A reader submitted photo from late last night on the lawn in the Park.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Just after midnight in Tompkins Square Park
A reader submitted photo from late last night on the lawn in the Park.
41 comments:
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unbelievable lack of disregard for families with children these people have.
ReplyDeleteunbelievable lack of disregard for *themselves* these people have.
ReplyDeleteIn the words of shm whatever,
ReplyDeletemaybe there was someone in the park who grazed his or her knee from rollerblading or fell off his/her CitiBike?
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThey are drug addicts, I'm sure that's not their first thought. Also, I have a kid in this neighborhood too, how bout getting of your high horse and not giving in to the nanny state. At lease they are using clean needles and the picture doesn't show any used needles laying round.
heroin addicts belong in TSP at midnight. The children, on the other hand, should be either IN THE SUBURBS or AT HOME FAST ASLEEP.
ReplyDeleteThe guy who OD'ed in the park last week was a crusty, according to this piece which interviews three Crusties in The Villager. The crusty named Michael is so paranoid he accused me of being a cop a few weeks back just because I looked at his awful tattoos, i just laughed at him and kept going, but he is one scary character. And they are not shy about their own drug and alcohol abuse, even though is has almost killed them many times:
ReplyDelete“I’m a modern day alchemist,” admitted Michael. “I’ve OD’ed seven times and I’ve died two times out of that seven. But I’m still here for some weird, freaky reason.”
“We drink heavily,” Ernesto stated matter of factly. “We do drugs, all kinds of drugs. I drink a lot of alcohol but I take drugs moderately. I do try everything because I want to do everything for the sake of doing it.”
However, speaking to the dangers of using drugs, a young man — word has it, he was a crusty — was found dead of an overdose in the park this past week.
http://thevillager.com/2013/08/01/crusties-not-all-high-on-traveling-but-cant-leave-it/
Its time to call these kids what they are, drug addicts. Just Say No To Crusties, it might save a life....
Looks like a needle to me (with the orange cap), anon 4:32. Unless that's an image imprinted on the packaging.
ReplyDeleteHow can you tell the other commenter to get off their "High Horse" when it comes to being upset to seeing paraphernalia on the ground?
Your defense of the addicts' behavior is seriously whack. WHACK! A term I never thought I'd use.
You don't mind your kid being around that crap? Excellent, excellent parenting.
The Panic in Needle Park
ReplyDeleteIt's great that they are using clean works. Someone must be helping them to at least use clean works. Harm Reduction. Love you guys.
ReplyDeleteThat's old school!
ReplyDeleteI detect sarcasm in anon 4:16. I really hope its sarcasm.
Are there still lots of little plastic crack vials all over with their colorful caps? They would crunch when stepped on. I had no idea what they were for the longest time.
ReplyDeleteUsed needles used to be a pretty common sight. Then empty crack vials. Now mostly dirty thongs and empty Bud Lite cans. We're back to basics!
ReplyDeletePoor Christ. He washed all those feet of the poor for nothing....he really did not get his message out.
ReplyDeleteFYI "crusties are not the only people who shoot dope in NYC and these are not used works which used to litter the park so who cares ? If the person who died had had a place to go to inject[like in many civilized countries] they would still be alive. Also, if you go to the HOWL Fest and romanticize the Beat Poets and you rant about heroin addicts now then you are a hypocrite about dope use cause they were all junkies at one time or the other.
ReplyDeleteWell said.
Delete"Crusties" as you call them are also somebody's kids as well and human beings no less deserving of the dignity of being treated as such as are you or your children. Your sense of entitlement regarding your own children is a tad sickening. Waaaa my kid saw a sealed needle on the ground and some alcohol swabs. So? That's reality. We used to play around needles and crack vials and rats and all sorts of nastiness and we didn't break or die. We used to called used condoms on the beach Coney island Whitefish. It's a park - people pass out in them, they do drugs in them, they pee on trees, shit people have SEX is Central Park - that's a FAR bigger health risk than this. Ya'll need to grow some skin. Despite your best efforts New York will not become a suburb - if that's what you'd like Long Island awaits.
ReplyDeleteThat's not evidence of drug use. I was offering free diabetic care to those in need - I'm good like that - when I was rudely interrupted by a crustie who hurled a Big Gulp at my head. Damn you gentrifying crusties, damn you!
ReplyDeleteMy Lord SMDH! There thow are! My brow was wet today whilst scrubbing latrines with thy hair at 13th Step. The most grueling and suckish of wench work. But then my memory transported me back to our chance meeting the other night. Soon my other parts became wet as well. But I digress. I can sleep soundly tonight knowing you are helping those truly in need. Like Lord Bryce from New Cannan who is in desperate need of a fix. I will wait for you under the tree with my bucket of chunder until your heavenly work is complete.
ReplyDeleteAt least the works are clean- thank goodness for the needle exchange.
ReplyDeleteLandlords sell the shit.
ReplyDelete1.) Yes, yay for the harm reduction crew, they are saints
ReplyDelete2.) Yes, there should be a shit-ton of social services for people with hardcore substance abuse and homelessness issues
3.) Yes, most of The Beats and Nelson Algren and many other fine people were junkies at one time or another
4.) NONE OF THIS MAKES IT OKAY THAT JUNKIES ARE SHOOTING DOPE IN TOMPKINS AND LEAVING THEIR WORKS BEHIND THEM WHERE KIDS (OR GROWNUPS) MIGHT STICK THEMSELVES WITH A DIRTY NEEDLE. AND REGARDLESS OF HOW IT WAS IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF THE '80S, NOT WANTING DIRTY NEEDLES LYING AROUND YOUR PARK IS NOT SUBURBANIZING THE CITY. Jesus Fucking Christ, people, get a grip
5.) And yes, the needles in the picture appear to be unused, and no, that doesn't matter one single good goddamn
as the person who took the picture, i agree with 10:24's point #4. it is not okay with me that people are shooting up and leaving their works in the park. i was here for a good bit of the "good old days" and a lot of them weren't all that good, just cheaper. i long for the days of artists, writers, and musicians but not this.
ReplyDeleteit's bad enough that every time i walk through the park there is garbage and half-uneaten food scattered all over the south west corner to stoke the rat fest.
yes, i fear for what the neighborhood is becoming at the hands of real estate speculators but it is not at all cool with me that these few people at the 'low end" of society are making this place as hard to live in as the mindless partiers who shit on our neighborhood every night.
btw, this picture was taken about 30 feet from where the dead body was found 10 days ago.
Those are all sealed and unused. No biological threat. Looks like the contents of a drop in care package someone lost before they got a chance to use it. You chose to move here, don't be so high and mighty. Yes its not nice for children to see stuff like that, but most of the kids growing up in this neighborhood, are spoiled, precious, sheltered children. A little reality might not be the worst.thing for that kind of kid
ReplyDeleteguess wine and dine has reopened once again..
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:16 PM: I fully agree. And people who say that spoiled yuppie children could use some "reality" by looking at this... Give me a f****** break. How about the low-wage park workers who clean and do gardening in the park? They work hard to keep the park a pleasant place for everyone, putting themselves at risk of getting hurt by needles etc.
ReplyDeleteSome commenters seem so overcome by hatred for the "yuppie scum" that they conveniently forget the park is used by families of various backgrounds, and some folks have to work around these hazards every day for very little in return.
I'm really more concerned by the layer of dog shit being put down over the past couple weeks, I have my own idea of who owns big dogs and won't clean up after them...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you'll head east and give them a piece of your mind.
ReplyDeleteTo the people defending the mess:
ReplyDeleteSo if a local kid picked up and stabbed themselves with the needle or stepped on it and got punctured (regardless of how clean it is) you would be fine with that?
You'd consider that "old school"?
Would you tell them to stop crying and that it was good for them to have a taste of "reality" and "old New York"?
Next time you walk through TSp, please try to notice the three kid's playgrounds there and then tell me to "get off my high horse", crusties.
ReplyDeleteI'd be a lot more concerned if these were lying there unwrapped and used.
ReplyDeleteThe hypocrisy of the ~THINK OF THE CHILDREN~ brigade never fails to amuse. The assholes wreaking havoc every weekend in the EV, fucked up on overpriced alcohol and prescription drugs, are JUST AS ADDICTED as the junkies shooting up in the park. And they're just as damaging to the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteAre clean, unused needles really more traumatizing—or dangerous—to kids than foul-smelling puke full of chemicals, germs and potential disease? Think about it.
sorry, I must have missed the childproof packaging on the hypodermic needles.
ReplyDeleteI love how smug little people without kids act as if people with kids are somehow intolerant.
This was is and always has been a park for people, including children. It is not a crackhouse.
PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!
ReplyDeleteThese same addicts have recently been shooting up in the Crusty Starbucks on 9th St and 2nd Ave and leaving their used needles in the bathroom. Forget about the children, the ADULTS around here don't want to get stuck with someone else's Hepatitis C, or worse. And last time I checked, nothing left laying around on the ground in NYC has ever been considered clean, much less medical supplies.
ReplyDeletedifference of cours ebeing that adults have the sensory perception to know not to pick up a hypodermic needle, whether in or out of a packet, whereas children do not.
ReplyDeleteOf course, people without children, or those not caring about children but otherwise claiming to be tolerant and progressive and all that wouldn't understand that distinction.
maybe someone's diabetic from too many 7-11 Big Gulps.
ReplyDeleteNo those works belong to the rats. They like to mainline pure-breed dog pee they gather from the lawn. Aparently it is the best in town.
ReplyDeleteIts probably safer to leave your child in the safe care of that nice super who swears like a trucker or the cab driver who jumped out of his car to fight another driver. Or that fine mayoral candidate who volenteers for free to educate all of New York where babies come from.
Oh if we could only just get rid of those Crusties our babies could finally run naked up Broadway with scissors safely.
Some people like living in a neighborhood. neighborhoods have families. And children. other people like living in an imaginary neighborhood filled with childless felons on an irrevocable march toward an early death.
ReplyDeleteIts not imaginary. Your interfacing with real live other people's lives in a city. You are not God. You dont get to make everyone just like you in OUR neighborhood...which sits not in a gated-community but within a freely circulating city.
ReplyDeleteWhat an exhausting job really to correct all 8 million New Yorkers to be exactly how you want them. ....on the bright side- now you have only 7,998,000 people to straighten out their personal values one by one. Good luck. Vitamin water.
If you want to see people not falling between the cracks and into the parks you need to put a crow bar in your wallet and support the social safety net programs that do that.
ReplyDeleteKicking people who are down may make you feel big but it does not solve the problem.
Someone seems last to the ball in realizing they living in a real community. That has more then you in it.
The percentage of households with children in Manhatten is in the 20%. You're a minority interest. Maybe that is the outrage. You are esentially a crusty.
Anonymous 8/7 1:16,
ReplyDeleteThe percentage of households in Manhattan with children may be in the 20% range, but in some parts of the "East Village," it's over 60%. This seems a more reliable measure of "interest". If you isolate for usage instead of residence, you'll probably find the percentage of children using the park on a regular basis to be even higher.
If we're going to compare groups in the "community," I dare say the number of children is far greater than the number of heroin users.