The Javits Center | Eden, Janine and Jim/Wikimedia Commons City asks New York state for use of Javits Center as ‘medical surge facility’

As New York City faces an exponential rise in coronavirus cases that threatens to overwhelm its hospital capacity, City Hall has asked New York state for permission to use its sprawling Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s far West Side as a “potential medical surge facility.”

The de Blasio administration is still awaiting a response, said Omar Bourne, a spokesperson for New York City's emergency management department.


The idea has been gaining traction in local circles.

On Tuesday, Council Speaker Corey Johnson and his colleague, Stephen Levin, suggested Javits as a potential health facility site. They also argued that the city and state should transform Madison Square Garden, the home of the ailing Knicks, into a home for the ailing.

“We’re going to have to identify places, maybe the Javits Center, maybe Madison Square Garden” that can quarantine and isolate coronavirus victims, Johnson said during a radio interview Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the governor had no immediate comment though in a recent op-ed, Cuomo asked for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help convert existing facilities into temporary medical centers. A spokesperson for Madison Square Garden said the facility is ready to assist if asked.

“If we don’t halt transmission within about a week, then we’re starting about 10 to 14 days after that, the hospital system will start to get overwhelmed, and it will start to get overwhelmed largely all at the same time and that’s the big issue,” said Levin, the Council member form Brooklyn who chairs the General Welfare Committee, in an interview Tuesday. “You’re going to start to see emergency departments run out of beds.”

The glass-walled Javits Center has 760,000 square feet of exhibition space that’s normally used for auto shows and book expos, but is now sitting empty. A message on the Javits Center website notes the center will be hosting no events until April 30.

Madison Square Garden has also ceased holding events. China has transformed facilities like these into quarantine centers in an effort to halt the spread of the virus.