The notorious migrant shelter and arrival center at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel will close in a couple of months, Mayor Eric Adams said Monday — as data showed the number of asylum seekers entering the city’s care has dropped nearly 200% since the crisis’ peak.
The impending closure of the centralized intake center and emergency shelter at the beleaguered Midtown hotel is a “milestone” for the Big Apple in the years-long migrant crisis, Adams said.
The Roosevelt Hotel at Vanderbilt Avenue and 45th Street in Manhattan. G.N.Miller/NYPost
New York City is now averaging about 350 new migrant arrivals per week on average. Mike Guillen/NY Post DesignBut the mayor, as he touted the decline in migrants arriving in the city, stopped short of declaring the $7 billion crisis over.
“I’d have to really think about how we designate it being over,” he told The Post at an off-topic briefing.
“I don’t want to say ‘mission accomplished’ before we’ve accomplished the mission.”
The Roosevelt Hotel shelter and intake center — which opened in May 2023 when the five boroughs saw an average of 4,000 arrivals weekly — became a symbol of the city’s struggle to contend with the migrant crisis.
The influx of migrants prompted city officials to use the Roosevelt as the city’s intake shelter, and 173,000 signed up for services at the hotel between May 2023 and this February.
But problems plagued the iconic hotel after its conversion to a migrant shelter, including becoming a breeding ground for gangs, droves of illegal delivery bikes and dozens of migrants being forced to sleep outside after it hit capacity last year.
The notorious Roosevelt Hotel migrant shelter in Manhattan is expected to close down operations in the coming months, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday. LP Media
The converted hotel will likely stop being a migrant shelter by June. Gabriella BassThe converted hotel likely will stop being a migrant shelter by June, a source told The Post.
The city is on track to close 53 shelters and all of its tent-based shelters by this summer, Adams administration officials said.
More than 232,000 migrants have reached the city since the crisis first began nearly three years ago. But New York’s migrant woes have steadily eased as the sheer number of asylum seekers slowed — with arrivals now down to 350 a week on average, data shows.
Weekly arrivals in the shelter system dropped roughly 181% compared to January of last year, when they stood at about 4,000 every week, data shows and The Post previously reported.
Adams, 64, said the number of arriving migrants entering city care is down to about 350 on average each week – a dramatic decrease from the 4,000 migrants weekly at the height of the crisis. Gabriella BassMigrants still arriving in the Big Apple after operations at the Roosevelt stop will have other locations to register, City Hall said.
Adams said city officials will review how the upcoming closure will affect a contract with the NYC Hotels Association to house migrants.
The city had about 69,000 migrants in its shelter system in January 2024.
There are currently fewer than 45,000 migrants in city care, roughly equivalent to its homeless population, according to officials.
Adams’ announcement about the Roosevelt comes after the city filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to recover $80.5 million in migrant hotel funding previously approved by Congress.
The White House quietly grabbed the money from the city’s coffers last week, leading to the legal action.
“I believe we deserve that $80 million,” Adams said.
The Roosevelt Hotel, which has roughly 1,000 rooms, first transformed into a migrant welcoming center and shelter in May 2023. Helayne SeidmanAdams has faced allegations he made a deal with the Trump administration in which he would help with the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration in exchange for the Department of Justice tossing his federal corruption case.
The mayor and the DOJ have both strenuously denied the accusations.
Adams’ criminal case is expected to be in limbo for several more weeks because a judge said Friday he wants to hear from an independent lawyer before deciding whether to grant the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case.
Adams has denied all wrongdoing in the criminal case.






