THE NEW YORK POST – You’re not in Disney anymore.
Times Square is looking a lot like its bad old self, with vagrants, boozy migrants, junkies, and scofflaws making the Crossroads of the World look more like the third world, infuriating those who played an important role in its cleanup.
On three separate days over the past week, The Post saw junkies brazenly smoking crack pipes on West 43rd Street, drug dealers peddling their wares within eyeshot of cops, hobos conked out wherever they can find a spot, and scores of aimless migrants loitering the day away.
“A lot of people are worried about [Times Square] collapsing. And unless they start getting it together for a rebuild, it might actually collapse,” said William Bratton, the NYPD commissioner who helped then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani lean up the area in the 1990s.
“We had a lot more to work with than the current commissioner and the mayor have in 2023,” Bratton added …
“The lawlessness, vice, and depravity that ruled Times Square since the 1960s came to a screeching halt in the mid-90s, when Giuliani cracked down on crime and closed down the area’s notorious sex shops and peep shows.”
“ … There was a lot more of a criminal justice system back then. The courts, district attorneys, and the police were pretty much united about doing something about crime in Times Square. So you had a collaboration that is not in place today.”
Vagrants, boozy migrants, junkies, and scofflaws are making the Crossroads of the World look more like the third world.
“A lot of people are worried about [Times Square] collapsing,” said William Bratton, an ex-NYPD commissioner.
By contrast, “we [now] have a number of district attorneys not wanting to deal with a lot of … the so-called ‘broken windows’,” signs of social disorganization and lead to crime, he explained — referring to the far-left, soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who critics say is pushing “reforms” which favor criminals instead of victims …
