Blood covering the sidewalks. Drug dealers selling crack on every corner. Prostitutes pacing the alleyways. These sights wouldn’t be anomalies if you were walking in the Meatpacking District around the 1990’s. That’s because the Meatpacking District used to be one of the most crime infected neighborhoods in the city.
With the presence of so many poor people in the neighborhood, grand larceny and robbery were two of the most common types of crime. Innocent people would be jumped and their wallets would be stolen just for the money. Cars would be broken into to see if there was anything valuable within them. Transvestite prostitution and drug dealing infested the area. On almost every corner and street was a drug dealer, which made purchasing crack easier than ever. Sadly, people would even spend all of their paycheck on buying crack. An officer who used to work in the area during the early 1990’s mentioned that he once arrested a bus driver at six in the morning who spent his whole paycheck, which he got the day before, on crack. He even went to the extent of selling his shoes and some of his clothes to get more of the drug. Aside from the high drug rate, transvestite prostitution was another problem in the area. Residents, unfortunately, had to deal with the aftermath of the previous night, walking down streets covered with condoms and other foul remnants (i.e. urine and crack vials). One couldn’t walk the street at night without witnessing people having sex in the vestibules of buildings or encountering a transvestite looking for some late-night activity. So how did the police decrease a good portion of this illegal activity in the neighborhood? Instead of being reactive, the police from the 6th Precinct became pro-active. The officers in the precinct started noticing the areas where a majority of the crimes were taking place. Once they discovered this information, they increased the presence of patrol officers in that area and shortly thereafter, the prostitution and drug rates started to diminish.
But all of the accomplishments from the 6th Precinct were not self-earned. Mayor Rudy Guiliani played an integral role in decreasing the crime rates in other areas of the city, as well as the Meatpacking District. He placed more capable commissioners at the head of the department and precincts, expecting immediate results. Precincts started using computer analysis to follow the trends of crimes committed by each individual culprit. For example, if someone had committed more than five crimes, the police targeted this particular person first. By doing this, the police force eliminated the major criminals which, in effect, greatly reduced the crime rates in the area. Like I mentioned before, the police force also used computer analysis to track where a majority of the crimes were taking place. When they uncovered this information, they started putting more and more patrol officers in these high crime rate areas. With the increased presence of the police, the crime rate was bound to decrease and it eventually did. Mayor Giuliani also placed a tremendous amount of accountability on the commissioners and heads of the precincts. If he didn’t see the results he had hoped for, specifically a decrease in the crime rates, he would ask for that person to be demoted and replaced by someone new. Although it was a harsh system, it proved an effective way to significantly lower the crime rates in areas that were highly infected.
Initially, businesses were very hesitant to move into the Meatpacking District due to the high crime rates and overwhelming presence of gay and transvestite prostitution. When Andre Balazs, currently the owner of the Standard Hotel, brought a banker into the area, the banker looked to leave after walking three blocks because of the amount of transponders in the area. The banker said to Andre, “I don’t know what you have in mind for this area, but I can’t take this anymore.” This was one of the main reasons businesses were scared to move into this area: the presence of transponders and severe crime rates. Fortunately, these problems were taken care of due in part to the relentless work of police officers who helped clean up the area from what it used to be. Eventually, businesses starting moving into the area and the snowball effect came into play. More businesses transitioned into the area and before you knew it, the Meatpacking District was filled with upscale restaurants and shopping boutiques.
If you compared the crime in the Meatpacking District from the 1990’s to what the crime is like now, it would be a stark contrast. The 6th Precinct, as well as Mayor Giuliani, played a key part in significantly reducing the amount of criminals and prostitutes in the area. After the neighborhood had been swept clean of these delinquents, it started to become more and more elegant. Eventually, it turned into the neighborhood we know today.
