West Side Storm

New York’s Upper West Side is one of the safest, wealthiest, and most stable neighborhoods in the city—but it’s not a gated community, and the challenges and problems of the broader metropolis seep in. Because of its street density, engaged and hyperlocal media, and politically active citizenry, this neighborhood of nearly 200,000 people amplifies what’s going on in the rest of New York—and right now, that amplification is a deafening alarm.

Last week, the Upper West Side suffered two random attacks in the space of 24 hours. First, last Wednesday night, a man doing his part to support the pandemic-era economy and urban street life—eating dinner outside with his wife at 75th Street and Columbus—was punched by a stranger. Then, Thursday afternoon, a woman exiting the 72nd Street subway station was stabbed, also by a stranger. In neither incident did a dispute trigger the attack. Both victims escaped serious injury.

The two assaults are not anecdotes. Crime, even in the safest city precincts, is unmistakably rising. Across the West Side’s two police precincts in 2019, 227 people suffered a felony assault—fewer than one per day. This year, assaults in the area are down only 13 percent, and robberies are flat—an astonishing increase, in effect, given relative to sparse foot traffic. In June, the tonnage of residential garbage collected on the Upper West Side was down nearly 12 percent compared with the previous year, according to Department of Sanitation data. Until mid-May, people were not even supposed to leave their homes except for essential purposes, leaving far fewer potential crime victims out and about. Just like on subways, then, the per-capita risk is up. Murders, too, are increasing, overall: from one, at this point last year, to eight this year.

Like much of the rest of the city, the Upper West Side is experiencing a lost equilibrium. Less foot traffic encourages crimes of opportunity, which, in turn, discourage foot traffic. It’s not just felony crimes that dampen normal activity, either. The city has taken over three Upper West Side hotels to house homeless men, many with serious mental illness as well as drug and alcohol addictions. In normal times, the argument that every neighborhood must shoulder its “fair share” of social services makes some sense—as long as the city delivers these social services through well-run supportive-housing facilities, with ample supervision of residents and security on nearby blocks. But warehousing troubled men in lonely hotel rooms, and then leaving them to their own devices all day, is not an optimal strategy.