Thousands of people walk along 125th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues in the Harlem section of Manhattan every day, and most don’t linger. Commuters rush to catch trains leaving New York City, while others rush to take the subway to the Midtown Manhattan or the Bronx. They pass by a scene that evokes the worst stereotypes of urban disorder: boarded up shop windows, rubbish, public drug use, people lying on the street.
According to the criteria of
But look deeper and the block reveals not only desperation, but also strength and empathy. Drug dealers. Addicts. Teachers. Doctors. Counselors. Police officers. Some come to the block for help; others to help them. Some take advantage of the vulnerable. Others are just trying to make a little money. Some have come to accept drug addicts as part of their community; others would make them disappear if they could.
Every neighborhood in the City has a place like this. But this one is particularly striking because it’s on a major commuter corridor and in the center of rapidly gentrifying Harlem. There’s also something new to blame for the chaos. A block away on 125th Street is one of the first officially sanctioned supervised drug consumption sites in the United States: OnPoint NYC.
It offers people addicted to illegal drugs, such as fentanyl or crack, a place to consume them more safely. Staff reverse overdoses if necessary, and OnPoint provides other help, including medical care, food and counseling. The safety and acceptance it offers extends outside its front door on East 126th Street. In the shade of nearby trees, drug users and dealers exchange small packets for a few dollars. OnPoint helps clean up the trash left behind.
“Sometimes people do act up on the street,” said Michael Pappas, who treats wounds and prescribes addiction medication at OnPoint. “But I think most of the time people, including many of our participants, look out for each other.”
People overdose and OnPoint workers rush to revive them. They save lives, but not everyone likes how OnPoint seems to have made the area, long a hotbed of drug use, even more attractive now.
No one asked neighbors before OnPoint opened in the area. In late 2021, when he was mayor, Bill de Blasio approved it on his own in an effort to alleviate the growing overdose crisis. Just across the street, parents drop off their children at Graham School, a daycare and preschool.
“My kids can’t run around the block by themselves anymore,” said Francesa Barreiro, whose five children have attended the school. She was relieved that the school had stopped taking the children out for walks. The daycare, she noted, also installed bulletproof glass in its first-floor windows. She pointed to the group of men and women outside OnPoint. “Do you know how many times we’ve had gun violence, too, just from them being there?”
The police are present, but often remain on the perimeter of the action, ready to respond in case of violence. One afternoon in June, a man was shot in the leg in front of the daycare center. An ambulance was called and the daycare center was asked for its surveillance video.
Police statistics showed a total of 74 serious crimes so far this year on the block bounded by 125th and 126th streets and Lexington and Park avenues. That includes three shootings and a man who was pushed onto the subway tracks in March, making it one of the most violent blocks in the district.
Jason Beltre, OnPoint’s director of community outreach, said the group asked police not to “hunt people who use drugs” — that is, arrest them on the block — and instead allow them to go “to OnPoint so they can get help.”
Some neighbors don’t agree with this philosophy. One morning in early July, when an OnPoint cleaning crew stopped by their house, Abasi Owens started yelling at them. He grabbed one of the workers by the vest. They told him he was being “weird.”
“You know what’s weird?” Owens replied. “Having to deal with OnPoint drug addicts in front of your house while I’m trying to raise kids on the block.”
Samuel Cruz has been pastor of the Pentecostal church on the block for nearly 20 years. He said crime was worse years ago, but now police are always present.
Ali Ngiaya, a Senegalese immigrant who has been selling perfumes and incense from a stand on 125th Street for seven years, calls it “the worst block.” But the travelers and residents who buy his wares are here, and he has shade.
The Duane Reade Pharmacy and McDonald’s have closed, leaving the stores vacant. But a gleaming center is planned for a subway extension on a lot at 125th and Park Streets. Construction of modern rental buildings to the west and east draws closer each year.
It’s not clear whether the changes will uproot or simply add to the mix of people who make the street what it is: braiding ladies sitting outside their hair salons, distraught people shouting at no one in particular, parents pushing their children in strollers. Like any other block in New York City, it has become its own kind of community, and maybe, at times, even a family.
That’s the lesson that Matthew Kane, a teacher at the school, teaches his students, some of whom are homeless or newly arrived as immigrants.
“You have your family at home and then you have the Moose Hall family,” she told them, referring to her preschool classroom. “There are many different ways to form a family. All you need is love.”
#York #despair #hope #clear #demonstration #faces #life #chaos #city