Thursday, July 16, 2015

Mayor de Blasio visits Tompkins Square Park



EVG reader Sue Palchak spotted the Mayor just before noon talking to folks in Tompkins Square Park... this brief visit comes several days after the Post and the Observer reported an uptick in the number of homeless people in the Park...

Updated 10:56 p.m.

The Post has five reporters on this story...

Previously on EV Grieve:
The Post reports Tompkins Square Park 'has become a homeless haven' (105 comments)

Observer editors write, 'it's time to take back Tompkins Square Park'

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mayor Dinkins' response to the "problem" in TSP in '89 was to have the Police, some on horseback, cover the numbers on their badges and go in and start/finish a riot. Can De Blasio top that?

Anonymous said...

Too bad LES Jewels isn't around anymore. Those post reporters would have loved him. I guess vagrancy wasn't a concern when Bloomberg was in charge.

Fashion By He said...

he must be there to say hi to his friends...i mean the homeless people

Anonymous said...

Huh. Guess that explains the three cruisers I saw parked there a few hours ago. Pained me to think that policing resources were being allocated according to the hallucinations of The Post and The Observer, but I guess the mayor is a pol after all and so must entertain the delusions of Murdoch's loony bin and yon Prince Kushner's rarefied vanity paper.

Anonymous said...

There has been more of a police presence around the park in the last week than in the last decade (ex: special events). There were police in unmarked cars sitting outside the park for a full shift yesterday monitoring the Iran nuclear deal on their phones the whole time. Who's pushing this agenda? Kushner, Murdoch, Steiner, Shaoul, Croman, et al? Don't be a stooge Bill. The problem ain't the park. It's the people telling you the problem is the park.

Anonymous said...

There was a cruiser in Washington Square Park a couple of hours ago. As I passed the officers (who were standing outside the cruiser) talking to a park-goer, I got to hear the female officer bitch, "...that's because the mayor doesn't want to hire any new officers". Hahahahhahaah!!!! I wonder if she was one of the many officers who turned their backs on dah Blaz a few months ago.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe we're getting to pay for 1,300 new cops to do this kind of shit.

Anonymous said...

"There has been more of a police presence around the park in the last week than in the last decade "

That's visible presence. The police have had this neighborhood entirely covered for the last decade 24/7. If they decide to respond to a "two adults fighting" call they are there in 30 seconds. Now we'll see some foot patrols for a while until rats get spotted in Madison Square or something else disrupts the slow news cycles.

Anonymous said...

He should visit during the weekends esp. weekend nights.

Anonymous said...

Was this before or after he flew to Rome to meet with the Pope? #ourtaxesatwork

Anonymous said...

Yes. Improving the quality of life for fashion by He and his likes.

cmarrtyy said...

He's running for office. His private polling must show a lo of dissatisfaction. What did he expect? He helped set the city on fire... that ultimately left 3 policemen dead. Now he makes nice. Good luck with that... YOU'RE OUT. You can't run as the Mayor of Al Sharpton and expect voters to forget.

Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Fashion By MEH is SO funny!!!

Anonymous said...

I thought they banned "stuffed lions" from the park. He must be an exception.

Anonymous said...

Looking for the ANAL box?

Ken from Ken's Kitchen said...

A fact finding photo op. Now the mayor can officially weigh in on the TSP bullshit the Post and Observer squeezed out. Hopefully he weighs in on the right side.

Anonymous said...

Too bad De Blasio didn't take the time to detour over to 2nd Avenue and see about STAGE and B&H restaurants, b/c THAT is actual NYC business - as opposed to Mr. Ivanka Trump's self-indulgent little pastel newsletter.

It would be even nicer if De Blasio would take a serious look at the doings of ICON and Shaoul and Croman, etc.

Sorry, I wandered off into fantasy-land there for a minute.

Anonymous said...

Let's see, crime is way down nationally and in the city, we have 35,000 cops already, and we need more? Why, so we can spend ALL our tax dollars on paying the families of the people they murder?

Anonymous said...

Ridiculous - much bigger problems around here. What a shill.

Anonymous said...

Maybe he's inspecting the YouTube court and wondering when Kid Asshat is going to finish the damn thing.

Anonymous said...

Uh crime is up in LA. SF and lots of other places. Crime goes down in NYC when you make criminal behavior like drinking/pissing in public and being in parks after closing legal. Amazing how that works. 'Crime' is down.

7th Streeter said...

cmarrtyy,
Whoa.

Anonymous said...

Worst mayor ever. Instead of going to Rome and meeting with the Pope he should fix the freaking potholes and get rid of the rats.

Anonymous said...

Mayor Dinkins' response to the "problem" in TSP in '89 was to have the Police, some on horseback, cover the numbers on their badges and go in and start/finish a riot. Can De Blasio top that?

Since Mayor Dinkins wasn't in office until January 1990, placing the blame on him for the riot that occurred in August of 1988 is kind of stupid. Maybe you should give Mom her computer back.

Anonymous said...

Been an uptick in the number of clueless jackasses in the park lately too. Where's the story on that? Oh yeah, right here.

Anonymous said...

Also, the riot was 1988.

Anonymous said...

Sorry. You said that.

Anonymous said...

Gothamist s firing back at the NY Post's ridiculous coverage of just about everything:

As New York City grapples with an unprecedented epidemic of New York Post reporters roaming the streets in search of homeless people to interview, Mayor Bill de Blasio has so far refused to lift a finger to address the scourge.

"I don't want them near my kids," says Kaitlin Driver, who was sitting in Tompkins Square Park yesterday with her two sons, Kemper, 6, and Daniel, 4.

"They're loud and rude and shove their iPhones in your face. We moved here six years ago, but they won't shut up about the 'Bad Old Days,'" Driver said.

"And the stench! They smell like Axe body spray and ketchup."

Samad Khalil, who works at a bodega across the street from Tompkins, said the park had become a popular gathering spot for Post reporters.

"All night, the shouting," Khalil said, adding that he used to give the journalists cheeseburgers but stopped after one of them threw a bottle of urine at him for refusing to say he hates the 9/11 Museum.

"I've seen them have sex with each other in the daylight over there," Khalil said, pointing to a bloodstained carpet on top of a broken box spring. "Thrusting and moaning—it's disgusting."

A spokesperson for the Health Department said that while the number of Post reporters on the street usually increases in the summer thanks to a corresponding rise in stories about the joys of catcalling and fecal matter in public pools, this year's spike is "severe."
The spokesperson added that while the reporters usually do not pose any serious threat to New Yorkers, it's advisable to "keep your fingers away from their mouths."

http://gothamist.com/2015/07/16/city_ignores_nypost_problem.php

Anonymous said...

You are seriously a myopic, juvenile asshole with zero critical thinking skills. Speaking truth to power did not cause a man with preexisting mental issues to kill cops. Where's your whining when officers of sound mind & body boldly murder people? You RWNJ suckers aren't fit to lick Sharpton's balls. He calls out injustice while you should call a psychiatrist.

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that so much attention is now being paid by the press, politicians and the police to some homeless people sleeping in the park. But you don't see any of them descending upon the neighborhood to do something about the white frat kids who torture the neighborhood all night partying loudly at Doublewide and the other bars that cater to them. These people are causing the neighborhood to be unlivable now. It's not the homeless people who sleep in the park.

Anonymous said...

So basically Gothamist ripped off the funny satirical Post article someone posted here in another thread. Zzz....

Anonymous said...

nyah nyah! I didn't vote for de Blasio!



Giovanni's said...

Pointing out that most of these drunken white frat boys are white isn't racist, it's the truth. If all these drunk frat Bro's were black the cops would've cracked down on them a long time ago. If SantaCon was all black they'd call in the riot police. Now here they are in Tompkins -- not Thompkins, not Thompson -- Square Park going after homeless people who need support services, not harassment. But luckily when DiBlasio showed up he actually talked to the homeless people who were there. Unlike so many new residents, Mayor DiBlasio isn't afraid to talk to homeless people, because that's the name "homeless people" suggests, they are people too.

Anonymous said...

Agree that if the demographics of SantaCon was different, if the participants were not affluent and white, it would have been shut down.

Ironically, Santa Con started out as a political "protest" against mindless consumerism and corporatism.
But sadly, Santa Con has been transformed into a complete celebration of materialism and corporatism.

Kurt said...

Christ, when did Fox news viewers start commenting here?

Anonymous said...

Kurt, Fox News viewers have been commenting here since the beginning, in the guise of NY Post readers.

Anonymous said...

The cops don't bother the park/block parties in Wash Heights or the drinking at Orchard Beach. The Labor Day carnival in Brooklyn is a free for all. So stop the ' if they weren't white' nonsense. Kurt-is that the liberal tolerance ? You only tolerate other liberals
DiBlasio talked to the homeless because he had cops around. They aren't welcome near Gracie mansion. And how are they 'going' after homeless? How? Enforcing laws about pissing and drinking? Are you aware NYC spends over $1 billion annually on homeless services? No one can be denied access to the shelters. The services are there. Easier to sit in a park and drink and wait for a food truck than change ones life

Anonymous said...

"Pointing out that most of these drunken white frat boys are white isn't racist, it's the truth."

Yet, if you said a similar statement word for word about any other ethnic group, you would hands down be considered a racist. Sorry, no double standard. It's racist.

Anonymous said...

Wait until Orchard Beach and Washington Heights are overrun by the whites, then the NYPD will start ticketing the non-whites. Happening now in Rockaways. Blacks and latinos are being intimidated and harassed more and under the close eye of the NYPD and Parks Dept, merely for being a the beach, questioning what's in the plastic bag, accusing them of drinking 'nutcracker' when it's just Fanta, but they turn the blind eye when the white hipsters are drinking their PBRs and their rosès at the beach.

"Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they've done or failed to do,...Access to privilege doesn't determine one's outcomes, but it is definitely an asset that makes it more likely that whatever talent, ability, and aspirations a person with privilege has will result in something positive for them."White privilege.

Good to be white in Taylor Swift's New York.

Anonymous said...

The difference between SantaCon and the West Indian Day Parade and even many of the block parties uptown is that those events have permits and are legal. The Parade has permits, insurance, and works with the City. The Mayor even shows up and marches in it every year. Their organizers don't hide behind anonymous websites and encourage people to get drunk. SantaCon is anonymous and refuses to get the proper permits and always ends up with people drunk and urinating and fighting and urinating and passing out and urinating in the street. To compare that Pukefest to minorities drinking on Orchard a beach is ridiculous. People of all races who go to the beaches drink. The clearest sign of people who have a sense of entitlement and white privilege is when you immediately point your finger at underprivileged people or minorities who are doing things the right way. And anyone who is defending SantaCon has zero credibility to start with.

chris flash said...

Anon 6:34: WRONG riot.

There were several riots and many street skirmishes between August 1988 and May 1991....

Anonymous said...

Ah, my EVG. Middle aged and older white people hating on young white people. Trying to convince ourselves that we were DIFFERENT back in the day!

IzF said...

Hey Anon 1:20pm:
I've ALWAYS hated the suburban, fratty-douche types. It's not an age/race issue, it's a social/class issue.