By Monica Showalter
In the wokester era, New York City has gone downhill.
Even if we haven’t been there in a while, just the random murders of Columbia University students — such as these two bright, innocent kids — has to be some kind of signal. It sure as heck wasn’t like that when I attended that place even back when David Dinkins was mayor and the locals got so fed up with his inaction on crime they elected Rudolph Giuliani the next mayor in 1993.
It’s worse, way worse, now that wokesters run the show, where drugs are basically legal, drug use is open-air now, predators who should never be paroled are paroled, bail “reform” puts criminals back on the streets, wokester D.A.s refuse to bust criminals, and naked socialists are being elected to Congress.
And upwind of Columbia’s environs is East Harlem, where things are so bad, such a “zombieland” that even the local lefties are praying for Lee Zeldin to win the governorship.
Kid you not. I used to stay with a friend in East Harlem, and it wasn’t bad at the time, but she has since sold her co-op on Madison and 125th and moved away. The Clinton Foundation, also on 125th, fled the place years ago.
The New York Post did some street reporting on what East Harlem has become, and boy, did they get an earful from the local talent among the area’s activists and Democrat politicians:
Here’s a Democrat pol:
“Gov. Hochul opened up the floodgates to the ruination of the state when she signed laws allowing for open-drug use on our streets and subways,” said Councilman Robert Holden, a moderate Queens Democrat.
“Instead of focusing on drug addicts getting the help they desperately need, she allowed them to feed their addictions while destroying the quality of life for New Yorkers. Whether it’s this, cashless bail, Raise the Age [juvenile justice law], the [Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement] Act, congestion pricing, and others, Kathy Hochul must be held accountable for the 14 months of destruction she caused New York,” added Holden, who is backing Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election.
Here’s a “community developer” the Post interviewed:
“I almost hope a Republican governor wins, so that way they come and knock this all out,” said community developer Derrick Taitt, referring to Tuesday’s general election. “The Democrats have done nothing for us. Nothing!”
Here’s a local artist:
“I’m a lefty liberal from way back when … and I’m so fed up,” said local artist Jenny Scobel, 67, who has recorded several videos along Park Avenue near 116th Street of men passed out while others inject themselves in broad daylight.
The problem seems to be entirely fixable, once they get Zeldin in there.
What is that problem?
Well, cash has been shoveled to a local NGO called OnPointNYC, which runs “overdose prevention centers” in the area which it hopes to expand.
According to the Post:
The centers provide users with paraphernalia to snort or shoot up drugs within its walls and have staff to monitor clients in case of an overdose and to advise on best injection techniques. It claims to have saved more than 500 people’s lives from fatal overdoses in the past year.
But the East 126th Street injection site has been a magnet for attracting drug dealers, who brazenly sell dope and other narcotics to addicts, including those who are running across the street to shoot up under OnPoint’s supervision, residents said.
The staff “don’t supply the drugs for them, so they have to go out and get the drugs,” said Jim Ratti, 70, who lives across the street with his 18-year-old son. “So where are they coming to buy the stuff? In my building.”
In other words, its role in East Harlem is approximately equivalent to that of the Department of Homeland Security on illegal immigration, effectively serving as a handmaid and enabler to organized criminal cartels, rather than a problem-solver. Drug sellers reap big dollars from having OnPoint NYC around, just as Mexico’s drug cartels do, now that Homeland Security serves as the cartels’ transport agency for their illegal human cargo.
Yank the funding from these bounders, or hold them fully responsible and personally sue-able for every crime connected with their junkie “center,” and watch the problem go away.
That’s something a governor can do, but New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, a hectoring harridan who wonders why anyone should be so concerned about crime, has no intention of doing so — she’s the one who shoveled the cash, after all.
Now we are hearing from the locals, who’ve got to be the bluest locals in America, and they’re going red.
If you’ve got this kind of talk and endorsing going on in deepest East Harlem, what must the rest of the state, with its lower tolerance threshold for chaos and violence, be thinking? The ruling Democrats in Albany and Washington at this point are amazingly out of touch and with no intention of reforming. They are in for a surprise on Tuesday.