It’s been one year since the city turned the once-proud Roosevelt Hotel into what we once termed a “migrants’ theme park.”
NYC Health and Hospitals executive Dr. Ted Long cheerfully refrained to Spectrum News NY1 last week a claim he’s made before — that the hotel is the “new Ellis Island” where migrants can get hot meals, help with asylum paperwork, medical care and health screenings.
That’s the PR. The reality is an often squalid creepshow in the heart of commercial East Midtown. Residents who aren’t always comatose camp out on East 45th and 46th streets between Madison and Vanderbilt avenues, seemingly uninterested in the hotel’s warm-and-welcoming facilities.
More of the building’s storefronts are empty than filled, retailers having fled from rampant shoplifting, harassment of customers and doorfront urination.
But there might be hope. As we reported in February, JLL was tapped by the Roosevelt’s owner, the government of Pakistan, to evaluate the property’s potential for large-scale, mixed-use development.
Although the city paid Pakistan $220 million to lease the hotel as a migrants’ center for three years, we might not have to wait until 2026.
Sources said the deal includes exit options for the city at certain points during the term. One neighborhood shop manager who talks regularly to hotel insiders even claimed that the migrants “will be gone” by the end of this year.
The sooner, the better.
City reps didn’t respond to multiple e-mails seeking comment.
