Manhattan Bridge Plaza Shantytown Cleared Out—Again— but Again Drug Addled Denizens Return
For a few brief hours, the junkies were gone, and the people rejoiced, even if a sloppy clean up job left numerous open needles behind. Less than two days later, the Plaza was once more a den of lawlessness and despair.
| 17 Sep 2024 | 05:17
Manhattan Bridge Plaza as it appeared after yet another cleanup bid on September 11, 2024. (
)
Our reporter found an open needle left behind following the September 11, 2024 Manhattan Bridge Plaza clean up. (
)
Life among the Manhattan Bridge colonnades, needles included; September 11, 2024. (
)
Department of Homeless Services notice of 9/10/2024 on the imminent clean up of the “Manhattan Bridge Arch.” (
)
Shantytown Redux Redux, or We Built This City On... September 13, 2024, two days after a city clean up drive. (
)
Don’t say the city doesn’t work—it can, and it does, and we’ve seen it work, repeatedly, with our own two mirrored sunglass-hidden eyes.
Of course, many observers would say that’s exactly the problem: why is the city of New York spending so much time and effort to forcibly remove—and remove again, and again, and again—an unholy congregation of drug addicts from the colonnades of the beautiful Carrère and Hastings-designed Manhattan Bridge Plaza?
“Advocates” of various kinds have spoken on the plight about the “unhoused” and the purported benefits of “harm reduction” among drug addicts. This is their right, of course, but the facts remain, as witnessed by Straus News and numerous city employees across multiple agencies, that, even when offered tangible assistance, some people prefer to live free and take drugs, regardless of the cost to the community at large.
In this case, that community includes both greater Chinatown and the large number of tourists who would admire the architectural wonder of the Manhattan Bridge Plaza but fear to do so because there’s an intimidating and obviously lawless shantytown in place.
Straus News has reported on this before. “Manhattan Bridge Plaza Homeless Do as They Please—Despite Repeated Efforts to Remove Them” ran a headline on August 12. “Adams Addresses Manhattan Bridge Plaza Shantytown: ‘You Can’t Do It One and Done’” declared a follow-up story on August 18.
The latest turn occurred on the morning of September 11, when this reporter walked briskly but with heavy heart from Brooklyn to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge—a route opposite of that I walked on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, after the Towers fell and the subways were shut down.
Zig-zagging north past the Municipal Building, One Police Plaza and the various courts buildings, I stopped at Columbus Park for a quick workout, then continued northeast towards Seward Park.
Lo and behold, when I reached the Manhattan Bridge, there was activity afoot, and on wheels with a couple of cops and a Department of Homeless Services (DHS) worker standing by as two DOT garbage truck crews were taking the flotsam away. Whatever people were there previously were gone by the time I arrived at around 10:50 a.m.
A DHS flyer dated 9/10/2024 and titled “Notice of New York City Clean Up” explained what was happening. It included a contact number to retrieve any property, as well the addresses of four city run homeless shelters people could go to, depending on their status: Families with Children and Pregnant People in the Bronx; Single Men and Adult Families at 400-430 East 30th Street in Manhattan; and Single Women in the Bronx and Brooklyn.
Thank God I’ve never seen any children or “pregnant people” at the Bridge; only adult men (mostly) as well as some women. Sometimes there are mopeds and scooters there, sometimes a pedal bicycle. Where do they come from? Where do they go?
I asked the friendly, hat wearing cop what she thought, noting that the last time this happened, in August, the shantytown was back three days later.
“Three days?” she laughed with a hearty West Indian accent. “Try three hours!”