By Carol Tannenhauser
At approximately 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night, in the vicinity of West 82nd Street and Broadway, a man was stabbed in the torso, a police spokesman told West Side Rag. “He is not likely,” the spokesperson said, meaning he is not likely to die. He was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside (St. Luke’s) hospital.
The perpetrator — a white male in his 30s, with facial hair, wearing a gray sweatshirt and black baseball cap — fled in an unknown direction.
“It looks like the perp knew the victim,” NYPD said.
The investigation is ongoing.
That’s what our neighborhood has become. Vagrants often congregate in that median on Broadway at 82nd st, when they are not at Bway/79th. Heavy drinking, occasional pot smoking, cursing, spitting… and sure enough, it’s only downhill from there. Few months ago another stabbing happened on 82/Amsterdam. Shady characters are feeling very comfortable here. What is Gale Brewer and the 20th precinct doing abt it?
The condition on the streets of the Upper West Side is the the result of residents voting for left wing and progressive politicians.
Oh my gosh, shame on us we need to be sympathetic and helpful and caring and to protect ourselves and if we get attacked by someone with their fists just take it because they wont be jailed, because it is all our fault. So chill out grab some supplies at a store because you wont be prosecuted either. The most important thing is we wont have Teddy Roosevelt staring at us anymore, that is the important thing.
Not so much. The dramatic increase in crime in NYC was felt immediately after Cuomo passed bail reform and it went into effect on 1/1/20. If you want crime to go down, this law must be repealed. Yes, there will be an outcry from the usual loud liberals, but if you want some sense of back to normal safety, it must be done. But it will not with Hochul at the helm.
This stabbing is disturbing, for sure. The idea that repealing bail reform will magically end crime in the city isn’t realistic because bail reform isn’t responsible for the rise in crime.
With all due respect: do you live here? I do, on 100th st, for many years. I’m out and about every day, and after bail reform was passed, crime of all types went away up. Quality of life has gone way down, on the streets and on the subways.
And you base your assertion that bail reform is not responsible for the increase in crime on what?
This same comment has been posted repeatedly during the past 8 years. It does nothing to help the situation. How do we change things that are happening the elected officials that are NOW in office? There were never ending protests to support these homeless/mentally ill men during the height of Covid but I’ve never seen or heard of a protest organized by neighbors to put an end to the the violence.
There’s a protest against local crime this Monday posted on Facebook group Upper West Siders Together :
A peaceful non-political protest has been organized for this coming Monday February 7th at 9:00AM.
Location: 111 Centre Street, New York, NY
Media is coming and the organizers need US, everyday New Yorkers, to show up and tell our leaders that we are noticing and we want change.
This is OUR moment to raise our voices and let them know that we care!
Please see the attached flyer and please RSVP here so organizers have a sense for how many people may be coming: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeXPivmiOSwzj0nXzj72cwiOm6pjAb03UWUqavwGdLPVmwqlw/viewform
You cannot change laws without pressuring politicians in Albany to change laws like “bail reform.” If judges’ hands are tied with regards to bail and sentencing, then that is the current State of New York. Rallies and speeches are great, media attention is great, but if the police are hampered and judges are hampered, you are still sunk.
Thank you so much for adding this! I didn’t notice it after I had already responded to the previous comment.
The protests were to advocate for services for the houseless and down and out folks in our community. Those protests were, in effect, in support of ending the violence by offering solutions besides driving the houseless out of the neighborhood or placing them in jail.
No, the mentally ill homeless men that were living on the street in 2016 (or maybe even before that) are still in the neighborhood today. To my knowledge, no one has ever protested that.
What would a non-progressive politician do to change this situation?
There are never ever beat cops walking Broadway despite the presence of many obviously distressed people. Why?
The fact that they knew each other is suppose to make us feel better ???
to Max–no, it doesn’t make anyone feel better, but the notion that they knew each other does make me feel less threatened. Even if it’s an illusion, I’ll take it.
Interesting, maybe that was a motive. At least it wasn’t random.
Oh, that’s ok then.
Jen, did someone say that is ok?
Why project such nastiness?
Peter’s pointless comment gets posted and mine gets censored when it was not controversial at all? Really? You are incredibly inconsistent on these things.
Please note that I do not check this e-mail address. Perhaps you could address things like this publicly.
You have been doing some great reporting lately but your management of the comments section leaves something to be desired. When in doubt, publish the comments. Unless it is very personal and nasty towards another poster. Or if someone is posting the same thing repeatedly under the same story.
Thank you, Leon, for your many thoughtful comments. This is a topic to address in an article, which WSR will do.
Did you just call her nasty? Or maybe not? Is that OK? Or maybe less so? Or are you being sarcastic? Hope so – or maybe not.
Let’s keep this going, folks! Flashmob the topic with silliness? (or maybe it’s not that silly?)
Not okay at all, Jen. Maybe a little less threatening. But maybe not.
I was sarcastic.
Someone has organized a peaceful rally protesting crime.
It’s listed on the Facebook group: Upper WestSiderz Together: I’ll paste info here:
A peaceful non-political protest has been organized for this coming Monday February 7th at 9:00AM.
Location: 111 Centre Street, New York, NY
Media is coming and the organizers need US, everyday New Yorkers, to show up and tell our leaders that we are noticing and we want change.
This is OUR moment to raise our voices and let them know that we care!
Please see the attached flyer and please RSVP here so organizers have a sense for how many people may be coming: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeXPivmiOSwzj0nXzj72cwiOm6pjAb03UWUqavwGdLPVmwqlw/viewform
Solution. Remove benches. Rebuilt walls to end
And plant tress and shrubs. These gatherings are
out of control.
What? Remove benches? Are you crazy? Why must we suffer because of these people? Those benches offer respite and back-saving relief and should not be removed because of crazies now and then!
I’ve been living in this neighborhood for over 54 years. Let’s face it, if the criminals are not afraid of the police, they’re even less afraid of us, the residents. Back in the 70s, all the police had to do was tap their night stick on the sidewalk two times before the ‘bad guy’ would realize where the third tap was going to be. Bring back the beat cop, but also give them the tools to enforce order!
Giuliani, Compstat, and Bratton killed off the beat cop.
On the contrary, they did not. Bratton instituted the “broken windows theory” which cleaned up NYC. The current slate of City Council members and State politicians of the past 15 years killed quality of life. You have it all backwards.
Your point is a good one. Unfortunately, it won’t happen today because most upper west siders are opposed to permitting the police to do what was necessary to clean up the area in the 70’s.
https://www.amazon.com/City-Police-Jonathan-Rubinstein/dp/0374515557
“Neo, you’re living in a dream world”. Night stick…lol
Anybody that thinks NYC crime is worse now, definitely didn’t live I NYC during 1980s and 1990s.Murders were regularly over 2000 a year. Drug selling was rampant.And yes Guiliani was mayor during a lot of the mayhem.
The difference is, back then, you had bad neighborhoods (or streets, or blocks) that could be avoided if you didn’t want to get mugged or shot. The UWS had some clear “no go” areas and it was possible to avoid them. Now most of the UWS is getting sketchy, particularly around subway express stops. I’ve talked to street vendors and they say certain “homeless” come every day to get high, panhandle etc. and hang out with their buds. There must be some good drugs for sale in our area. Wish the NYPD would focus on that. Shouldn’t be hard to track where the supply is coming from.
That was the problem when the City filled the local hotels with homeless people. The drug dealers showed up and had a steady clientele. But the NYPD did nothing about it because of far-left lenient policies that rendered them meaningless.
True. I have no recollection of homeless people/drug users etc. all over the UWS streets – as you pointed out – certain places were avoided. Hell I lived on 109th street and Amsterdam when it was cocaine central in the 80s – but the dealers knew who lived there and no one got mugged… if you avoided occasional gun shot. You couldn’t pay me to live on Broadway now.
So following the logic of this comment we should not worry about the marked increase in crime and violence until it reaches the level of the late 70’s and 80’s?
Nonsense. Guiliani was mayor from 1994-2002 which was the end of the two-decade period you’re talking about. He started cleaning up this city on day one and by the time he left, things were infinitely better.
Dinkins was the one who set the stage for crime to come down, hiring of more cops happened with him. His downfall was trying to play the middle after a series of racially motivated killings. Yusuf Hawkins was one of the most tragic killings in the city’s history. Giuliani did not play the middle and nothing to hide his racism, which in a perverse way enabled him to do more since he wasn’t trying to win everyone over. But don’t forget people were about to storm Gracie Mansion with pitchforks to run Giuliani out of town at the end, if it weren’t for 9/11 folks would have. It took another 20 years for people to remember what a slime ball Rudy is.
This is the first time in a long time where i have seen race ascribed to a perpetrator on this site.
Correct. Because the perp was white. The woke masses would raise heck if a crime was ever attributed to someone who isn’t white.
This probably won’t get published either…
No beat cops ever in my 20+ years in NYC, especially on the UWS. The 20th precinct is too concerned about parking their cars on sidewalks, creating parking lots in turning lanes on Columbus Avenue, blockading the sidewalks on 82nd Street, and generally giving the stink eye to anyone passing by their front door where you can always find a group of cops loitering about and scrolling through their phones. And we wonder why crime is up?