The Greenwich Village landmark has long been known as a haven for free-spirited leisure, but things have taken a very serious turn for the worst with homeless and other vagrants roaming the park shooting up heroin, smoking crack on park benches and even having sex in full view of other parkgoers.
"We may be liberal but this has gone too far," lamented Steven Hill, who has called the neighborhood home since 1980. "There have always been drugs in the park ... but what's emerged this spring is like nothing we've ever seen before."
Washington Square Park's northwest corner has taken an especially hard hit in recent months with constant illicit drug use, fighting and all-around lawlessness. That area actually had to be cordoned off with barriers, though the problem simply moved to other areas of the park.
"The zombies are now near the fountain, as well as next to the chess [southwest] corner," another angry neighbor reported. "They've simply moved up about 200 meters from the now-shuttered end of the park. I think all hell is going to break loose."
Despite being closed, the "drug den" area of Washington Square Park is still reportedly littered with syringes and empty pharmaceutical capsules. One park gardener told the media that he found two dozen syringes while tending the grounds recently.
Filming for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" was halted after violent black man started throwing BLM candles at stars
In one instance, a local resident observed a female around 8am giving oral sex to a drug deal while other men "lined up for their turn" with their pants open. Others have witnessed illegal fireworks being blasted at all hours of the day and night, raucous partying and violence.
Washington Square Park is largely considered to be one of New York City's most iconic landmarks. Its Romanesque arch at the end of Fifth Avenue is famous all around the world, and many festivals and other events have taken place there over the years.
Recently, however, it has turned into an "open-air drug bazaar" with a virtually 24-hour-a-day parade of drug addicts, drug dealers and prostitutes littering the area with their presence and filth.
Crime is up majorly throughout the park and its surrounding neighborhoods. Robberies are up 73 percent in the 6th Precinct while sex crimes have surged 36 percent. There were also two shootings so far, up from zero shootings last year.
Much of the problem stems from the far-left "Black Lives Matter" (BLM) movement, which resulted in police officers being told to stand down in the presence of crime. Knowing this, many drug-addicted vagrants use the park as their own personal drug den.
Filming for the Amazon comedy series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" recently had to be shut down after a violent black man started throwing candles and other paraphernalia from a BLM shrine at actors and other passersby.
"The situation in the park and its surroundings has gotten out of control," bemoaned Ruth Wyatt, another local resident of 25 years whose home overlooks Washington Square Park.
Hill, one of Wyatt's neighbors, recently took a stroll through the park himself, observing all kinds of depravity taking place in open sight, with not a police officer anywhere in view.
"Passed by the benches of addicts, one smoking crack or whatever (and also) a young man shooting up into a vein in his arm without a care who was watching, drawing blood into the barrel of the syringe, shaking the syringe, before he pushed the blood back into his vein," Hill told the media.
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