{"id":4177,"date":"2026-07-10T21:39:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4177"},"modified":"2026-07-10T21:39:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:39:19","slug":"exclusive-nyc-refuses-to-tear-down-trash-filled-encampments-outside-the-intrepid-earning-mamdani-rave-reviews-from-homeless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4177","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | NYC refuses to tear down trash-filled encampments outside the Intrepid \u2014 earning Mamdani rave reviews from homeless"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A sprawling homeless encampment near the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan has been vexing business owners and passersby for months \u2014 but the city is effectively running a valet trash service for its rough-sleeping residents rather than clearing the eyesore.<\/p>\n

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The steadily growing shantytowns \u2014 haphazardly strewn with all manner of bicycles, electronics and garbage \u2014 have taken over sizable portions of West 45th and 46th Streets along Twelfth Avenue in Hell\u2019s Kitchen, between the museum parking lot and an Amazon warehouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see how it looks? How dirty it is? How can you eat food and the next corner is smelly, dirty, nasty, crusty, disgusting?\u201d a food cart owner at the corner of Twelfth Avenue and West 46th Street told The Post, adding that the campsite has been chipping away at his business.<\/p>\n

He said despite calling 911 and 311 \u201ca million times,\u201d the city has never dealt with the encampment itself, only sending Department of Sanitation workers out to clear the trash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey take the garbage only, but nobody can move anyone, even 911,\u201d the cart owner said, noting he\u2019s had to move further down the block just to keep afloat, which, paradoxically, places him further away from the deluge of tourists entering or exiting the museum.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s hands-off approach, however, is earning him rave reviews from the encampment\u2019s occupants.<\/p>\n

\u201cMamdani is awesome. He, like, did a whole paradigm shift on homelessness and care,\u201d said Markus C., who lives in an encampment on West 40th Street but visits the 46th Street shantytown roughly twice a week.<\/p>\n

He said he loves Mamdani, and how the administration treats the Big Apple homeless community, noting it\u2019s the first time he feels like someone cared about his plight.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore, when the police were doing their sweeps, the cleanups and site checks, there was a lot of pressure,\u201d Markus, who\u2019s been on the streets for a year and a half, said of the tactics under former Mayor Eric Adams.<\/p>\n

Since Mamdani got into office in January, \u201cI noticed that it\u2019s a lot more outreach workers instead of sending police officers. So now we have, on average, about three different organizations\u201d to check in on them, he said.<\/p>\n

But the city\u2019s apparently lackadaisical response flies in the face of the official policy even under Mamdani, which state that homeless encampment sweeps are performed through a seven-day process, starting with placing a notice at each site, followed by daily check-ins to offer people shelter services before the locations are cleared.<\/p>\n

Officials confirmed to The Post that complaints about the encampments near the Intrepid have repeatedly come in to both the NYPD and Department of Human Services, with calls on July 1, July 5, July 6 and July 8 this month alone.<\/p>\n

A security guard working the Intrepid parking lot said the encampments haven\u2019t created problems for his team specifically, but that they\u2019ve been a persistent annoyance for the general public.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get a lot of joggers that have to jump over them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One of the homeless-hurdling runners, Rashid Mak, 37, said he passes the encampment daily during his morning jog. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t give me an issue, but them being here is the issue,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the stench, it\u2019s the trash, garbage. Just loitering here, littering.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He added: \u201cObviously, it just kind of fosters that environment where it\u2019s more tolerable for that kind of behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two workers sitting in the Intrepid parking lot on their lunch break Friday said the gates used to be open for those living in the encampment, but that they were closed a few months ago because of the constant littering and the large number of schools and families bringing children by on their way to the museum.<\/p>\n

They said the city and the owners of the lot were sick and tired of having to pick everything up.<\/p>\n

Liam James, who lives at the West 46th Street encampment, said the Mamdani administration was initially trying to clear everyone off the streets, but seems to have since shifted tactics to focus on sending sanitation crews to pick up trash and outreach workers for wellness checks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they show up they call them emergency sweeps. And that means they always show up anytime they want and say \u2018we\u2019re throwing away everything,’\u201d noting they limit encampment residents to three bags apiece.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo as a human, I\u2019m only entitled to three bags of things. Obviously it\u2019s not trash [they\u2019re throwing away], it\u2019s somebody who has luggage. It\u2019s wild. Why would you throw somebody\u2019s life away?\u201d<\/p>\n

James, who didn\u2019t know his exact age but said he was in his 40s and has been living on the streets for \u201ctoo many years,\u201d said the trash pickups usually happen on Tuesday and Thursdays, so residents always have their trash ready on those days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Eric Adams when they talked about sweeps \u2026 they would literally come in, they\u2019d arrest me and then throw everything away. That was the way it was before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then the newer mayor has been more keen on well, during heightened weather, like, when it\u2019s stormy, taking action \u2014 bringing it in, at least temporarily, or helping get whatever was necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wanted it noted that the people living on the streets \u2014 whether in the Hell\u2019s Kitchen encampments or elsewhere \u2014 \u201cdon\u2019t want to have to be in this situation,\u201d and are seeking for it to be a temporary solution for shelter, not a permanent housing setup.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

James Bilis, 35, from Jersey City, has been living on the streets for five years. He also heaped praise on Mamdani for the uptick in outreach services and the lack of enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe homeless outreach, it\u2019s been a lot of that. They walk around, they bring food to people all the time now. They bring supplies, try to give us shelters, there\u2019s a lot more than before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said there are a lot more cops and outreach workers now, but that they mostly leave him alone after checking on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think with Adams, we would have been moved around a lot more. actually, it was a lot more moving around. now, it\u2019s like they don\u2019t, they don\u2019t bother you as much. They don\u2019t mess with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2014 Additional reporting by Carl Campanile, Craig McCarthy and Hannah Fierick<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sprawling homeless encampment near the Intrepid Museum in Hell’s Kitchen has been vexing business owners and passersby for months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro"],"yoast_head":"\nExclusive | NYC refuses to tear down trash-filled encampments outside the Intrepid \u2014 earning Mamdani rave reviews from homeless - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4177\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive | NYC refuses to tear down trash-filled encampments outside the Intrepid \u2014 earning Mamdani rave reviews from homeless - 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