Just three weeks before NYU’s newest class moves into the area, a group of junkies and crackheads has turned a leafy pathway in Washington Square Park into an open-air drug den — and the NYPD is doing nothing about it.
As many as 20 strung-out vagrants have taken over several benches in the park’s northwest corner, where they openly consume hard drugs just steps from the children’s playground, outraged neighbors said.
One Village resident who walks his dog through the park daily said he has repeatedly witnessed people blatantly smoking crack — and even saw one man use a handheld mirror to inject narcotics into a vein in his neck as two cops sat in a cruiser about 15 feet away.
“I dunno if they have a Twitter feed or what, but the word is out and the numbers get bigger by the day,” said the resident, a 33-year-old property manager.
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“I’ve lived by the park seven years and I have never in my life seen someone shooting heroin in the middle of broad daylight, literally surrounded by pedestrians enjoying an afternoon outside.”
Modal TriggerApparent drug dealers make a transaction in Washington Square Park Thursday, then count their money (below).Photo: David McGlynn
Village resident Martin Felondo, 53, said he recently complained to a cop about being harassed by a dealer who followed him through the park, trying to sell him drugs.
“The cop just told me to calm down,” Felondo said.
Felondo also noted that he has frequented the park since 1987, adding: “I’ve seen trends come and go, and I’m not too keen on what’s going on with heroin.”
Will Falzon, who works as a building super nearby, said the situation was “really a safety concern, more than anything.
“The quality of people coming here and participating in that kind of activity aren’t the kind of people that a residential neighborhood needs. It’s not what you want to see,” said Falzon, 57.
Thursday afternoon, The Post spotted three people firing up a glass stem and puffing away on benches in the area.
Afterward, none would discuss what they had been doing.
About a half-dozen other apparent druggies were seen shuffling around like zombies and occasionally spewing curses at each other.
One man urinated on a tree.
A Parks Department worker admitted that he and his colleagues had quit cleaning up the area because they were scared of the addicts.
Modal TriggerApparent drug dealers are seen hanging out in the open.Photo: David McGlynn
“There’s drug use, prostitution, gambling — all that is going on there. All day and all night, too,” the worker said.
“In that area over there, though, it’s off the chain and the cops know what’s going on. I ain’t touching that situation. That’s on them.”
No cops were stationed inside the park Thursday, but at one point, two officers pulled up in a patrol car and parked at Washington Square North to eat salads in their vehicle.
Asked why they weren’t cracking down on the lawlessness within their sight, one cop said: “We aren’t even here for that specifically. There’s a unit that’s dealing with all of that. I can’t say more than that.”
They left about 10 minutes later.
An NYPD spokeswoman, Sgt. Jessica McRory, said: “The precinct has received complaints in regards to that area of the park. We currently have officers assigned to that area.
“The commanding officer [Deputy Inspector Joseph Simonetti] has contacted narcotic investigators to address the condition.”
Only weeks ago, dozens of druggies zonked out on K2 were found staggering around the streets of Brooklyn:
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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