The Row Hotel, Hell’s Kitchen’s last remaining emergency migrant shelter, is scheduled to close by December 31 — months earlier than previously announced — and families are being moved out with as little as 24 hours’ notice, according to testimony at this week’s Manhattan Community Board 4 (MCB4) Housing, Health & Human Services Committee meeting.
Josephine Ishmon, Co-Chair of CB4’s Arts, Culture, Education & Schools (ACES) Committee, told board members that she learned the closure “has been moved up,” and that the Row — originally slated to wind down operations in April 2026 — will now shut its doors before the end of the year.
Ishmon said families inside the 1,331-room hotel are receiving abrupt instructions to vacate. “Families are being given notices that they have to leave the facility within 24 to 48 hours — they’re given two garbage bags and a MetroCard,” she said, and added that Department of Homeless Services staff are on site but that there are “only 100 beds left in Manhattan,” meaning many families may be sent to shelters in other boroughs…