The Streets of New York City

I love the streets of New York City. After living outside the city for 5 years, there is not a day that I don’t say to myself “I love this town and I am so glad we are able to live here.” But recently, the streets of New York are making me sad.

In the last few months, the homeless situation on the streets has escalated. There are people who are so out of their minds that they don’t even know where they are. I guess we had to cut back the costs of social services for these poor souls. There are young homeless people on the streets who are absolutely doing heroin. I actually saw someone shooting up on the street the other morning on the way to school. Great thing for my kids to see. This guy was young too – maybe 22 at the most.

The streets are filthy. NYC used to pick up garbage hourly. Now, the pick up is every couple of hours. A few Sunday’s ago, coming back from the gym, I noticed that 6th Avenue was over flowing with trash from the night before. Yuck.

The snow removal has been so slow. I actually called the Parks Department about Washington Square Park. They never even bothered to scrape down the walkways through the park. There are so many elderly people who walk through the park daily. The walkways are now a sheet of ice. One slip, the city gets sued for more than it would have cost to clean the sidewalks.

I know the city is hurting financially. I don’t think Bloomberg could do more than he is doing now to stretch the budget. Why Guiliani gave away the commuter tax is beyond me. People from all over the world come to visit this fantastic city. It makes me sad that visitors from the US and overseas have to see what I see on the streets. To me, the streets of New York are glittering with excitement, opportunity, fantastic happenings, etc. I pray they don’t let the streets turn gray.