Is Union Square Slipping Back To The Bad Old Days?

A marijuana plant growing tall and proud in Union Square park last year.

Recently we've been wondering if the West Village was falling back into bad old days trends and today the Post makes the argument that in fact it is Union Square ("Methadone Alley"!) that is slipping back into old habits. As if last summer's giant pot plant in the park wasn't a big enough sign?

The tabloid argues that addicts have been creating a "lawless city within a city" in the popular park where they can be found "overdosing on drugs and committing crimes ranging from stabbings to exposing themselves." Specifically neighbors and the police are concerned about the row of benches along Union Square East which Geoffrey Croft of New York City Park Advocates calls "a horror show that's been going on far too long." Meanwhile Preschool teacher Jenn Murphy is pissed about "The language they use...and sometimes they try to talk to the kids." At least those same kids don't have to worry about that too-hot playground anymore!

The paper does make a good case that crime in the park is on the rise, with recent incidents including a 28-year-old man who was stabbed three times in the back by a racist 50-year-old in April, a flasher who was busted in the women's bathroom, a thirty-something woman who overdosed in the park in March, a 56-year-old dealer who was caught last week with more than two ounces of pot and 'shrooms, and somebody even stole the glasses off of Gandhi! This year alone the NYPD has made 84 drug-related arrests in the square.

In response to the uptick in crime, the NYPD has promised to step up patrols and the BID has agreed to hire extra off-duty officers. We have noticed that the East Side of the park can be a bit grimy of late, but didn't pay it much mind. Have you been aware of an increased criminal element in Union Square?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Garth Johnston in News on May 16, 2011 1:57 PM

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Methadone Abuse

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Diane Chess

You are a silly man. The junkies want to keep as low a profile as possible, the last thing they want is to draw attention to themselves. Not a one of them doesn't dread to be incarcerated. A junkies nightmare.
Your impression is erroneous. You watch or read or believe too many suppositions. They are far from the days of the "Wild West" where any violence went.
And how foolish to even assume that one would need a doorman to ward off violence! Does you building hire trained bodyguards? Really man stop making a complete fool of oneself.
You are so far from New York yet think that you're not. You sound like a newly removed person from Iowa who hasn't a clue yet to what New Yorkers are. You may learn if you'd just stop assuming. Real NY'ers wouldn't bother themselves w/ such nonsense

uberzete

I pay as much as I do to live in Union Square so that my door man can keep the junkies at bay but I can still have the street cred of avoiding stabbings in the park. I'm so New York and you don't even know it maaaan. Seriously, I enjoy my diminished quality of life.

Jimbo853okg

Yesterday was one of the City's shred-fest for getting rid of old documents. I brought my stuff to Union Square for shredding.

Standing in line for the shredder truck, a bunch of junkie skels got into the line looking confused. The woman next to them held her bag in horror. Eventually I just looked at one of them. He asked, "is this the free food line, man?" "No, this is for something else." "Like what?" "Like getting rid of records." "Free records?" "It's to shred documents."

More blank looks. Eventually they gave up and moved on. It's disturbing, but I wouldn't call it an epidemic.

eric shull

So what the media wants to do is say one thing, then turn around and point out another. They miss the old New York, yet they hate the old New York. I keep seeing all these stories about how midtown is changed forever and how they want it to go back to the pre-Giuliani days, but they now post an article like this bashing the bad old days.

Jed Brandt

Yeah. Not enough rich assholes and bank outlets. Drug addicts and poor kids from the Bronx should be chased out by the Business Improvement District, because that's what NYC is all about. Rich junkies are cool. Poor junkies are ugly, and they don't use the banks and bourgeois shopping so why are they even there?

JerrytheMouse

Actually, I'm more annoyed by the City, and the coopted Parks admin, and the BIDs, which are shamelessly trying to take over Union Square Park for MORE COMMERCIAL ventures (such as a totally unnecessary restaurant at the north that will displace all political gatherings). I love the artists who used to hang out there before the idiotic crackdown by the Parks; also, the artists (who are currently fighting a lawsuit that they WILL win to maintain their right to stay in the Park) were a way of keeping at bay whatever "bad element" this might be talking about.

tinadunn1

>>>flasher who was busted in the women's bathroom...

There is a women's bathroom in Union Sq Park?

celmira9

Yes. I dread sitting there in the summer to have lunch. Or even passing through the park these days. The characters are from a horror movie. It reminds me of the early 1980s when I first moved from midtowm (E 153rd St. Citicorp Bldg.) to work in that area. Junkies were all over the streets even with kids in tow. I hope something is done pronto.

Jed Brandt

And really, the wants and needs of bankers and suburban shoppers are what's important.

celmira9

Not necessarily. There is a place and time for everything, your Lordship.

Drew Raphael

Absolutely, I live just west of the park and the east pathway is littered (literally) with junkies. Solution is easy, move the methadone clinic in Beth Israel med center to somewhere else and the junkies will follow

ed_Extinct

There has always been a huge riff-raff quality to Union Square, it's just more prevalent these days.

Joey__Blow

and who did they harm? really? kids saw some real-life reality TV? some people were offended because "they spoke to us!"

please. more people should take their pot seeds and spread them around the park. maybe something nice would grow.

setecq

The east side of Union Square has always been kinda grimy because there's so little foot traffic there. Read Jane Jacobs, people.

souper_crackers

On the plus side, when I saw a guy OD there last summer, all they had to do was walk the gurney over from Beth Israel across the street.

RabbiLaFunque

How come the ones living in dreadful fear of "the bad old days" returning almost invariably were living in Buttholefatookie, Wisconsatota during those very same days?

AScoutingLife

I lived on Union Square when Mays Department Store was still open and we used to have shootings outside the Underground nightclub. I definitely don't want to return to the way it was back then. The east side of the park is a nightmare lately with all the methadone users acting like animals.