Assembly Members Steve Raga and Catalina Cruz and Council Member Shekar Krishnan unveil a seven-point plan to make Roosevelt Avenue safer. Photo: Shane O’Brien
Oct. 31, 2024 By Shane O’Brien
Council Member Shekar Krishnan, Assembly Members Steven Raga and Catalina Cruz, and several local advocates gathered in Jackson Heights Wednesday to launch a new seven-point plan to make Roosevelt Avenue safer and brighter.
Krishnan, Raga, Cruz and a number of local business owners, workers and parents gathered at the Manuel de Dios Unanue Triangle beneath the 7 train at the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and 83rd Street to launch the plan, which calls for licencing and regulation of hotels and massage parlors, improved street lighting along Roosevelt Avenue and improved cooperation between city agencies working in the area.
The plan aims to clamp down on prostitution, shoplifting, trash pile-ups, and other quality-of-life and public safety issues along the Roosevelt Avenue Corridor.
“Everyone deserves to feel safe on Roosevelt Avenue at all times of the day,” Krishnan said Wednesday. “What we have been doing for decades on Roosevelt Avenue has not worked.”
“I know that in unlicensed dark places, criminal activity, unsafe activity, can thrive, but in bright, lighter places full of light, we can all feel safer,” Krishnan continued. “You look on Roosevelt and see the lack of lighting at night under our elevated 7 train tracks, the amount of double-parked cars that make it unsafe for pedestrians to come by, the lack of investments, the lack of consistent enforcement.”
The seven-point plan has been in development for over a year and is independent of Mayor Eric Adams’ “Operation Restore Roosevelt,” a 90-day policing plan launched earlier in October that aims to address public safety and quality of life issues along Roosevelt Avenue.
Elected officials said Wednesday that the plan has also not been influenced by a number of recent protests and rallies in the area against rising crime on Roosevelt Avenue, stating that it was in development long before the protests took place.
The first point of the newly unveiled plan calls for safe and licensed institutions in New York City, including hotels and massage parlors.
“Right now, there’s no licensing for hotels,” Krishnan said. “That is where criminal activities and sex trafficking thrive – in unlicensed hotels.”
Photo: Shane O’Brien
The plan calls for state and city agencies, such as the Department of Buildings, the Sanitation Department, and the Fire Department, to inspect and enforce against businesses operating outside of legal standards, including those illegally dumping garbage on the side of the street.
It further calls for fines for businesses that are engaging in illegal dumping
The plan also calls for responsible and effective public safety, noting that the Roosevelt Avenue Corridor is currently shared between the 110th and 115th Precincts. The plan calls for just one precinct to be in charge of the avenue to provide consistent and clear accountability and jurisdiction.
Krishnan said the plan also seeks to make Roosevelt Avenue clean and clear by working with the Department of Transportation and NYPD Traffic Enforcement to clamp down on double-parked vehicles.
The plan also aims to address the darkness along Roosevelt Avenue created by the elevated 7 train line, calling on the MTA to make the avenue safer by installing more lighting and reducing the noise of passing trains.
“The MTA must work with us to install more lighting, to make our train station accessible and to reduce the noise,” Krishnan said. “They have a role to play in this too, and they have failed us when it comes to accessibility and lighting for 7 train passengers.”
Finally, the plan calls for more support for people living along Roosevelt Avenue to prevent people living in “abject poverty” from being extorted and sex-trafficked.
“These seven proposals form a long-term plan to make Roosevelt Avenue safer, to protect our parents and small businesses, to combat and put an end to sex trafficking, and to make people safe walking down the street at all hours of the day.”
Elected officials hope that the 7-point plan will be funded by the New York City Council and the State Legislature, adding that they will introduce measures in the budget if necessary.
“We’re not going to wait for the investment in our community to just come here,” Cruz said. We’re going to work on it. And the idea is to make sure that every single person, when they leave their house morning or night on Roosevelt Avenue, feels safe.”
Cruz said the seven-point plan is based on lengthy public engagement, stating that elected officials have talked to members of the local community over the past year to explore what needs to be done to improve public safety along Roosevelt Avenue.
She added that it is imperative for city and state agencies to collaborate and cooperate to improve public safety along the avenue.
“The reality is that each of us plays a key role in what happens in the neighborhood,” Cruz said. “If we have some of the agencies not doing their job, it makes it that much harder to actually meet the needs of our neighbors. So we are working to push them.”
Raga, meanwhile, said the quality of life issues along Roosevelt Avenue deteriorated following the pandemic, adding that locals often witness issues while walking down the avenue in broad daylight.
He said cooperation between local politicians and city and state agencies offered the best chance to address some of Roosevelt Avenue’s quality-of-life issues.
“A lot of times, folks do things by themselves,” Raga said. “That’s not how government really works. So we asked, ‘How can we work with other elected officials?'”
Raga said he is confident that the seven-point plan will receive the necessary funding. He stated that elected officials have explored the potential costs of the initiative over the past 12 months by working with various city and state agencies.
Victoria Medelius, president of PS 398 Q PTA in Jackson Heights, said she first noticed the rise in criminal activity along Roosevelt Avenue last year when she was driving near 88th Street and saw roughly a dozen streetwalkers lined up on the side of the avenue at 7 a.m.
She said she now avoids walking along Roosevelt Avenue, adding that she has received reports of parents being approached by sex workers as they walk their young children to school.
“I think it’s a huge problem because they (children) ask questions, they’re curious, and they’re going to wonder, why is this going on?” Medelius said. “Those aren’t conversations that we should be having, nor should it be on us as parents.
“I think they have enough to worry about as kids, having gone through a pandemic. It’s not fair, and it’s not safe.”
Medelius said issues such as prostitution and solicitation can rob children of their innocence, adding that she often has to shield her child, who is in the third grade, from the issues that take place in broad daylight.
“I think there’s a time and a place to have those conversations, but I don’t think it’s in elementary school,” she said.
She said the Mayor’s 90-day policing plan to restore Roosevelt Avenue “sounds good” but added that she is worried about what will happen on day 91 when the operation has come to an end.
Medelius believes that the seven-point plan can provide a more sustainable long-term solution but said it would rely on members of the local community to “keep showing up.”
“If we just keep showing up and advocating for our kids, I definitely think that we can make this happen and change for good.”
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