How New York's glitzy Roosevelt Hotel went from hosting A-listers to the face of the migrant crisis before shuttering after 100 years

Daily Mail​

6 days ago

Standing on the corner of Manhattan's 45th Street and Madison Avenue, The Roosevelt Hotel was once the pinnacle of New York City glitz and glamor.
However, in recent years, the once–posh and presidential establishment has seen struggles like never before, leading to the announcement of its permanent closure by NYC Mayor Eric Adams in February, 2025.
The iconic hotel's shutdown earlier this month came after it spent two years housing the hundreds of thousands of migrants flooding to the US during he peak of the country's immigration crisis.
In 2022 Manhattan's historic Roosevelt Hotel was transformed into a shelter to house the asylum seekers in May 2023 and, over the course of the last two years, 155,000 people from 160 countries walked in and out of the hotel's doors.
The situation was a far cry from the pomp and ceremony which marked the hotel's opening in 1924, in honor of President Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt.
Set over 1025 rooms, the opulent hotel boasted a luxury fitness center and an indoor swimming pool, and even sat atop a secret tunnel system.
Over the next 101 years, the establishment played host to Hollywood legends, towering literary figures such as F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and influential lawmakers.
In February of this year, in light of dwindling migrant numbers, Adams called time on the hotel–turned–shelter and it closed its doors for the last time in July. Now, as the Roosevelt Hotel stands empty, Daily Mail has taken a deep dive into its rich history.
Grand opening and style
The Roosevelt Hotel first opened its doors on September 22, 1924, after overcoming setbacks due to the 1916 Zoning Resolution – the city's first citywide zoning code, enacted to prevent massive buildings from blocking light and fresh air.
The hotel cost $12 million to build, equivalent to around $226.4 million today.
Named after US President Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt, the hotel was originally operated by New–York United Hotels Inc., but when the company went bankrupt in 1934, Roosevelt Hotels Inc. took over until 1943, when it was acquired by Hilton.
In December 1925, several members of the Roosevelt family dedicated a plaque in the lobby to the late president. The memorial featured a Ding Darling cartoon that appeared in the New–York Tribune the day of the former president's death.
The hotel's style and architecture was designed in honor of the 26th president.
Architects George B. Post & Sons fashioned the hotel with an Italian Renaissance Revival–style façade.
The group aimed to reflect the ideals of Roosevelt through its structure and building. In a nod to the president's dedication to public service, the architects envisioned the building to provide premium comfort and hospitality to visitors.
Many of the architectural details were inspired by historic US buildings, according to Untapped New York.
The stunning paneled walls and fluted pilasters of the hotel's primary dining hall are inspired by those in New York's City Hall.
Elongated windows in the banquet hall are reminiscent of those in Annapolis's Chase House, a classic example of Georgian architecture.
Other architectural features are nods to Kenmore, a colonial Virginia Mansion, and the Octagon House in Washington DC.
The 19–story structure's ground floor largely contained shops, while the first floor featured the hotel lobby, dining rooms and other public areas.
Hotel rooms, which there were 1,025 of, began on the third floor and spread up to the 18th floor.
Several novel features made the hotel stand out from others of its kind – including a kennel for guests' pets, a child–care service and an in–house doctor.
Early Years
In the hotel's early years, it became known for hosting a multitude of events – from country musical recitals to car exhibits, athlete luncheons to coin displays, and even pet shows.
The Roosevelt was also home to award shows of all varieties throughout the years, including the Peabody Awards and the Annual Writers Guild of America Awards - which was attended by the likes of Salma Hayek and Brad Pitt in 1998.
Infamous band leader Guy Lombardo – who was responsible for making Auld Lang Syne the definitive song of New Years Eve – also began leading the house band of the Roosevelt Grill in 1929.
He held an annual New Year's Eve radio broadcast at the hotel with his band, the Royal Canadians.
Several Republican Party candidates and campaigns used the Roosevelt Hotel for offices and headquarters.
The National Republican Congressional Committee opened an office at the hotel in 1930, and Fiorello La Guardia operated a campaign office there during the 1941 New York City mayoral election.
The hotel's events ranged from country musical recitals to car exhibits, athlete luncheons to coin displays, and even pet shows. Pictured: Bill Cosby at the Roosevelt Hotel for a 'Raquet Club Dinkins Fundraiser' in 1993
Famous guests
The Midtown hotel was not only popular with politicians, it had its fair share of celebrity guests.
In fact, the latest star to stay the night at the historic hotel was Eva Mendes, who spent the night in the swanky Roosevelt Suite, according to the Gothamist.
The Roosevelt Suite was home to American hotelier and businessman Conrad Hilton - of Hilton Hotels - while he lived in the building in the 1940s.
Editor and magazine publisher Hugo Gernsback had his own room on the 18th floor where he created and recorded his very own radio station, WRNY.
Not only did celebrities stay in the glamorous suites at the Roosevelt, many also filmed iconic movies within the hotel's walls.
The hotel appeared in classics, such as 'The French Connection', 'Quiz Show' and 'Malcolm X'.
In 'Wall Street', Michael Douglas's ruthless broker character Gordon Gekko delivered the infamous 'greed is good' speech from the Roosevelt's grand ballroom.
The hotel was also used by Sacha Baron Cohen in his movie 'The Dictator' and by Martin Scorsese in his mob biopic 'The Irishman', which starred Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
Jennifer Lopez played the lead character Marisa Ventura in the 2002 RomCom 'Maid in Manhattan', which was filmed at the Roosevelt Hotel.
Quirks and features
The Roosevelt Hotel features all kinds of unusual qualities befitting its significance on the New York skyline.
Among them is a secret passageway three levels beneath the hotel, that once connected the premises to Grand Central Terminal.
The underground tunnel was created as part of Terminal City, a network of hotels and office buildings that linked to the city's train system that was designed in the early 20th century.
American architectural firm Reed & Stem along with engineer William W. Wilgus envisioned Terminal City developing into a commercial center that stretched across the entire length of Park Avenue, but the plan was abandoned when World War II began in 1939.
The tunnel is now closed off to the public, but Gothamist journalist Jen Carlson was shown to the secret passageway by a hotel guide in 2015.
She reported being taken into a tunnel located behind closed doors – just off to the side of the hotel's lobby – that, according to hotel staff, lead all the way to Grand Central Terminal.
Another quirk of the Roosevelt is its state–of–the–art kitchen – which, unlike most other hotel kitchens that are tucked away and hidden in the basement, is showcased proudly on street floor level.
The kitchen is decked out with the most cutting–edge equipment for the time – including 26 gas ranges, 12 charcoal broilers, four sterilizing dishwashers, four brick ovens that each weigh 85 tons and an electric peeler.
Eight different refrigerators in the kitchen separated meat, smoked meat, cheese, fish, fruit, produce, butter and milk.
Closure and re–opening as shelter
The Roosevelt Hotel closed on December 18, 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic that saw occupancy rates drop significantly, causing the hotel to lose millions of dollars.
Then, in May 2023, the city signed a $220 million, three–year deal with the hotel's owners – Pakistan International Airlines – to pay a nightly rate of $202 per room in order to house migrant families.
A asylum–seekers from across the world poured into the US, NYC was affected profoundly with around 237,000 migrants seeking help and resources from the city.
The hotel quickly became a hub of activity.
The lobby became an 'arrival center', where city officials worked with migrants to connect them with legal services to apply for asylum and work permits.
National Guard soldiers were scattered around the hotel, and health workers throughout the lobby screened families for diseases and offered them vaccines.
The luggage room became overstuffed with migrants' belongings, and the Roosevelt's once–grand ballroom was filled with cots to accommodate overflow.
The formerly–fancy hotel's transition to shelter became as divisive as the migrant crisis itself. The Roosevelt became known as 'Little Ellis Island' for its inclusivity and care of migrants from across the world. Meanwhile, Donald Trump slammed the use of the hotel as a waste of taxpayer money.
In Adams's statements regarding the Roosevelt's closure in February, the mayor seemed to echo the president's sentiment, saying the city will now be able to, 'help even more asylum seekers take the next steps in their journey's while simultaneously saving taxpayers millions of dollars.'
On the hotel's final day as a shelter, Adams showed up late to greet a gathering of the press and municipal employees, according to Slate. The mayor then took to the podium for a farewell speech.
'Present day may not be kind, but history will be kind,' he said. 'We have closed 62 other locations,' he informed, adding that arrivals had dropped to just 100 a week, conveniently ignoring Trump's tough–on–immigration policies.
The closure of the Roosevelt Hotel – and others of its kind in Chicago and Denver – have coincided with Trump's crackdown on immigration and their messaging surrounding immigration.
The administration previously characterized the Roosevelt Hotel as the headquarters of a Venezuelan gang, according to the New York Times.
As the Roosevelt shut its doors to migrants for good, all that remained inside the bare hotel were deflated balloons tangled around a chandelier that once shimmered among its illustrious guests.
Diapers remained stocked in the abandoned gift shop as a resource for new migrant mothers, and a map of the United States with arrows pointing to New York alongside a note handwritten in Spanish: 'You are here.'