A Wake Up Call for NYC Before its Too Late

I graduated college in 94 and immediately moved into my moms studio apartment on the upper east side. My mom should be sainted for taking me in but it was not an ideal living situation. I ultimately moved into a ratty room with a college friend and despite it being a dump, it was our dump. It was freedom, and it was paradise. so was NYC. Exception being the crime. For those of us that are around that can remember NYC from the time, it was a dangerous place. You did not walk into any of the parks (Madison Square, Bryant Park, Union Square) unless you were scoring drugs and were willing to be mugged. This is not an exaggeration, the parks that you can now go ice skating in were off limits and dangerous. Everyone I knew was mugged at least a few times. You didn’t carry much cash in your pocket because you could easily have a gun pulled on you in broad daylight.

I would play pick up basketball on 68th street and First avenue and despite the active pick up games, the jungle gyms were empty and there were no kids. For months not a single kid playing on a slide. Crack vials we’re everywhere and dealers sold out of the park (it was right next to a school). The craziest thing about this is that I barely noticed, THIS WAS THE NY I WAS USED TO AND I JUST ACCEPTED THIS AS THE WAY NYC WAS. Everyone did. You begin to a accept what would ordinarily be unacceptable because of how common it is. You become desensitized to stories of shooting and muggings. desensitized to seeing empty playgrounds and homeless sleeping in the middle of sidewalks .

Then Giuliani got elected Mayor. Within a few months, there was a police car posted in the park at 68th Street. At first I had no idea why until I began to notice that the drug dealers started to go away. Parks employees were cleaning up the crack viles and erasing graffiti. Low and behold within three months there were kids playing in the park and moms with strollers. flowers were planted, garbage regularly cleaned. the drug dealers left and did not return even after the police car left. It was an amazing and miraculous transformation, and it was happening across the city. This wasn’t an accident, it happened because ONE man saw a vision of kids playing in parks free of drug dealers and willed it to happen. That moms should not be afraid to bring their kids to play in parks and that you shouldn’t need to be scared to walk down Times Square for fear of being mugged. 

THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE IS THAT ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IF THEY ARE BOLD, VOCAL AND TAKE ACTION. Its also contagious. People begin to take pride in their neighborhoods and become less tolerant of crime. less intimidated by gangs and graffiti and crime. Fellow strap hangers help when a woman is being harassed on a train. they are more emboldened to help their fellow NYers.

It took many years for Mayor Giuliani to transform the city and everything that we have fought so hard for is unraveling seemingly overnight. Trust me this is not an exaggeration, we are quickly returning to an early 90's NYC. Those that have remained in the city or come for work can attest.

We cannot stand by and be silent while violent psychopaths shoot up block parties full of kids and while drug dealers sell pills to hopeless addicts in broad daylight in the middle of sidewalks next to cops that have been emasculated by years and years of anti police rhetoric. Police departments across the country have plenty of issues, but what is accomplished by continuing to demoralizing them? Non stop assaults on Police like what goes on at City Hall every day need to stop now and police need be allowed to do their jobs, which is to keep the city safe. We cant allow the tiny fraction of armed gangs terrorize the poorest neighborhoods. The pain that Davelle Gardner's mother must be enduring is unimaginable. This angel was with his family at a block party celebration. Decisions made by our leaders and inaction by citizens have dire consequences. We cant let this happen.

For New York to come back (so much damage has already been done) we need to be vocal. We need to return to the city and populate our streets, and we need to support the police and allow them to do their jobs. Reforming the NYPD needs to happen, but knee jerk demand for overnight change emboldens very dangerous people. We cannot return to a society that accepts 40 shootings a weekend and children dying from stray bullets as normal. Current leadership is too too cowardly and unwilling to take action, it needs to come from us.