Homeless camps growing in NYC

12 blocks of Homeless encampments in Manhattan

A homeless encampment stretching roughly 12 blocks along Manhattan's West Side, from the Intrepid Museum to the Jacob Javits Center, continues to grow while Mayor Zohran Mamdani offers vague promises and the NYPD waits for permission to act.

The sprawl of tents, trash, and reported illegal activity sits in one of the most visible corridors in New York City, steps from tourist attractions and a major convention center, and it exists in large part because the mayor made dismantling such camps harder the moment he took office.

Mamdani campaigned on a promise to stop encampment sweeps. He kept that promise. Then, facing public pressure, he introduced a revised policy requiring seven days of outreach by city workers before any encampment can be cleared.

The result, on full display along 11th Avenue between West 34th and West 46th Streets, is a 12-block stretch of disorder that residents, workers, and visitors say has made the area unrecognizable.

The mayor told reporters the site "has been noticed and it will be cleared." But he declined to say when the seven-day clock actually starts, a detail that matters when the encampment keeps expanding.

"The NYPD has not been given the green light to clean this encampment up, but we are ready to do so." 

That single sentence captures the dysfunction. The officers are willing. The authority hasn't come. And so the camp grows while the mayor's outreach teams visit the site and, by Fox News Digital's account, primarily collect trash.

Mamdani is destroying NYC

Going uptown/downtown (north-south), 12 blocks is roughly 0.6 miles (20 blocks equal 1 mile).