What a whitewash.
Metropolis Council newcomers Erik Bottcher and Christopher Marte led involved Greenwich Village residents on a tour of the pigsty that passes for the West Fourth Road subway this week — however solely after a battalion of MTA workers wiped away indicators of vagrants and filth.
“They referred to as within the calvary,” neighbor Steven Hill mentioned of the see-no-evil VIP go to. “We’re uninterested in listening to the identical previous story. We would like motion, not this bulls—.”
A fleet of no less than eight MTA service vehicles arrived exterior the station hours earlier than the Tuesday tour. Staff shooed away the homeless, scrubbed graffiti and washed the station’s mezzanine ground. The floor was nonetheless moist when the group, which included NYPD officers and civic leaders, toured the hub for the A, D, E, F, B, M and C trains.
“This concept of scheduling a pol’s go to is probably not all that helpful,” wrote Elizabeth Healy on social media. “I recommend Mr. Bottcher simply do some random visits.”
“My concern is that that is only a picture op and nothing goes to occur,” mentioned neighborhood resident Alan Cohen.
The tour got here within the wake of an on-line outcry from locals livid over deplorable circumstances on the station, and adopted a Put up report on subway circumstances throughout the boroughs that discovered West Fourth Road rife with crime and homelessness.
One man slept in a pile of filth on the BDFM platform, and one other man drunkenly stumbled round at noon with a large 1.75-liter jug of Scotch, whereas a kiosk vendor angrily denounced day by day theft at his retailer.
Each Bottcher and Marte ran for workplace final yr on anti-cop platforms that neighbors say have fueled the town’s staggering crime surge and the quality-of-life disaster underground. Each Democrats refused in the course of the tour to reply Put up questions on how their positions are impacting life on the streets and within the subway.
“We're all victims of Christopher Marte,” mentioned Manhattan Republican Jackie Toboroff, who ran towards him final yr. “The circumstances on the subway are the direct results of native leaders coddling criminals and mistreating abnormal residents.”
Throughout the tour, Greenwich Village resident Bonnie Berman decried the “soiled schmutz coming down the partitions” of the station. One other individual mentioned, “My fundamental concern is violence, being a lady and a mother.”
“The politicians have an enormous position on this,” Cohen mentioned. “[Manhattan DA Alvin] Bragg is handcuffing everyone. [Cops] have been castrated, All the pieces they do is undone. Resisting arrest is now not a criminal offense. It’s loopy. How are we presupposed to really feel protected?”
Marte ran for metropolis council final yr on a platform of defunding and disarming police and shutting prisons. Bottcher has been a vocal opponent of conventional policing. His personal mom almost skipped his inauguration ceremony this month over fears of the town’s staggering uptick in crime.
NYPD reported a stunning 58.7 p.c surge in total index crime in February in contrast with the identical month final yr.
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