Perhaps a sign of the bad old days, or whatever you want to call them, on East Third Street between Avenue C and Avenue D... the flyers tell of an emergency meeting tomorrow night at PS 15 to address "the proliferation/spread of drugs on our block."
The conversation will center on topics ranging from drug sales to drug use...
This is what happens when activist judges try to drag us back to the bad old days by handcuffing the right honorable NYPD.
ReplyDeleteI have lived in the East Village for decades, and I feel for these people. My building was overrun with drug activity for decades, and we lived in constant fear. Junkies don't just get high and go about their business. When they invade a building, they take over and make life miserable for everyone. They kept us awake all night, they robbed some of our apartments, they routinely got physical with us and threatened us. They really got nasty with one of the elderly, gay residents of the building. One night they tried to set our building on fire. It was a horrible way to live, but none of us could afford to just pick up and move. We fought for years and finally got them out in the early 2000s so we could enjoy some sense of peace and safety in our own building. I wish these people luck. All this said, I can't stand the frat and sorority kids that have invaded the area. They are just as bad as the addicts, and that's saying a lot.
ReplyDeleteAre they selling weed?
ReplyDeleteThe girl I buy from now is pretty unreliable.
no anon @ 11:25 , heroin... the problem here is a lack of police presence along with zero foot patrols in a area that needs it most because of the many shelters it has, for drug addicts, homeless, aids/iv users, mentally ill, single moms, battered women that are all located close to low income projects. This causes a whole hang out,supply and demand thing to spill out into the street. You can notice the effect/change this has when you take one element away when the people in the shelters have to get inside by 10pm cause they lock the doors, then street/corners on 3rd at Ave C & D go quiet, the loitering stops along with most of the craziness.
ReplyDelete@ 9:38: you are sick. get help.
ReplyDeleteExactly, what happened to foot patrols? It's especially needed on Avenue D, I don't understand, where are the police officers?
ReplyDeleteI was surprised at the reaction to this on Facebook. I don't like the way the neighborhood has gone upscale but I don't want to go back to the days when the drug dealers and junkies had free reign.
ReplyDeleteThe "right honorable" members of the 9th have historically been part of the single most corrupt precinct in the recent(last few decades) history of NYC. While there may be an oddball who is not part of this clan of thuggery - it may not be the historically correct/appropriate to use the adjectives of "right" and "honorable" in reference here.
ReplyDeleteThat being said - cleaning this up needs to be done and done soon. The meeting is a great first step.
Now what to do about the omg bubbleheads and flipflop bros....???
@anon 1:31pm--what exactly are "aids/iv users"?
ReplyDeleteGuess Wine and Dine is still open 24/7
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should have an "emergency meeting" to address the obnoxious advent of right-wingish "stand-your-grounders" like the self-appointed "East 4th Street Block Ass." who think whatever patheitic scraps of the East Village that remain are altogether too loud and multicultural for them...and of their supporters, who are too cowardly to sign their names to their comments
ReplyDeleteRight on brother , snobbish white supremacy is the real problem here. I should know, im from here, and the biggest hit to my quality of life has been gentrification and not crime, by far.
DeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteI assume you'll be at the meeting tonight, to voice your concern.
I am tired of being picked on the druggies and the frat boys. Seriously, if I don't have some dope head being aggressive with me at Tompkins, I have to deal with some drunken fratty shithead screaming at me in front of my building on Saturday nights.
ReplyDeletePeople who don't have the courage to sign their names don't deserve responses, so get stuffed
ReplyDeleteNot to get all geeky but if this is the real James Romberger posting on this thread and maybe its not or maybe its some guy with the same name this is pretty cool... if you don't know his work he is an Ivy league educated artist who could probably live anywhere but lives on the LES and has been here since the hood was not so good and his drawings of the hood's street life are in the collection at the Met... he also does comic books.... his art shows the true grit and struggle long lost from the EV and LES.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteFace it, the bad old days are over. If destitution is your thing, Dharavi is looking pretty good these days.
The 4th St. Block Association is comprised primarily of people who have lived on this block since the 1980s. I'm one of the few who have been here less time, a mere 12 years. I hadn't planned on attending this meeting, but I don't think I can miss the opportunity to see my neighbors schooled on "stand your ground" by an Ivy-League celebrity!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to finally see something being done about this. Living on the block, I can't stand seeing the drunks and addicts under the scaffolding on 3rd and C well on their way to f*cked up first thing in the morning. And if you're selling heroin anywhere near families and hard workers, you shouldn't expect to be a stranger to a 9th precinct nightstick.
ReplyDeleteI won't be at any NIMBY meetings and again, if you have something to say, sign it. When did the East Village become home to such a lot of cowards?
ReplyDeletetime to re-read "Lush Life" ?
ReplyDeleteOh i dont want to see another new neo-con with psychic toxin oozing out from under creepy sunglasses, flipped backwards baseball cap, and casual urban man-wear blatant selling cultural fraud on my block. Its dangerous. I keep slipping on the lizzard spit! They gush all over the sidewalks mouth agape eyeballs engorged salivating over all the great Tenament Humbles they will gobble up and get RICH RICH RICH!
ReplyDelete@James - don't think the community has become a bunch of cowards. 311 and 911 calls (from the community) haven't worked. Praise to this evening's meeting to talk to the police directly, hope it generates results. NIMBY is a lofty term, any takers who like hearing about price of H when trying to get a morning coffee on 3rd and C under that abandoned bodega? Didn't think so. Let's make alphabet city safe and comfortable for all.
ReplyDeleteSo... how did it go? Anything interesting get said/happen?
ReplyDeleteHear that Eight Million New Yorkers! Our rules our city! Just try to mess with The Fourth Street and Third Street Fight'n Off the 'Aids/Iv', Single Moms, Poor, Mentally Ill, Battered Women Associationl™!...We are looking to improve!...
ReplyDeleteAfter 10pm thank god we upscale..... to molly, vomit, and chlamydia. After 10pm within our 400 Yard Realm of The Affluent™....divorce, domestic abuse, illness-both mental and physical, addictions do not afflict our members. Yup...those are poor people stuffs. Thems ignorants
The meeting went well. There were approximately 36 people there, including someone from the 9th Pct and the DA's office. Almost everyone had a story, of drug use taking place in their vestibules, dealers operating out of renovated but unoccupied building, dealers having keys to the NYCHA buildings and operating out of them, founding members of community gardens (El Jardin) who have all but abandoned it because of drug dealing in them... And they came from all through the neighborhood, from 3rd and 5th Streets as well as both avenues. Many of them said they heard about the meeting from this blog, so hats off to EV Grieve!
ReplyDeleteThere will be a follow-up meeting in two weeks. In that time, people with sales/use taking place in their buildings will approach the owners and try to get the building registered in the city's Tresspass Affidavit Program. And everyone was urged to call 911 when they see drug sales/use taking place. The 9th Pct rep said that despite the number of stories people had, there have been very few calls, so they were not aware of the severity of the problem.
DNAInfo and NY Press were both there; I'm sure they'll have stories today.
Thanks for the report shmnyc
ReplyDeleteI will create a separate post on this a little later. And link to the other media outlets.
I had not heard about any new drug problem on our street. But IF it has returned, it is disturbing that a solution is to be determined by a nameless mob led by someone who conflates "AIDS/iv users" and "single moms" with "battered women" as causal factors. I will make sure to avoid this site in future precisely because of the prevalence of anonymous comments.
ReplyDeleteMy building had been in that affidavid tresspass program for 10 plus years and they have just used it to run a butt load of drug stings through our building. It also gives the NYPD carte blanche to look through every tennants private communications. WNYC did a story on this. There is an NY ACLU class action looking into this program and what it has been doing to harrass non-drug dealing tenants in what looks very much like a push to leverage them out their often affordable homes. If you wan't the NYPD to have a legal warrent to read all your email and other communications- sign up!
ReplyDeleteNew York City get out of my front yard!
ReplyDeleteSo you moved near a shelter, and dont like the looks of the people. And you moved near housing for low income folks and those too seem suspect. So other walks of life next to you have to go. It should be a city where everyone is functioning exactly at YOUR level or better.
And if YOU fall behind? What would you have us do about you? How would you wish to be treated by us? That is the place to start thinking about the people with problems on OUR streets, in OUR society, in OUR city.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to finally see something being done about this. Living on the block, I can't stand seeing the drunks and addicts under the scaffolding on 3rd and C"
I agree although they were there long before the scaffolding but it's def making it worse, a mini-skid row is now building up under it. You know the shooter came out of that crowd when we had the day time shooting back in April
grieve link...
http://evgrieve.com/2013/04/more-details-about-yesterday-afternoons.html
and the how it ended link...
http://harlemworldmag.com/2013/05/05/man-charged-with-murder-in-east-harlem/
I think it is fairly obvious that those who are reacting negatively to an effort to curb illegal drugs in the neighborhood represent less a tiny fraction of the people who live here (although clearly the time they spend at home doing nothing but posting to blogs and dominating the conversation makes it seem as if they comprise a larger number). "Pro-crime and violence" is not really a widely supported position by any group of East Villagers. That's common sense.
ReplyDeleteWhere do all the frat and sorority people come from that their mommies and daddies can pay their rent in LES? These aren't artists moving here, they're weird spoiled 20 something's thinking they're being ultra hip by living in the city, meanwhile the city becomes anything BUT hip because its being inundated with tools.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to address the comment made by Anonymous 9/24 1:31pm.
ReplyDeleteWhat came out of the meeting was that there are no organized programs in many of the shelters/treatment centers. The people who live there, as anyone would, spend a lot of their time outside. The dealers then mingle with them, doing their business among the residents. To the passive observer, it would appear that the residents are the dealers, but this is not the case, allowing for exceptions.
I'm surprised the account does not include the color and age make-up of the meeting. It would also be interesting to know how many who attended were renters, how many condo-coop owners, how many NYCHA residents.
ReplyDeleteTwenty years ago on my block the newer white residents (coop owners moslty) held a block meeting to discuss the drug dealers. The dealer on our stoop attended -- after all, he was part of the block -- and so at the meeting no one breathed a mention of drugs. I knew the dealer on our stoop well enough. I never knew him to commit any kind of violence whatsoever. The previous dealers were even mellower, a Puerto Rican couple straight out of Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. The meeting was held in a vacant lot without any police presence, and all had a good time.
If you're merely speculating on who the dealers are, it might have been wiser to hold the meeting without the police, so the members can choose deliberately how to approach the police and the city.
rob,
ReplyDeleteSpeaking for myself, I was so appalled by the presumptuousness of the early commenters, by the gross caricatures they drew of the organizers, that I thought F them. These aren't people looking for information – they're people venting their aging spleens. However, I do plan to include that information in the piece I'm writing for Quilas!
Finally, no one is wondering who the dealers are.
During the gentrifying of the early 90's, the older drug dealers were replaced by local adolescents -- the kids of residents. Two of the three means of eviction are conducting illegal activities in the apartment and creating a nuisance. If you don't know who your drug dealers are, and you've gone already brought the police into the mix, you may be effectively evicting local families where other means of community support or pressure could be equally effective and more family-favorable and less favorable to landlord and gentrificationist interests. It's always better to know than not, and not caring doesn't lead to knowledge.
ReplyDeleteMaybe policing will be the only means. But going first to the police closes off other avenues. I know a local 15-year-old who likes school a lot, does very well there, is smart and helpful and kind, but he's gotten into lots of trouble because of his cohort. He's spent time in Rikers already -- it's his third incarceration. He depends on youth services where he feels safe from his friends, but he anticipates a life of intermittent prison. I met him waiting for the youth service to open its door -- their hours are limited.
rob,
ReplyDeleteI didn't say people don't know who the dealers are. I said no one wonders who they are. Good grief, man!
Can people drop the presumptions?