New York City in Decline

New York, New York, a wonderful town. Unless you live near homeless encampments, that is. But, resourceful New Yorkers have found a solution: they hire private security guards to keep their surroundings safe. You did not expect that the police would do anything about it. You did not imagine that Comrade de Blasio would do anything about it.

Last week we reported on the security guards hired by residents of Riverside Drive. Today we pass along the New York Post report about an apartment complex on Union Square that has hired its own guards. For the record, Union Square does not abut any low rent neighborhoods. It is close enough to NYU to feel like an open air dormitory. 

The Post reports:

The Upper West Side isn’t the only place where fed-up New Yorkers are turning to private security guards to deal with the city’s spiraling homelessness crisis.

Zeckendorf Towers at Union Square has a single guard patrolling around the complex from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily to roust vagrants and keep them from camping out on the sidewalks.

One longtime resident called the change “amazing,” saying, “The main problem was the outside of the Food Emporium on 14th Street between Park and Irving.

“Now that they’ve hired private security, it’s been much, much better,” said the woman.

She added, “The homeless problem in Union Square since [Mayor] de Blasio came into office has been absolutely awful.”

A Food Emporium manager also said, “I was wondering why there were so fewer homeless people lately.”

“Then I found out we had private security, and I was like, finally!” the manager added.

And also:

Four retired NYPD cops from Integrated Security Services take turns patrolling the Zeckendorf site.

One guard, who requested anonymity, said the company was hired because a vagrant was found dead at 15th Street and Union Square East, “and ever since that night, they don’t want another thing like it.”

“Basically, you tell them, ‘You can’t really hang out here,’ ” he said. “Most of them oblige. Every once and a while, one will fight you.”

The guard was coy when asked if he or his colleagues carry guns.

Another day in the life of the great cosmopolitan metropolis. As noted above, it’s not as bad as San Francisco, but, give it time. Besides, the state now allows abortion in the last day of pregnancy. Now, that will solve the homeless problem.