You’re not in Disney anymore.
Times Square is looking a lot like its bad old self, with vagrants, boozy migrants, junkies, and scofflaws making the Crossroads of the World look more like the third world, infuriating those who played an important role in its cleanup.
On three separate days over the past week, The Post saw junkies brazenly smoking crack pipes on West 43rd Street, drug dealers peddling their wares within eyeshot of cops, hobos conked out wherever they can find a spot, and scores of aimless migrants loitering the day away.
“A lot of people are worried about [Times Square] collapsing. And unless they start getting it together for a rebuild, it might actually collapse,” said William Bratton, the NYPD commissioner who helped then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani clean up the area in the 1990s.
“We had a lot more to work with than the current commissioner and the mayor have in 2023,” Bratton added. “There was a lot more of a criminal justice system back then. The courts, district attorneys, and the police were pretty much united about doing something about crime in Times Square. So you had a collaboration that is not in place today.”
By contrast, “we 1693061475 have a number of district attorneys not wanting to deal with a lot of … the so-called ‘broken windows’,” signs of social disorganization and lead to crime, he explained — referring to the far-left, soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who critics say is pushing “reforms” which favor criminals instead of victims.
“Until we get better collaboration between various elements of government, we’re not going to see it improve dramatically,” Bratton warned.
The lawlessness, vice, and depravity that ruled Times Square since the 1960s came to a screeching halt in the mid-90s, when Giuliani cracked down on crime and closed down the area’s notorious sex shops and peep shows.
The redevelopment plan then accelerated in the 2000s under billionaire former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who helped lure national store and restaurant chains to the new-look area and complete its “Disneyfication,” as some critics whined at the time.
Since the pandemic, there’s been “a lot of change for the worse,” in Times Square, said Raymond Kelly, the city’s police commissioner from 1992 to 1994 under then-Mayor David Dinkins, and again from 2002 to 2013 under Bloomberg.
“You can feel it when you walk through there.”
New Yorkers and tourists alike said they were mortified the city’s brand has turned into something out of “Taxi Driver.”
“It’s so bad around here. There are homeless and crazy [people] and [they’re] doing drugs and everything,” said Sidek Mohammad, 55, who has sold nuts at a kiosk on the corner of 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue for 16 years.
“It’s not safe here,” agreed Syed Hossain, the owner of a newsstand on 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, who recently watched a disheveled man aggressively shove a small child “very hard” in broad daylight.
“Anytime, that kind of thing can happen here,” Hossain, 53, said. “I feel bad because I know it’s not supposed to be that way.”
In the last two years, major crime has rocketed 50% in the NYPD’s Midtown South precinct – which encompasses Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, Madison Square Garden, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal – and is up 28% compared to 13 years ago, according to NYPD data.
Tourist Sylvana Kulscar from Alberta, Canada, expected the pristine Times Square she sees on TV – but was shocked by the reality.
“We saw a man today and the only thing he had on was a garbage bag around his waist. He didn’t know where he was going and it was just bad. We had this expectation of Times Square, and then to come here and see it,” said Kulscar, 35, shaking her head.
Roxanne Fleury, a 26-year-old from Quebec City, said a “creepy man” tried to lure her and her friend to an unknown place while they were in Times Square on Wednesday.
“He was like, ‘Do you want to come with us someplace?’ It was strange,” she recalled, adding that the conditions in Times Square were “very different” than those in Soho, where they were staying.
Adding to the seedy new tableau are the thousands of migrants being housed by the city in three nearby hotels-turned-shelters – who constantly loiter and cause issues, according to a doorman at the New Amsterdam Theater on West 42nd Street.
“All of the drinking and delinquency out here, all of these immigrants, they’re changing things. Their trash is everywhere,” he griped.
The Candler Building on West 42nd Street, the Row Hotel on Eighth Avenue, and Hotel Mela on West 44th Street are all now being used to house migrants as they flood into the city.
The nonprofit responsible for the upkeep and improvement of Times Square recently pushed for the managers of the nearby migrant shelters to increase their outdoor security patrols — and to take out their own trash.
“We’ve been working with NYC Health + Hospitals — the folks that manage [The Candler Building] — and been trying to make sure they increase their outdoor patrols of the area, which I’ve heard from several businesses in the area that they have,” said Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance.
But the amount of trash the shelters produce, and who has to deal with it, are still prevalent problems.
“They’re are making a lot of money catering to this crisis, and they need to make sure that they maintain their building. It’s not the city’s responsibility to make sure that the outside of these buildings is clean, it’s the building manager’s,” Harris said.
Long Island native and Lower East Side resident Joe Massaro, 39, didn’t mince words when summing up the current state of Times Square: “It’s a sh-thole around here.”
