{"id":51724,"date":"2020-08-22T03:42:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T00:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-upper-west-side-rebels-in-the-face-of-de-blasios-homeless-plague\/"},"modified":"2020-08-22T03:42:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T00:42:00","slug":"the-upper-west-side-rebels-in-the-face-of-de-blasios-homeless-plague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-upper-west-side-rebels-in-the-face-of-de-blasios-homeless-plague\/","title":{"rendered":"#The Upper West Side rebels in the face of de Blasio\u2019s homeless plague"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#The Upper West Side rebels in the face of de Blasio\u2019s homeless plague<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Hell hath no fury like a liberal neighborhood recently mugged by Bill de Blasio. Therein lies a salutary tale.<\/p>\n

Manhattan\u2019s leftier-than-thou Upper West Side last month got a vagrant transfusion courtesy of de Blasio\u2019s social<\/a>-services app<\/a>aratchiks \u2014 hundreds of profoundly troubled men dumped without warning, services or supervision into three hotels in a 10-square-block section of a neighborhood previously best known for Zabar\u2019s bagels and sending Jerry Nadler to Congress.<\/p>\n

What followed was predictable enough: \u201cPublic urination, defecation, masturbation, aggressive panhandling, cat-calling, failure to wear masks, stalking, drug dealing and crime,\u201d as one disgusted neighborhood eyewitness described it.<\/p>\n

Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in the 70s and 80s were overrun; disorder began to leach into adjoining streets, and local parks became problematic for many dog-walkers, joggers and folks simply out for a stroll.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t everywhere, of course, and not all at once. But a little bit of ranting insanity, public drug use and in-your-face card\u00adboard-cup shaking can go a very long way indeed.<\/p>\n

Official reaction was no surprise: Craven silence, spiced up by a condescending ration of please-sir-may-we-have-another from City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal \u2014 who first implied objectors to the new policy were racists and then said another platoon or two of \u201cpeople we haven\u2019t seen before in our community\u201d would be more than welcome.<\/p>\n

But the neighborhood is having none of Rosenthal\u2019s arrogance, nor de Blasio\u2019s nonsense, either. A Facebook page meant to confront the crisis, Upper West Siders for Safer Streets, went from scratch to 10,500-plus members in the blink of an eye. A spinoff group, West Side Community Organization, set up a GoFundMe that raised more than $65,000 in three days. And then hired a smart lawyer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that Randy Mastro, a partner at Gibson Dunn, will bring lawyerly skills to the effort to re-stabilize the area. New York does not lack for able attorneys.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that Mastro, as deputy mayor for operations in the first Giuliani administration, helped write the book on humanely dealing with street-level aberrational behavior \u2014 a process that is as much art as it is science<\/a>, one that requires clear thinking, seriousness of purpose and an understanding that while aggressive vagrancy can\u2019t be cured, it can be controlled.<\/p>\n

It certainly was out of control when Rudy Giuliani became mayor in 1994. While the Upper West Side and similarly afflicted neighborhoods across the five boroughs may be heading in that direction today, their circumstances by no means compare to the crack-cocaine-driven chaos that prevailed then.<\/p>\n

The addled and addicted were everywhere \u2014 crammed into single-room-occupancy hotels; on the streets; in the subways; in transportation terminals and under bridges and sidewalk scaffolding. Blue construction-tarp-capped vagrant encampments, rat-infested and garbage-strewn, were ubiquitous.<\/p>\n

Then, almost overnight, all that changed. The city had reclaimed its public spaces \u2014 not completely, of course; it never will. But almost. What had happened?<\/p>\n

The crack plague had begun to fade, which mattered \u2014 but official tolerance for chronic public disorder evaporated with Giuliani\u2019s inauguration, and that made the difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understood that you can\u2019t cram people into hotels without support,\u201d says Mastro. \u201cWe coordinated proper shelter with appropriate services and [suddenly] people had alternatives. It worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Left unsaid, because some things can\u2019t be talked about, was the firmness with which the new policies were applied. The NYPD couldn\u2019t force people into shelter, but it could keep vagrants in motion until most got tired and came in on their own. Think of it as well-coordinated, humanitarian persuasion.<\/p>\n

An over-simplification? Perhaps. But the Giuliani programs worked well enough for Mike Bloomberg to adopt and maintain through his 12-year tenure \u2014 much to the city\u2019s benefit.<\/p>\n

Team de Blasio \u2014 especially the mayor himself \u2014 has neither the commitment nor the attention span for that sort of thing. Certainly the pandemic has accelerated things, but vagrants have been pooping in the Broadway medians for some time now, unbothered by the police.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s mostly going to end \u2014 that, and the lunatic ranting, the sexist harassment, the drug-addled lounging and the high-intensity panhandling \u2014 if Mastro and his angry clients have their way.<\/p>\n

Yes, de Blasio has promised to make things better \u2014 but, as is well-known, follow-through isn\u2019t what he does best. What happens if (when?) he boots it?<\/p>\n

\u201cCourt,\u201d says Mastro \u2014 a fellow who\u2019s been there and done that. Good for him. Good for the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n

Twitter: @rlmac2<\/em>\n <\/div>\n

\n

If you want to read more Opinion News<\/a> articles, you can visit our General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#The Upper West Side rebels in the face of de Blasio\u2019s homeless plague” Hell hath no fury like a liberal neighborhood recently mugged by Bill de Blasio. Therein lies a salutary tale. Manhattan\u2019s leftier-than-thou Upper West Side last month got a vagrant transfusion courtesy of de Blasio\u2019s social-services apparatchiks \u2014 hundreds of profoundly troubled men…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57094],"class_list":["post-51724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-the-upper-west-side-rebels-in-the-face-of-de-blasios-homeless-plague"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}