Horror stories from NYC’s 8th Ave. ‘Strip of Despair’ — where stabbings, drug use and public defecation are the norm
Business owners and residents along Midtown Manhattan’s “Strip of Despair” are so frequently robbed and harassed by drug-addled “psychopaths” that they’ve stopped trying to resist — or even bother calling the cops for help.
“Almost every day someone comes into my store to steal,” said 45-year-old Arun Kumar, who owns A’s Coffee Spot on W. 39th St. and 8th Avenue.
“They take beer the most — they take it and walk out,” he said.
“It’s too dangerous to try and stop them.”
Kumar’s shop is located in a stretch of Midtown between Port Authority Bus Terminal and Penn Station that’s come to be known as the “8th Avenue Corridor,” where hard drugs are used in the open and emotionally disturbed people wander the streets screaming at passersby.
Several locals told The Post that they’re fed-up and scared of what the neighborhood has become — despite New York Mayor Eric Adams insisting on Monday that it’s actually getting better.
Recent data from the NYPD shows a mixed bag of progress for the Midtown South Precinct — which stretches from 9th Avenue to Lexington.
There have been 172 reported robberies so far this year, down 24% from the same period in 2023, but felony assaults are up nearly 12%, with 245 reported.
Grand larceny is down 16%, but petit larceny is up 11% and retail theft reports are up 3%.
Drug arrests are also up more than 25%.
But it’s clear that lawlessness remains rampant. The Post caught one man urinating in the street in broad daylight on Monday.
Public defecation is also a common sight, residents and shop owners said.
Open drug use often escalates into violence.
The Post obtained horrific footage of a brutal knife fight in April between an alleged drug dealer and a user outside a building which led to one man being badly injured.
Last week, one woman was stabbed to death outside Port Authority, and an emotionally disturbed man was shot in the leg near West 33rd St. and Broadway — both in the same night.
Locals say many of the troublemakers are drawn to the neighborhood by a concentration of homeless shelters and drug addiction treatment clinics in the area.
“It’s like we’ve been bombed,” said resident Charles Pellegrino, 71, who’s lived in the neighborhood for nearly 30 years.
“It’s a bad situation. You see money exchanging, you see the crack pipes being lit, you see people fighting. You don’t want to dare get stuck in the middle of that.”
He added: “You never used to have the feeling you have now, a feeling of being unsafe in the middle of the day just walking around. Post-COVID, this neighborhood has been nuts.”
Pellegrino knows the danger first-hand. In November 2022, he was walking near his home when a stranger shoved him into a construction site — sending him to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder.
“My glasses shattered and I was lucky to avoid a major head injury,” he said.
Kumar, the coffee shop owner, was slashed in the face two years ago when he tried to stop a shoplifter from snatching an entire case of beer.
After that, he said he no longer intervenes when people come in to steal.
Ying Luo, who manages 39th and 9th Ave Grocery about a block from Kumar’s store, also said trying to stop brazen shoplifters isn’t worth the risk.
So, he’s resorted to pleading.
“I ask them to put it back but if they don’t, you just have to let them go,” the 33-year-old said.
He added: “I live in East Harlem, which is a lot safer than here. It’s getting worse — there is more crime, more drugs and more homelessness.”
Luo thinks the high tourist traffic in the neighborhood — driven by Times Square and the nearby transit hubs — draws the homeless to the area because tourists are easy marks for beggars and thieves.
“When the homeless beg for money, the tourists don’t want trouble and will give them money,” he said.
Tourists, meanwhile, said they’re terrified of the area, including 32-year-old Hilaria Rutini and her husband Philippo Paradiso, 39, who are visiting NYC from Italy for the first time.
“We don’t walk around here at night, it’s too scary. We prefer just to go to sleep,” said Rutini, who is staying in a hotel across from Port Authority.
“At night, this area is full of drug addicts.”
“If we come back, we will stay somewhere else, where there’s not so many homeless and drug addicts.”
Longtime residents don’t have the luxury of leaving when danger comes knocking — something the tenants of one apartment building on W. 39th and 9th Ave. experienced only two weeks ago.
“We had six tenants who couldn’t get out because there was someone smoking crack in the lobby,” said building super John Pormigiano, 59.
“The people were trapped for 15 to 20 minutes until finally I chased him out. He was really dirty, smelly and incoherent. You can’t even reason with them at all.”
He said numerous tenants called 911, but cops never bothered to show up.
Pormigiano isn’t the only one to complain that the police never show when they call for help. Kumar and Luo both told The Post they’ve stopped bothering to call 911 when they’re attacked after countless incidents in which they received no response.
“It’s a waste of time,” Luo said.
“You spend time on the phone describing the shoplifter but nothing gets done, so what’s the point? It’s not like the police will get my stuff back. The police won’t respond to small thefts.”
Mayor Eric Adams told The Post Monday that the NYPD’s hands have been tied by laws preventing them from arresting people just for being high in public.
He said officers were doing the best they could, adding that he’s done walkthroughs of the neighborhood and thinks things are improving.
“We’re doing a good job,” he said.
But residents aren’t seeing it.
“There’s always fights and psychopaths around here,” Pormigiano said.
“There was a fight right here on the corner around the middle of April where one guy was stabbed in the heart and the groin. They were both covered in blood. They’re like Gladiators.”
That fight broke out in broad daylight on the afternoon of April 16 on W. 39th and 8th Ave., where security footage shows one man slashing another, who defended himself with his shirt.
The disheveled pair finally came to blows and tumbled off camera before one was left grievously wounded.
“A guy just walked past here covered in s**t. He sits on the corner smoking crack. The smell makes you want to vomit,” Pormigiano said.
“They s**t on the street. They s**t on cars. We clean with a hose twice a week because everywhere smells like piss.”
Outside Port Authority on Monday morning tourists and commuters were greeted by puddles of vomit washed across the 9th Avenue exit. Steps away on W 40th St. a man relieved himself into a storm drain.
A homeless woman stood on the corner welcoming passersby into the city.
“I hope you get shot,” she said.
