‘HELP!’ WANTED
M’hattan biz urge crackdown on crime
Crime is running rampant throughout Manhattan’s key commercial neighborhoods, and local business leaders are demanding relief from Gov. Hochul.
Crime across Manhattan’s Midtown South district has spiked by more than 50% year to date, wreaking havoc across a crucial corridor for commuters and shoppers alike that includes Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, police data show.
Also, grand larceny is up 45% on the Upper East Side, which encompasses prime shopping strips on Madison, Lexington and Third avenues between East 57th and East 86th streets. Organized rings of shoplifters who are targeting high-end boutiques are a key driver of the spike, retailers say.
“The organized crime in our district is our biggest issue,” said Matthew Bauer, president of the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District.
BIDs band together
That’s why Madison Avenue BID is banding together with other BIDs in Midtown to send a message to Hochul and other politicians to help them grapple with the mentally ill, drug addicts and brazen criminals who increasingly have been given free rein.
“The deterioration of public safety and the quality of life in Midtown Manhattan needs and deserves a solution,” the Midtown BID Coalition said in a letter to Hochul in late March.
High-profile attacks on visitors and New Yorkers alike along with smash-andgrab thefts in tony neighborhoods and harassment of commuters by mentally ill people have created an image of the Big Apple as a lawless city, the coalition says.
Crime stats for the key Midtown South neighborhood paint a grim picture: So far this year, murders in the area are up more than 33%, rapes are up more than 34% and robberies are up a staggering 60%. In total, crime is up 55.2% in the area as of the first week of April.
A March survey by the Partnership for New York City found that “personal safety” is the top concern for New York metro area employees in deciding whether or not to return to their offices in Manhattan.
In Times Square, crime was up 20% in January 2022 from last year’s already dismal figures, according to the Times Square Alliance. And while the number of people passing through the Crossroads of the World reached 320,000 the last weekend in March — a “solid improvement,” according to alliance president Tom Harris — it is still down 19% from the same month in pre-COVID 2019.
“There is certainly a perception that the city is not as safe as it used to be and that there are no consequences for minor offenses,” said Harris, who is part of the Midtown BID Coalition.
The real crime numbers are probably even higher, as most people don’t take the time to file a police report when they are “whacked on the head, rushing to the subway,” said Barbara Blair, president of the Garment District Alliance.
Sixteen of the alliance’s 70 employees over the past year have been assaulted during their commutes to and from its offices at 209 W. 38th St. — including vice president Jerry Scupp, who along with his adult son was attacked by a disturbed man as they were walking to the A train, according to Blair.
“A man started screaming and began violently attacking my son from behind, hitting him on the head and back,” Scrupp told The Post. “I jumped in between them, and he began flailing at me and yelling.”
The alliance claims the spike in crime has been fueled by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision at the height of the pandemic to house in the Garment District’s 53 hotels 1,200 of the 10,000 homeless New Yorkers who had previously been living in congregate housing.
The district has a disproportionate number of methadone and needle exchange clinics because it’s largely zoned for manufacturing although most of the sewing factories have long since closed.
“Because of how the city used this neighborhood during the pandemic, we have been disproportionately affected,” Blair added. “What I see is public disorder, people running around and intimidating others and that is what is frightening to people.”