Eighth Avenue Freeze Out

No quality-of-life enforcement? No problem!

Jun 20, 2024

As The New York Post reported a few days ago (see here), Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue — a prime tourist artery in the heart of the city — is a mess. The Post piece was good coverage, but this was not news to anyone who has taken a walk through midtown recently.

So how bad can things get when you stop doing quality-of-life enforcement?

(photo courtesy wikimedia commons)

First, some history: Eighth Ave has been dicey for decades. During New York’s slow decline in the 60’s through the early 90’s it was mostly known for its smut shops and street scams.

Now, Guiliani undeniably cleaned this town up, getting rid of the porn shops, street dealers, and 3-card-monte scammers that populated Eighth Ave. But even he could only do so much. Eighth Ave lagged behind the rest of Manhattan’s rejuvenation.

One of the reasons was the two transportation hubs that adorn the street. The Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42^nd Street and Pennsylvania Station at 34^th Street remained two dwindling outposts of the bad old days.

There were a few reasons for this. Waiting around and doing nothing is inherent in a transit hub. It is a perfect environment for skells to loiter around doing their life’s work of blighting society.

The other reason is the police dynamic. There are several agencies that cover these transit hubs: NYPD precincts, NYPD Transit Bureau, MTA Police, Amtrack Police, and the Port Authority Police. These different agencies were not all beholden to Guiliani’s will. Additionally, cops from different agencies (including the NYPD to be fair) would push problematic individuals out of their jurisdiction and make it another agency’s problem. Perps and homeless would shuffle around all day, and they would never get collared or helped. Problems were not getting solved.

In the past few years, the problem has gotten visibly worse — Eighth Avenue may finally be bottoming out. So why don’t the cops clean it up?

They can’t, for several reasons:

The Manhattan DA doesn’t prosecute. Alvin Bragg’s infamous day-one letter advised that he would not prosecute turnstile jumping, prostitution offenses, criminal trespass, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, and low-level street drug sales -- among others. Since the 2019 criminal justice reform, most offenses qualify for a desk appearance ticket (meaning perps will be right back on the street in two hours). Bragg stated that anyone who gets a DAT will be put into a diversion program instead of seeking punishment. This is a checklist for ensuring disorder.

Criminal court summonses became civil — and are ignored. Our former esteemed Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Communist Cabal called the City Council made most criminal violations into civil matters. Cops’ authority to enforce these minor, quality-of-life offenses was severely curtailed. Criminal Court summonses such as public urination and open container of alcohol fell by 95% between 2016 and 2019. The enforcement has been going back up since 2019, but they are still way off previous levels.

Judges and politicians have made it impossible to address homelessness and vagrancy. There are recent laws and court decisions that have made cleaning the streets of homeless and mentally ill next-to-impossible. In 2023 Eric Adams signed into law Jumaane William’s Homeless Bill of Rights for New York City. The law gives people the explicit right to sleep outdoors in public places. Bill de Blasio also brought back several shelters, SRO hotels, and needle exchange programs to the Eighth Avenue corridor. Lawsuits against the City of New York have prevented the NYPD from moving homeless people who are not fully blocking sidewalks and preventing them from discarding a homeless person’s “property.”

Individual cops are not willing to expose themselves to lawsuits. Look at the list of legal concerns above. Would you want to jeopardize your career and possibly your personal finances to enforce laws that aren’t prosecuted? The city and individual cops have been sued repeatedly for low level enforcement. Additionally, if a perpetrator or mentally ill homeless person decides to fight you, a split-second of pressure on that person’s diaphragm means the cop is guilty of a misdemeanor. What other profession is held to such a standard?

Bottom line: The tools are no longer there.

For these reasons, Eighth Avenue looks like a scene from 1991 (or 1975). It is not the same level of crime, but the level of disorder might be worse. And recall: this is the first impression many tourists get of NYC after emerging from one of the transit hubs. No wonder tourism is down.

People do not feel safe, and the combination of mental illness, drug addiction, and low-level crime is the cause. This same story can be told in cities around our country. Americans are tired of liberal policies destroying their inner cities. Only prosecutions, policework, and proven, mandatory assistance programs can restore our urban areas.

Manhattan’s Eighth Avenue is like the sclerotic artery that will eventually lead to a fatality — in this case, the death of a great city. It’s happening to all our cities, in fact, because quality-of-life enforcement barely exists anymore. And no amount of election year sloganeering will change that.