The Garment District is Gotham’s newest shooting gallery, a disturbing heroin hotspot of addicts shooting up in broad daylight.
The outgoing de Blasio administration appears unwilling or unable to address the crisis, as the quality-of-life disaster unfolds just steps from high-profile Midtown landmarks such as Macy’s, Madison Square Garden and the sparkling new Moynihan Train Hall.
The block bordered by 35th and 36th streets, and Seventh and Eighth avenues, is “littered with used needles, broken glass crack pipes, trash, urine, and feces” as junkies shoot up and dealers brazenly sell drugs, lamented one neighbor on social media. “I’ve personally seen dozens of deals go down. I’ve seen a person OD and nearly die.”
During a single walk around the block last week, The Post witnessed three different people injecting needles in their wrists or fingers in the middle of the afternoon. Each addict sat on the sidewalk or in empty storefronts. Dozens of other junkies sat or lay nearly comatose, many of the men shirtless, on the same block.
“We are appalled and disgusted by the drug use and other illicit behaviors that are taking place on our sidewalks in Midtown Manhattan and throughout New York City,” Garment District Alliance President Barbara Blair told The Post. “We have been fighting to put an end to this crisis, however our city officials have unfortunately failed to address the problem and have allowed this public disorder to continue.”
Drug dealers appear to operate fearlessly on the block. A group of men, one of them sitting on a blue Citibike, gathered outside the A-C-E subway entrance on the northeast corner of Eighth and 35th, exchanging cash and other items as straphangers raced by them up and down the stairs.
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