Mayor Eric Adams on Saturday insisted the “the Crossroads of the World” is still safe despite the migrant crisis fueling a flurry of recent crimes there, including a recent stabbing of a 17-year-old.
“We had 62 million tourists last year; we will continue to surge this year; NYPD is ever present,” boasted Adams when asked about the Times Square crime wave during an unrelated event in Lower Manhattan.
“I was walking up there [in Times Square] the other day. You see the presence that’s there. It is safe.”
“We’re going to continue to be the safest big city in America, and we’re going to set the right tone,” he added. “And those who are violent, who have no place in the city, doesn’t matter if they’re long-standing New Yorkers, or they’re new arrivals. Violence is not accepted in the city.”
Adams’ remarks came two days after a 17-year-old migrant was stabbed in a wild brawl on West 42nd Street near Seventh Avenue in Times Square Thursday night.
The teen victim, a migrant believed to be from Nicaragua, was visiting Times Square for the first time with friends when a gang of masked attackers knifed him in the tourist hotspot Thursday evening, police and sources said.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
As of Friday, cops had nabbed five of the alleged attackers — some of them migrant teenagers themselves — and were looking for another 16 suspects.
The latest spate of violence unfolded on the same block where a group of migrants brutally attacked cops last month and left New Yorkers and tourists, alike, terrified.
Two hours after the teen’s stabbing Thursday, another fight broke out a block away in front of the Hard Rock Café at 43rd and Broadway when two groups began arguing, police said.
A 28-year-old man, reportedly believed to be a New Yorker, suffered minor injuries after being punched and kicked by three suspects who were all arrested at the scene.
Since spring 2022, more than 178,000 migrants have poured into the Big Apple, with at least 65,000 currently in the city’s care.
