Saturday, August 8, 2020

The People's Republic of the Upper West Side

Once upon a time they called it the People’s Republic of the Upper West Side, of Manhattan, of course. Radical leftists all, its citizens count among the nation’s most reliable Democratic voters. Now they are having the opportunity to live the dream, and, would you know it, they are none too happy.


It all began when Comrade de Blasio started moving homeless people into tony hotels on the Upper West Side-- into the neighborhood that houses the Museum of Natural History and Zabars. After all, we needed to protect these people against the coronavirus. Unfortunately, the homeless crowd has not demonstrated the basics of hygiene and sobriety. Well, you can’t have everything.


The Daily Mail has the story:


Hundreds of homeless people who have been put up in luxury hotels on Manhattan's Upper West Side by the city as part of its efforts to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in shelters are terrifying residents by urinating, sleeping and taking drugs in the streets.  


In July, it emerged that 139 of the city's iconic hotels - which had been forced closed for months - had agreed to take in homeless people for $175 per person, per night as part of a scheme by the city to try to avoid a breakout of COVID-19 in homeless shelters. 


And, of course, the new denizens of the Upper West Side are terrorizing the inhabitants. Not to mention the fact that many of them are sex offenders:


This week, residents of the neighborhood complained online about the people who are being housed in those hotels who they say are terrorizing the area. 


Police sources also told The New York Post that many of them are sex offenders.  


A Facebook group, in which residents have shared pictures of men urinating, masturbating and laying sprawled out on sidewalks near the hotels, has been set up. 


Sex offenders, you say? Like Seattle, New York is having a summer of love.


Local parents are particularly concerned with the ten registered sex offenders that have been accommodated in the Belleclaire as of Thursday, according to the state sex offender registry.


Included in those ten are Luis Martin, 44, who assaulted and raped a woman in 1995, Roland Butler, 62, convicted in 2013 of raping a 16-year-old girl, Eddie Daniel, 59, convicted of abused a 10-year-old in 2011, Jonathan Evans, 29, convicted of abusing a 6-year-old, and Michael Hughes, 55, convicted of possessing child pornography in 2007.


Local residents have reported seeing fights, have been verbally abused or harassed, seen people spitting - despite the ongoing pandemic - and have also seen people looking for, or using drugs.


Nearly 300 homeless drug and alcohol addicts have reportedly been living at the Lucerne alone since last week, with one homeless man -Angel Ortiz, 60 - telling The Post 'whatever drug you can imagine is done there.'


Does Comrade de Blasio care? I promise you; he doesn’t. The people who are living in such tony neighborhoods are very wealthy. And, in the Upper West Side they are probably disproportionately Jewish. That means, they are crooks and criminals; they gained their ill-gotten gains by exploiting the poor and the racially diverse. They ought to pay for their crimes-- which is what they are now doing.


We will see how long it takes them to debark for more friendly climes.

4 comments:

sharecropper said...

Are the owners of the luxury hotels on the upper west side are somehow connected to the mayor or other city officials, and honestly, how could they not be connected as they are owners of luxury hotels in the high rent area? I would like to know if they city has shown the same concern to house homeless people in places like Motel 6 & Econolodge in lower income areas. It would be a lot cheaper than $175 a night, and in areas more easily accessible to the folks the city is trying to help. Unless of course, the people the city is really trying to help are owners of luxury hotels in upscale neighborhoods. As a part of the great unwashed, when I read things like this, I conclude that I would not be concerned if NYC burned to the ground.

sharecropper said...

Has the city tried to help homeless people by providing housing in the Motel 6 or Econolodge in poorer parts of the city? Or is the city really concerned about helping the owners of hight rent hotels in the wealthier part of the city. I am a cynic about NYC, an occassional visitor who would never live there. Therefore, I will not be too concerned that the inhabitants of that metropolis who look down on the great unwashed, live in a city that burns itself to the ground.

urbane legend said...

Comrade DeBlasio moves obviously sick, drug abusing, sexually disturbed, mentally ill, homeless folk into luxury hotels. Very few, if any, of those homeless people are able to value that gift.

Again, meanwhile, healthy people who simply want to work and move freely about a once great city are abused by the mayor. So those who can are leaving, and the mayor sees no contradiction in his being disturbed by that.

Let me check my concern meter about DeBlasio and NYC. No, nothing registers.

Sam L. said...

As I said in my comment on Frisco and California, NYC is also suffering "too many Democrats". Your mileage may be different.