once, it was the face of the city administration’s efforts to welcome newcomers, and reflected the difficulty in managing the crisis.
At one point in 2023, scores of migrant families and single adults crowded outside the hotel or slept on the sidewalk in the summer heat. The scenes of desperation that generated widespread media attention, in a city that in modern times has been seen as accommodating to immigrants – even a “sanctuary city.”
The spectacle of needy people massed on the sidewalk as office workers and tourists hurried past focused sharp attention on immigration in both the city and the nation. It also prompted fresh questions about the city’s unique right-to-shelter policies guaranteeing a shelter bed to almost anyone in need.
Adams once predicted the migrant issue would “destroy New York City,” and in a subsequent poll, a majority of respondents agreed with that assessment. He ultimately limited the shelter guarantee, imposing limits on how long migrants could stay.
All told, since the spring of 2022, more than 237,000 migrants have been processed by the city’s migrant intake system. The vast majority arrived from South and Central America, Africa and Asia. In May, the city put the cost of providing for the migrants at $7.7 billion since 2022.
Texas’ Republican Gov. Greg Abbott bused several thousand to New York as part of a campaign that dispatched tens of thousands of migrants to cities run by Democrats.
By early 2024, as many as 4,000 migrants were arriving in the city weekly and 70,000 were in the city’s care. But the city announced earlier this year that due to a declining shelter census, megashelters like the Roosevelt Hotel would close.
City officials said that in the week of June 16-22, just 100 new migrants entered the city’s care, while more than 300 left it. The city currently has 37,000 migrants in its care, about half the number it had at its peak, with adults and families sheltered at 170 sites across the city, according to city data.
Border crossings plummeted after Donald Trump returned to the presidency this year, further reducing pressure on the city’s shelter system.
An uncertain future, a storied past
City officials would not disclose what’s next for the Roosevelt, except to state that more details would come soon.
The Roosevelt’s closing is just the latest turn in the storied hotel’s 100-year history.
The establishment, as Gothamist reported in 2015, was built in 1924 at the cost of $12 million, and designed by George B. Post & Son. In the 1940s it became the first hotel in the world to have TVs in guest rooms.
Over the decades the Roosevelt would serve as a location in numerous movies and TV shows, including “The French Connection,” “The Taking of Pelham 123,” “Malcolm X,” “Quiz Show,” “Wall Street,” “Maid in Manhattan,” “Men in Black 3” and “Mad Men.”
In October 2020 the hotel closed after business nosedived during the pandemic, but the sharp increase in the number of immigrants arriving in the city prompted the Adams administration to expand the shelter system.
A three-year deal struck between city officials and the owner of the building, Pakistan’s state-owned Pakistani International Airlines, reportedly provided the airline with $220 million in order to rent out rooms for migrant tenants.
On Friday, one Pakistan-based news source, Dunya, cited a Pakistani government official who said a valuation of the site had been completed and that preparations were underway to sell the building to a private owner.
Vijay Dandapani, the president and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City, called it “a great site” and predicted that it would continue as a hotel in some fashion.
“The closing is a good thing for the industry and the city as it was a blight in a prime area of New York City,” Dandapani said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
