Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Welcome to our vibrant, diverse sanctuary city

From the NY Times:

WHEN the Metropolitan Transportation Authority decided to get rid of a colony of pigeons that roosted under the elevated subway that runs down the middle of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens several years ago, it installed anti-pigeon spikes and sound machines to drive the birds off. The birds decamped, but only to the trees next to the tracks, where they continued to befoul the street below, according to local residents. When the parks department pruned the trees, the birds headed back to the tracks to another spot. Now, the transit agency continues to power-wash the caked-on debris away.

That’s what the fight against vice is like on Roosevelt Avenue, where efforts by the city to clean up a street that is home not only to pigeons, but also to a host of criminal activities, often play out like the carnival game Whac-A-Mole: go after one form of wrongdoing and it will re-emerge somewhere else in a slightly different form.

A common refrain about Roosevelt, which slices across Queens from Queens Boulevard to Northern Boulevard, is that the seediness pushed out of Times Square merely re-established itself there, finding a new home especially in the Corona and Jackson Heights neighborhoods, according to residents, advocates and law enforcement officials. Today, prostitution and counterfeiting industries are tucked alongside the Mexican restaurants, Dominican bakeries, Colombian boutiques and the nightclubs where men — many of them new immigrants working to feed families left behind in their homelands — can buy the company of a woman by paying $2 for a dance.

Late at night, the sight of drunken men slumped on the streets outside bars is so common that in September, a young man who was stabbed bled to death on the pavement a few blocks off Roosevelt, ignored by pedestrians who thought he had passed out after a late night.

For decades, extraordinary policing efforts have been applied to the problems on this avenue, including a citywide task force and, more recently, a designation as a New York Police Department Operation Impact Zone, which means the area is flooded with patrols. And yet, even as overall crime in the city and along Roosevelt Avenue has fallen, certain crimes have stubbornly resisted stifling.



29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mid day siestas and evening naps...
are a protected part an illegal immigrant's Constitutional rights!

Only in America!

Diablo, no dinero...but a snootfull of tequila.

If it rains, he'll take a shower.

Anonymous said...

Popeye and his minions can set up all the mobile command centers and scissor jack observation towers they want and dole out mucho overtime, but they won't make any progress on this until they realize that the 110th approach of acting like a rural speed trap and going apes*** doing traffic stops isn't going to cut it.

Anonymous said...

There's only so much money
alloted to the NYPD for neighborhood patrols, etc.

It goes to "the better" nabes.

Corona-Elmhurst are the forgotten nabes
so they get minimal service from all NYC departments.

"Forget it Juan, it's little Colombia".

Anonymous said...

Its all about "CONTAINMENT".

CONTAIN all the crap...and keep it concentrated
in these kinds of ghetto nabes...keeping it very far away from Douglaston, Little Neck, Auburndale, Broadway, etc.

There's a NYC Department of City Planning containment policy in place in other areas too...
like Jamaica and Flushing.

No city official will ever admit to it.

Anonymous said...

Call in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)!

Watch them scatter like cockroaches!

Anonymous said...

"Today, prostitution and counterfeiting industries are tucked alongside the MEXICAN restaurants, DOMINICAN bakeries, COLOMBIAN boutiques and the nightclubs where men "

Notice a pattern here????

Anonymous said...

The first thing they need to do is change the boundary that divides the 110 and 115's turf. It's currently Roosevelt Avenue and it's clearly not working!

Anonymous said...

Vibrant & Diverse! Just the way our politicians want it. This is what happens in a Sanctuary City. This insures that our politicians stay in power forever and ever.

georgetheatheist said...

Helen Marshall, Borough President.

Anonymous said...

Legalize it already!

Anonymous said...

Popeye and his minions can set up all the mobile command centers and scissor jack observation towers they want and dole out mucho overtime, but they won't make any progress on this until they realize that the 110th approach of acting like a rural speed trap and going apes*** doing traffic stops isn't going to cut it.
----------------------------------
As long as the IMPACT kids all come in with their 45 C's and 2 collars a month, Popeye and his minions could care less. This is what passes for real police work in the KB(Kelly/Bloomberg)PD.

Anonymous said...

The next Crossroads of America??? Are they really THAT delusional?

Anonymous said...

i think its funny that all this crap is blamed on the spanish. Lets take a second to think about the large irish american community located in woodside and how they are constantly drunk, starting fights, falling asleep in the streets, and using many of those prostitutes. or the tibetans that come in from where the heck they come from and start brawls. every race has their degenerates.

Anonymous said...

But in these nabes IT IS the Hispanics!

Than sleeping drunk doesn't look very Irish to me.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Buddy...Woodside has an awful lot of "Spanish".

Anonymous said...

(Sucking sounds). Chika, chika, chika!

Anonymous said...

re:13

What decade are you living in? The 1960's. Woodside stopped being a "large" Irish-American community in the 1990 census, and "an" Irish-American community in the 2010 census. Between 56th Street and 61st Street on Roosevelt Ave you can hear a pin drop on Friday or Saturday night.

Anonymous said...

Great ! I love it ! we need another Time Square in NYc. At least I know where to go for a toot or a broad!!

Anonymous said...

I'm just wondering exactly what county in Ireland does Annonymous #13 think that the guy passed out under the el in the story's photo is from?

Anonymous said...

I find it humorous that every time a negative story about hispanics and their neighborhoods are published, that some enlightened soul feels the need to remind us that there are bad seeds in every race, ESPECIALLY Europeans. Hey, an hispanic politician, Peralta, was interviewed for the piece. Did you feel the need to remind us that there are non hispanic politicians in the city as well?

Anonymous said...

An illegal is an electrician? They are licensed in NYC. So your going to hire an illegal who is also an unlicensed electrician?

Want your housed burned down to the ground - have this guy live in your attic or basement and do odd electrical jobs to pay the rent!

The New York Times does not know the difference between illegal and an immigrant?

Anonymous said...

Human pigeons

Anonymous said...

you are in America now.....SPEAK SPANISH

Anonymous said...

FYI:
I spotted a great T-shirt.

"Welcome to America. Now speak English",
was emblazoned on the front.

I am sick of hyphenated Americans.
My grandparents were from Italy.

My parents
called themselves "AMERICANS"...as I do!

If you came here for the "Yankee dollar'
then you'd better show some respect for your
host country.

Anonymous said...

You are in Flushing now..SPEAK CHINESE.

Anonymous said...

He's likely a Dominican...
considered by most Latinos as the lowest wrung
on the Hispanic ladder.

The Flushing Phantom said...

How do I find a good whore house in this nabe?
In Flushing I just walk into any "massagee" parlor.

Anonymous said...

"What decade are you living in? The 1960's. Woodside stopped being a "large" Irish-American community in the 1990 census, and "an" Irish-American community in the 2010 census. Between 56th Street and 61st Street on Roosevelt Ave you can hear a pin drop on Friday or Saturday night."

really though? because i happen to spend an awful lot of time partying in the bars in woodside and i wouldnt ever be able to hear a pin drop, too many fights and loud drunk people. most of which are my friends. but you my friend clearly have no idea what youre talking about.

Anonymous said...

You are blind: http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/aia_iirm_content.html