Randall's Island Will Get Another Asylum Seeker Mega-Shelter: Mayor

NEW YORK CITY — Randall's Island again will host a mega-shelter for asylum seekers, said Mayor Eric Adams.

Adams' announcement Monday that a humanitarian relief center soon will house 2,000 single adult men on the island is a tweaked revival of a high-profile shelter effort from months ago that was widely seen to have ended in failure.

The previous, $650,000 Randall's Island tent city on the island's north end closed in November after being mostly empty during its short, controversial life.

This time, City Hall officials hope a new center will help open up space in the city's shelter system, which they contend is bursting at the seams with 57,200 migrants. The state will reimburse the city for costs, officials said.

"As the number of asylum seekers in our care continues to grow by hundreds every day, stretching our system to its breaking point and beyond, it has become more and more of a Herculean effort to find enough beds every night," Adams said in a statement.

Construction crews were seen starting work on large tents on soccer fields on Randall's Island's south end, PIX11 reported.

The choice of the island's south end, first reported by the New York Daily News, has proven controversial. Local officials pushed back and argued private space, rather than public parkland, would be a better choice, according to the report.

The Randall's Island facility will be one of 16 large-scale migrant centers the city has constructed since the migrant crisis began last year.