Photo from last week on 14th Street looking west from Avenue A
Mayor Adams yesterday unveiled the 14th Street Community Improvement Coalition, a multi-city-agency approach to address the quality-of-life issues along the problematic corridor between Avenue A and First Avenue and surrounding streets.
A centerpiece of the plan includes the previously announced $1 million investment in a new Mobile Command Center, which will soon arrive on 14th Street. (The mayor said the command center will not be permanent.)
Adams made the announcement while flanked by a host of city administrators representing the NYPD, the FDNY, the Department of Sanitation (DSNY), the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), and the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene (DOHMH), and local elected officials. (You can watch the entire press conference below.)
"When we came into office, we had a clear mission: protect public safety, rebuild our economy, and make our city more affordable and livable, and the '14th Street Community Improvement Coalition' precisely addresses these concerns — enhancing quality of life and making the East Village safer," Adams said at a press conference inside the 14th Street Y. "Our administration does not and will not tolerate an atmosphere where anything goes."
"Anything goes" has been the order of the day (and night) on 14th Street in recent years, an issue that gained widespread attention following the Sunday afternoon triple stabbing that left one man dead on June 23.
Since the stabbings, the NYPD has been a regular presence on the block, both on foot patrols and in patrol cars.
The NYPD also installed three light towers south of 14th Street between A and First. Residents have said they've seen improvements along the block.
Per Adams, the city formed the multi-agency coalition to tackle the complicated convergence of public safety issues, including illegal vending, retail theft, substance use and sales, the mental health crisis, and unlicensed cannabis shops.
In recent weeks, teams from various city agencies have conducted walkthroughs to observe these issues firsthand and engage with local community members and businesses. They have also identified individuals needing services, such as housing or medical care, and referred them to the appropriate city agencies.
To further enhance communication, the 9th and 13th Precincts have launched a WhatsApp chat with business owners along the East 14th Street corridor. The chat allows for real-time identification and resolution of concerns.
Adams outlined the following actions:
- Conducting weekly NYPD operations to address homeless encampments, vendors, and persons needing assistance.
- Assigning a dedicated NYPD foot post to address quality-of-life issues and maintain a visible presence along the commercial corridor of 14th
- Affixing mobile light fixtures to sustain visibility.
- Servicing litter baskets daily on all three DSNY shifts and addressing homeless encampments.
- Deploying DSNY graffiti clean-up crews to remove graffiti on private property.
- Ensuring availability of mental health units and homeless services outreach teams to support people in need of mental health support through DOHMH and DHS.
"This is not a problem that's going to come back to this area," Adams said emphatically. "What we saw here is not acceptable. This is not the city that we deserve. We deserve better, we're going to get better, but we're clear on the complexities of the problems that we're facing."
During the Q&A period with reporters, District 2 City Councilmember Carlina Rivera fielded a question about the weekend flea market at Immaculate Conception on 14th Street at First Avenue, which some residents said contributes to the quality-of-life issues.
The flea market moved to 14th Street in the fall of 2012 when the Mary Help of Christians property on Avenue A between 11th Street and 12th Street turned into luxury housing courtesy of Douglas Steiner.
As Rivera explained, the market wasn't a good fit for the space that Immaculate Conception had available.
"It was already too large for this space, so that market spilled onto the street, and people started attaching themselves to [it], saying they were affiliated with it when they were not. So it quickly did get out of control," she said.
Rivera said officials have talked with church leaders and the Archdiocese of New York, though no action has been taken on their behalf.
"They are relying on the revenue from that market to help sustain them," Rivera said. "So while the flea market continues, we are looking toward maybe suspending it, finding a different location, or using other means for the church to [generate] revenue. Because it's not working.
"We brought in the Street Vendor Project to try to organize the vendors. That has not worked. We've brought in faith-based institutions and clergy to speak to people," she continued. "So we've tried so many different approaches and perspectives, but really ... the corridor is just way too busy and there are too many things happening on it for us to have that market continue in the capacity that it is."
The press portion of yesterday's presentation begins at the 37-minute mark...
H/T Edmund John Dunn!
Previously on EV Grieve:
• A look at 14th Street this morning after the triple stabbing and homicide (June 24)
• NYPD light tower arrives on a cleaned-up SE corner of 14th Street and 1st Avenue (June 27)
• A look at 14th Street and 1st Avenue — 'a New York Block No One Can Fix' (July 10)
• From the archives: A documentary short about the intersection of 14th Street and 1st Avenue (July 11)
25 comments:
Still curious why they hangout on this particular area.
A million dollar Police van is not going to make housing affordable, at best it will temporarily make those paying $3000 for a studio apartment feel less like fools. His developer friends have one solution, tear it down for luxury housing.
So... all of this pomp just to declare they plan on delivering basic city services?
Adams has proven himself to be a dud. He’s not horrible like Giuliani but he’s all bark and no bite.
The outside vendors have nothing to do with the church flea market. It all started with the pandemic. The church allowed their regular vendors on the sidewalk within the church’s perimeters.
The church’s yard is private property the city has no jurisdiction over it.
As long as the church is getting tax breaks that residents are paying for, I think they should be completely accountable to not create environments that foster illegal street peddlers, junkies, and crime. If they want to use their private property for flea markets, they can give up their tax status.
I have no evidence, just a feeling from having lived a block away from this stretch of 14th for nearly 25 years, but these feel like the kinds of conversations that take place right before a massive redevelopment, like the kind that transformed the other far end of 14th on the west side ... about 25 years ago.
so true
Sure, close the school, close the flea, then close the church and wind up with another luxury apartment development.
A Whole Foods is reportedly opening in the former Associated Supermarket space across the street.
At the “Mayor Eric Adams Hosts Community Conversation” held on February 12 of this year (2024), I spoke with Mayor Adams about the dangerous, out-of-control situation on East 14th Street, between 1st Ave. and Ave. A.. Here’s the YouTube video of that meeting. My conversation with the mayor starts at minute 47:52.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdR9_PpmgOw
Despite the Mayor (and James N. Mccarthy, Assistant Chief at Patrol, Borough Manhattan South, who was at the meeting and with whom I also spoke) assuring me that 14th St. would be cleaned up, despite subsequently following up several times with the police contacts I was given, nothing changed from February 12 to June 23. It took the 3 stabbings, one of which resulted in the murder of a man, on June 23, 2024 for the City to finally address the problem and do something about it.
The church flea market is only one part of the problem and easily fixed. If the church relies on the money from the market they need to take control. Figure out how many vendors can fit in that space. Vendors should be required to sign up (weekly/monthly? to give everyone a chance) and receive a card/letter with their name. Any vendors outside of the church space would be removed by the new improved police presence..
When our officials "reached out to the diocese" did they come up with a plan or just dump the situation into the lap of the church to look like they were actually doing something other than looking good for the cameras.
Yup, something going on behind the scenes if they're trying to make 14St look nice and clean and shiny.
The deterioration of that block on 14th Street is entirely to blame on Immaculate Conception. They wouldn’t be as reliant on the revenue from the flea market if people weren’t afraid to walk down that block to go to church. The school also just recently closed and I’m sure parents not wanting to walk past needles to drop off their kids at school had a lot to do with that
Absolutely right. This end of the street has been deteriorating for years, obviously in need of more policing, and doubt the city would not have stepped in with these most basic services if not for the publicity from the stabbing. This long and slow neglect of the area is manna for real estate developers. Adams, a Real Estate Board of New York lackey.
Seriously, Adams? Perhaps there are good intentions behind this, but where will the funding come from? The city is already hemorrhaging money in offering benefits to the influx of immigrants, which has resulted in enormous budget cutbacks in other programs and departments. This would be wonderful, but isn't this wishful thinking?
I feel like I’m owed rent money back for the absolute strain on my quality of life. I live right here, and the park sucks now too, it’s all been to much for to many years and it just keeps getting more expensive
It didn't happen behind the scenes, 3 people got stabbed and one got murdered because that stretch of 14th street was out of control.
This isn't some plot by developers, this clean up should have happened before someone died.
@9:50am: You (and everyone else here) seem to be unaware that Immaculate Conception Church is a LANDMARKED building (one of the first buildings ever landmarked in NYC, 1966). It's also on the National Register of Historic Buildings.
THEREFORE, no developer is going to be able to buy up the church and tear it down for a condo development.
100%.
“Anything goes” regarding shoplifting, encampments, shooting up on sidewalks & playgrounds, park shootings, emotionally unstable individuals who threaten & stab folks, e-bike violence, etc. etc. has been the order of the day under Rivera & Epstein. I implore my fellow neighbors to think long & hard about what & who they are voting for — and not for more of the same. Change has to start at the local level and our local electeds have failed us.
But the school building isn’t landmarked. Plenty of space to build.
This is the most important takeaway. The “leaders” aren’t leading. Their feckless responses with BS productions like this don’t fool anyone. They cannot be counted on to significantly improve anything in this city. It’s pathetic.
It’s really awful that someone had to die before anyone with any power would do anything about this. I hope they are going to get on the situation at the chess tables at Tompkins now.
There's Carlina, historically front and center.
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