The 1,000-room Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown will become the city’s main “asylum seeker arrival center” and shelter for a wave of new migrants, Mayor Eric Adams announced Saturday — confirming a Post report from last week.
The iconic hotel, located at 45 East 45th Street near Grand Central terminal, has been closed for nearly three years.
Adams described the new asylum seeker arrival center as the first of its kind in the five boroughs, joining eight other Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers.
Migrants at the center will have access to legal, medical and reconnection services, and can also be placed in a shelter or humanitarian relief center if needed.
Other asylum seekers already under the city’s care will also have access to the arrival center, according to the mayor’s press released late Saturday.
Beginning later this week, the Roosevelt Hotel will open up 175 rooms for children and families, until it is scaled to approximately 850 rooms, the release said.
An additional 100 to 150 rooms will be reserved for migrants before transitioning to other locations.
Hizzoner said the city has to be ready for an even greater wave of migrants now that the federal Title 42 emergency order has been lifted.
Title 42 was a COVID-19 pandemic-era health measure that allowed the US to quickly turn back migrants at the US-Mexico border for the past three years.
The mayor claimed the city is maxed out in providing space for migrants, which is why he is busing new arrivals to hotels in Rockland and Orange counties and other upstate locales — triggering a firestorm of opposition.
He’s appealing for help from President Biden and Congress and Gov. Kathy Hochul to help the Big Apple handle the seemingly never-ending flow of migrants.
“We continue to ask for our federal and state partners for a real decompression strategy and hope to open and operate temporary shelters across the state and nation, as New York City has reached its capacity,” Adams said.
“New York City has now cared for more than 65,000 asylum seekers — already opening up over 140 emergency shelters and eight large-scale humanitarian relief centers in addition to this one to manage this national crisis. While this new arrival center and humanitarian relief center will create hundreds of good-paying, union jobs and provide the infrastructure to help asylum seekers reach their final destination, without federal or state assistance, we will be unable to continue treating new arrivals and those already here with the dignity and care that they deserve.”
The luxury hotel, which first opened its doors in 1924 and is owned by Pakistan International Airlines, shuttered in 2020 due to financial strains brought on by the COVID pandemic and hadn’t reopened, though a handful of businesses still operate storefronts on the ground floor of the building.
The Roosevelt has been the backdrop for a string of Hollywood films — including “Maid in Manhattan,” “Malcolm X,” “Wall Street,” “The French Connection,” “The Irishman” and “Man on a Ledge.”
It was also the setting for Guy Lombardo’s New Year’s Eve ballroom performances for three decades until 1959.
A famous quote from former President Theodore Roosevelt adorns the hotel’s website homepage:
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with these poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much.”
https://nypost.com/2023/05/14/mayor-adams-opens-historic-roosevelt-hotel-to-nyc-migrants/
No comments:
Post a Comment