The Insurrection Comes to New York City

You will be happy to hear that the Insurrection is alive and well in New York City. You know about the Insurrection, the revolt of the downtrodden masses against white supremacists. It began in the summer of 2020 with the George Floyd/BLM riots and has continued unabated in America’s great blue cities. 

In the previous post we reported from San Francisco, which has been destroyed by people who claim their rightful reparations by stealing from boutiques, department stores and drug stores. 

The same story is apparently being played out in New York City. We understood that the pathetic Bill deBlasio, our previous mayor, was all-in for the Insurrection. We had hoped that the current mayor Eric Adams would tamp things down, and, to be fair, he has advanced a program designed to do just that. And yet, two police officers were gunned down last week in Harlem and smash and grab robberies are becoming more common.

Obviously, the national Democratic Party is scared of the electoral repercussions. They do not want to be shown to be completely incompetent or to sympathize actively with the Insurrectionists. So, New York’s new governess, Kathy Hochul has declared that she wants to rein New York’s pro-criminal district attorney, Alvin Bragg, and Joe Biden himself is going to come to New York next week to appear to be doing something.

And now, for a few scenes from the Insurrection, beginning with smash and grab attacks on drug stores. The Daily Mail reports:

Brazen thieves have been hitting the same Upper East Side Rite Aid for months, forcing it to close - and now, numerous small businesses in the upscale Manhattan neighborhood, where residents say they are on high alert because of rising crime, are worried they will soon suffer the same fate after a string of thefts.  

Shelves are already bare in the Rite Aid store, located at the corner of 80th Street and 2nd Avenue because it will shut its doors for good on February 15, the manager told DailyMail.com, a day after a thief was caught on video boldly sauntering out with shopping bags full of stolen goods. 

Effectively, businesses have no choice but to close up shop. Certain neighborhoods are just too dangerous.

The Rite Aid's closure is just one of many in the city. On February 8, a Hell's Kitchen store which has been rife with robberies in recent months will close, and on the Upper West Side, another store which experienced daily thefts shut down in November. Just this week, there was news that a Rite Aid located at Clinton Joralemon Streets in the Brooklyn Heights is also set to close next month. 

The chain announced last year that it was shutting down about 63 stores across the US in the next few years, citing cost-cutting measures to save $25 million a year - but workers say that the thefts are part of the reason for the closures as inventory dwindles. 

Here are some statistics:

Robbery in New York City has spiked by about 33 percent in the week ending on January 23, according to the NYPD's most recent data, with 944 incidents compared to 709 incidents reported during the same timeframe last year. Overall crime has gone up by nearly 39 percent, with 7,230 incidents this year as compared to last year's 5,211. 

It’s not just the drug stores. All businesses are feeling the strain of living during the Insurrection. Owners all point out that the police are simply AWOL:

Meanwhile, small business owners and workers in the Upper East Side - once one of America's wealthiest zip codes - say no one is stopping the thefts and they are also being targeted on a daily basis. 

  

Sayed Imam, the store manager of Wine Emporium, for 15 years said there is little to no support from the police - and even if they call 911, by the time the cops show up, the thieves are gone.  

'For us, every inventory counts,' he said. 'Since the beginning of the pandemic, these thefts just keep happening. And we don't have the support from police.' 

If the Upper East Side is bad, downtown’s Soho neighborhood seems to be worse. You may or may not know it, but Soho is very trendy, very expensive and very high class. 

This makes it a perfect target for Insurrectionists who are extracting reparations from white supremacist residents.

The New York Post reports:

Open fires burning on the street. Dangerous vagrants. Fear after dark.

This is life these days in SoHo — one of Manhattan’s ritziest neighborhoods, with home costs that soar into the millions.

Late Wednesday night, video emerged of an open fire burning on Canal Street and people who live and work in the neighborhood told The Post that crime and chaos has gotten so far out of control, they no longer feel safe.

“I used to be more comfortable letting my children, especially the two older kids, travel by themselves to school and now I don’t,” Maud Maron, a mother of four who’s lived in SoHo for over a decade, told The Post Thursday.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the most expensive neighborhood or the least expensive neighborhood in New York City. Every single New Yorker deserves safety and the ability to walk down the street without open fires.”

Maron, a New Yorker for 32 years, said she used to allow her kids to walk down Canal Street and take the subway to school but these days, she opts to drive them.

The Post journalists interviewed Soho residents:

The Post spoke with a half dozen New Yorkers who live and work in SoHo who all said there is a noticeable change in the neighborhood compared to a few years ago.

In the first precinct, which covers SoHo, crime has soared 52.6 percent over the last 28 days compared to last year and year to date, it’s up 48.4 percent, NYPD data show. The numbers mimic citywide crime trends that show an overall increase of about 40 percent so far this year compared to 2021.

Luxury boutiques are especially targeted:

John Constantine, who manages a luxury boutique on Prince Street, moved out of the neighborhood a year ago and said he hasn’t looked back since.

“This neighborhood is awful,” Constantine, 34, said.

“I saw a homeless man with a machete fighting with another man with rebar. You can kill someone with that. That was two months ago.”

Recently, a mentally ill man with no shirt came into his store and started dancing, forcing Constantine to “evacuate” his customers.

How has this impacted sales:

“With the crime and the cold weather, we have a dip in sales. We used to do as much as $10,000 a day. Now we do $1,000. This is the worst I’ve ever seen it. It’s exacerbated by how the neighborhood is going down.”

There you have it, New York’s underprivileged masses, having been allowed to do as they please by a weak administration and by weak public prosecutors, are now rebelling against the rich and the powerful, making everyone's lives miserable and forcing the tax base out of the city.