Clean up the 8th Avenue ‘strip of despair’ NOW
Post reporters returned Monday to the eight-block stretch profiled in that morning’s “Eighth Blunder” cover story and spotted, among other bleakness, a man peeing in public and an apparent homeless woman telling passersby, “I hope you get shot.”
No neighborhood should have to put up with so many addicts passed out on its streets, shooting up or engaging in knife fights.
You shouldn’t have to kick used needles out of the way every morning as you walk your kids to school.
People living on the street in Manhattan on June 12, 2024. Matthew McDermott
Nor deal with seriously high, plainly disturbed (and possibly armed) indigents bursting into shops to demand cash, freaking out customers.
The area is “blessed” with multiple drug clinics and needle exchanges, plus social-services outlets and at least six shelters — nine if you go a bit further east.
Add in the commuters flowing out of Penn Station and the Port Authority — excellent to hit up for “donations” — and the ’hood is basically designed to attract addicts and deranged street people.
Indeed, the precinct (Midtown South) has some of the highest drug-arrest numbers in the five boroughs, though that doesn’t seem to deter the druggies.
This isn’t compassion for those whose lives have gone unglued: It’s just macabre.
City Hall admits it’s a problem area, but points to (slightly) falling crime numbers and vows it’ll “continue working to drive down crime and improve quality of life in this community and all communities across the city.”
Sorry: We don’t see how devoting a few more resources can change the fundamentals here.
The “strip of despair” is a horror by the heart of the Midtown commercial district: A town that can’t find the way or the will to clean it up is at risk of becoming a city of despair.