After nearly three years serving as one of New York City’s most controversial migrant shelters, the ROW NYC hotel in Midtown Manhattan has quietly reopened to tourists — complete with fresh flowers in the lobby, a new cocktail bar, and room rates pushing several hundred dollars a night.
And for longtime New Yorkers who watched the hotel during the peak of the migrant crisis, the transformation is hard to miss.
The 1,300-room property officially welcomed guests again last week, reentering Manhattan’s crowded tourism market after years operating as an emergency shelter site. On Friday, travelers wheeled luggage through the lobby while hotel staff greeted guests in what management is clearly hoping feels like a clean break from the building’s recent past.
“When they said that they reopened today I was wondering what are the things they did to fix it because it looks good,” said guest Efrain Santiago, who was visiting from Puerto Rico.
“The room is really clean and neat. I’m on the 24th floor with a great view. The employees and manager have been great to us,” he added.
The hotel’s relaunch comes with a full image makeover. The lobby now features a new café and cocktail space called Percy All Day, serving espresso and pastries in the morning before transitioning into drinks and small plates at night. A retail corner called “nyce things” sells New York-themed merchandise including hats, tote bags, and souvenirs aimed squarely at tourists.
But despite the glossy reopening, not everything appears fully finished.
Some guests noticed ongoing construction and lingering maintenance issues throughout the property.
“I was a little concerned about the elevator because it looks like there were wires leaking out of the bottom,” said Serena Villa, a visitor from Austin who booked the hotel through Airbnb for around $300 a night.
“There was a gap and there are exposed wires coming out of it. I was like, that should not be there,” she said.
Still, Villa said much of the hotel looked polished and described the staff as unusually attentive.
“They definitely told employees to mind their P’s and Q’s because everyone is being really nice,” she joked.
Other visitors accidentally wandered into unfinished sections of the building still undergoing renovation.
Lauren Holland and Alyssa Davis, visiting from Kentucky, said they ended up on the second floor by mistake and found a much different scene from the renovated public areas downstairs.
“It was just really dirty and pretty torn up,” Holland said. “The walls were white and had polka dots on them, like stickers stuck on the wall.”
Hotel executives acknowledged the building required substantial work after years functioning as temporary family housing during the city’s migrant crisis.
Tony Machado, Senior Vice President and Head of Design at Highgate, said the damage was consistent with what happens during extended “family living” situations. He explained the hotel is reopening gradually, floor by floor, with roughly 300 rooms completed so far.
According to Machado, renovations included new carpets, wall finishes, lighting, furniture, mattresses, artwork, signage, sinks, mirrors, and bathroom fixtures throughout the property.
“I feel like in a lot of ways we’re giving back to the city by reimagining this hotel,” Machado said.
For neighborhood workers who witnessed the shelter years firsthand, the reopening represents something closer to relief.
William Brownstein, who has sold tickets for a nearby comedy club for more than a decade, said the area visibly deteriorated while the hotel operated as a migrant shelter.
“It was not pretty because I remember the old hotel,” Brownstein said.
He described seeing constant marijuana use, large crowds gathering outside, bikes lining the sidewalks, and small children unattended late at night.
“It was disgusting. Not them, but they hang out in the middle of the street, they had a million bikes there,” he said. “Little kids at night, I’m talking three-or four-years-old, sitting on the curb.”
“This area has a lot of charm, but it was going down the tube,” he added.
Brownstein returned Friday specifically to see whether the hotel had truly changed.
