Part of Midtown Manhattan has become a “strip of despair,” where slapped drug addicts prick themselves, light up and collapse at the feet of commuters and tourists, residents say.
“I see a lot of things here,” one store owner told the Post of the so-called Eighth Avenue corridor near Penn Station, where there are a cluster of drug clinics and homeless shelters. “The fights, the drugs – oh my God – bad things.
“I don’t know if they have knives or guns,” she said, explaining how people who appear both extremely drugged and seriously disturbed regularly break into her store near the city’s bus terminal. port authority to demand money and harass tourists.
The corridor, which stretches about 10 blocks from the Port Authority to Penn Station, serves as a gateway to New York for hundreds of thousands of commuters and visitors to the Big Apple each day.
But it is also surrounded by at least four needle exchange centers and clinics, numerous homeless shelters, as well as the New York State Parole Board office and other social services for mental illness and addiction.
Exasperated residents accuse the consolidation of services of being at the origin of the transformation of the area into a hot spot for crime.
Today, business leaders and workers have been fighting behind the scenes for years to get the city to clean up the neighborhood — and get rid of the troublemakers.
“It’s like a bunch of desperation,” said Leah McVeigh, who works at IMCD Lighting just off Eighth Avenue.
“It seems like the city has decided not to care about it in an inappropriate way,” she told the Post.
It’s a problem that has persisted in the neighborhood for years, as the Post revealed in 2021, and has made Midtown South one of the top areas for drug arrests in the entire city, according to sources police officers.
McVeigh’s office moved to a building off the Eighth Avenue corridor in January 2022 and immediately experienced a “night and day difference” when employees began finding drug addicts passed out outside their doors, while dealers set up shop under construction scaffolding nearby.
“From the moment we moved in, it was very clear that we were no longer in Kansas,” she said, describing how employees lugging expensive lighting equipment to the office routinely face shady characters who offer help in exchange for money after a delay. night work.
“It only takes one crazy person for a bad thing to happen.” The reality is that we don’t feel safe, we always feel like we’re avoiding a potential catastrophe,” she said. “It’s 24/7. There is no sure time.
McVeigh isn’t the only community member living in the neighborhood.
James, a 50-year-old university administrator, said he had “learned to be vigilant” when walking the streets.
“I don’t feel good about it. We pay a lot of taxes for city services and I would like to see the city step in to take a little more assertive role in trying to provide support to people who need it,” he said.
Sherri Burda, 57, who has lived in the neighborhood since the 1990s, said the current situation along Eighth Avenue reminds her of a wilder time just after the crack epidemic hit the area.
“Sometimes they can suffer from mental disorders,” she said. “I see a lot of them and we don’t know who among these people has mental problems or drug addiction, or both. The combination can be dangerous.
Neighborhood community board meetings have morphed into something akin to support groups, where residents and business owners exchange horror stories about what they see every day.
“I was at this public meeting with these people who have apartments on 37th Street, and they’re talking about trying to get their kids to school at seven in the morning, fighting their way through the needles coming from the 37th Street needle exchange,” McVeigh recalled hearing at a meeting.
“Even though they’re incredibly well-intentioned, I don’t see how you can bring so many social services and homeless organizations together and not expect this,” she said.
The latest NYPD statistics show that the Midtown South Precinct – which stretches from Ninth Avenue to Lexington Avenue – has one of the highest numbers of drug arrests in the city – rivaling Harlem and the South Bronx , sources told the Post.
There have been at least 423 drug-related arrests in the two-square-mile Midtown South neighborhood so far this year — an increase of about 100 arrests from the same period last year.
At least 1,188 drug arrests were made on the precinct throughout last year, down slightly from the 1,244 made in 2022, but still part of a trend the increase which has been increasing since before the pandemic.
Things have gotten to the point where drug arrests made in Midtown South are being handled by a special narcotics prosecutor, sources told The Post.
City Hall acknowledged that Midtown South is a problem, but said officials are actively devoting resources to solving those problems.
“So far this year, overall crime is down in the region, which is the result of strong police work, including holding those who break the law to account. But make no mistake, our work is far from finished,” said a town hall spokesperson. The post office.
“We will continue to work to reduce crime and improve the quality of life in this community and all communities across the city,” they said.
For the terrified woman who operates a business near the Port Authority, she fears help won’t come soon enough.
“When tourists come here to shop, they look scared, you can see it on their faces,” she said. “We are losing business because of this. »
Additional reporting by Amanda Woods and Craig McCarthy.