IN MIDTOWN NYC BE CAREFUL SO YOU WON'T TRIP OVER A JUNKIE SHOOTING UP OR PASSING OUT ON THE SIDEWALK

Midtown NYC still a haven for junkies after Post exposé 

 

By Steven Vago and David Meyer

 

New York Post

September 26, 2021

 

 

 

Two men taking some form of narcotics in a needle for their high on West 35th Street near 8th Avenue in Manhattan

 

 

Manhattan’s latest shooting gallery was back open for business Sunday — a day after The Post reported on the disturbing daytime drug spree in the Garment District.

Three men were spotted shooting up heroin in front of an apartment building on West 36th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues Sunday afternoon, with two of them abandoning the third, who had passed out on the sidewalk, as a traffic cop wrote tickets nearby.

“Can you call an ambulance?” one man could be heard asking after attempting to revive his sick pal by pouring water on his head.

Forty minutes later, a fourth man approached the still-high man, asking if he was all right.

“They left me for dead,” the man replied, visibly jerking from the drugs.

One block away, on West 35th Street, another pair injected themselves in front of a store called Leather, Suede, Skins — with zero cops in sight.

 

A person crashing after taking some narcotics in front of 241 W. 36th St. in Manhattan

 

The first man could be seen shooting up in his arm, fingers and ankle. The other man injected his arm.

Several passersby hardly took notice of the men in the bustling neighborhood-turned-heroin hotspot.

The Garment District is no stranger to open-air drug use. Last summer, The Post reported significant drug use in the plaza at Broadway and West 40th Street.

“Sometimes when I’m walking, I see a lot of people doing it,” said Modou Trawally, 44, a fabric store worker on West 35th Street. “It’s dangerous. You see someone inject himself. He’s not a doctor. It’s a problem. If the city can help them, that would be better.”

Another local worker, who didn’t want to be named, said the city needs to clean up the area.

“It’s horrible,” he said, adding that he witnessed someone getting high last week as he was exiting the subway at 34th Street. “I saw someone shooting up and his friend said he’s got diabetes. I said, ‘Yeah, right.””

NYPD and City Hall did not return requests for comment.

Last week, The Post witnessed open-air drug deals take place in the area, despite the presence of NYPD cops a couple blocks away.

Critics have said junkies are emboldened to get high in public because certain drug crimes — including possessing needles or small amounts of heroin, or injecting drugs — are offenses for which bail can no longer be set under the state’s recent bail reform law.