Too many journalists fall into a pattern of complaining about an issue until it becomes an intractable habit. Yes, the "migrant" influx of an estimated 230,000 mostly military-age men into New York City has been a colossal and deadly stain on the city.
Still--better to shine a light than curse the darkness. And there is light. Call it the Trump Effect, call it Mayor Eric Adams tilting at the windmills of his woke mind virus party, but for all our sakes, call a spade a spade.
NYC to open new 2,200-bed migrant men’s shelter despite saying crisis has slowed, as locals fear ‘chaos’ https://t.co/qnQpOMuGA8 pic.twitter.com/tWFhA7ZRaU
— New York Post (@nypost) January 15, 2025
The spade in question: the shrinking pool of migrants. The cause for some (measured, golf-clap style) kudos: reclaiming some precious parts of our city that were occupied by the illegal hordes (after a thorough powerwash, of course).
Today, the NY Post has buried the lede and chosen to run with a warrantless "shell game" theory. The city is merely moving around the same lot of illegals, or so they imply. Only late in the article are the numbers exposed, showing drastic cuts in the amount of aliens in the system.
It's a lazy take. Moreover, it misses the larger point: the reclamation of Randall's Island!
The history of Randall's Island is fascinating. Wouter Van Twillen obtained the island from two Lenape Indian chiefs in 1637, primarily to graze livestock. The deed to the island passed through the hands of several settlers before the city took possession in 1668. It passed again into private hands until 1783 after the end of British occupation.
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Jonathan Randel then bought it a year later--his name was misspelled on the deed as "Randall". His family sold it back to the city after his death. In a motif that exists to this day, the space was used for a number of hospitals, shelters, and asylums.
NYC- Randall’s Island:
— Manhattan Mingle (@ManhattanMingle) February 2, 2024
A tent city for illegal aliens has resulted in the deprivation of year-round play space for kids.
What was once vibrant recreational fields for our youth, is now stomping grounds for sexual assault, gang assault & murder.
I didn’t vote for any of this. pic.twitter.com/AktytQAh9s
Enter Robert Moses, the legendary planner. After the Triborough Bridge was completed in 1936, connecting Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx, Moses appropriated a large swath of Randall's for a park and athletic fields.
Today, Randall's is the city's playground. School buses full of children arrive there daily--some Upper East Side schools even walk there in long lines along the East River esplanade--releasing concrete-cocooned kids onto expansive fields of grass. Athletic fields are, of course, a rarity in NYC, and many of them were appropriated by the city to construct the white tent city with 3,000 beds for illegals.
We first wrote about the massive facility on the island nearly a year ago.
The shelter made the news on several occasions for the wrong reasons: fights and sexual assault were common. Worse, from the standpoint of taxpaying city parents, schools began to avoid using the island for fear of an incident involving a violent or lecherous illegal. It's not difficult to get inside the imagination of a school principal considering the career ramifications of such a scenario.
Schools sought out further-flung locales in Queens and other boroughs for athletic play. Children endured much longer commutes to play in the already-fading afternoon sunlight. Parents absorbed greater time and expense getting to and from distant venues.
For many parents, the migrant crisis went from an abstract headline to a quality of life issue in short order.
The Bronx will be the latest host to more of New York's uninvited guests, the dispossessed souls who called Randall's home for the past year. The Post has chosen to treat this move as the city shunting its unwanted onto the poorest borough.
They're not wrong, but Manhattan has had enough. After all, we have migrant row, and its locus, the infamous Roosevelt Hotel. We have the panhandler's row on Canal St. Queens has the Roosevelt Ave. open-air sex Market of Sweethearts. Brooklyn has a similar brothel problem under the Penn Track.
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES 🔥New York is finally enforcing the law ! NYPD removing illegal migrant vendors from Roosevelt Avenue, Queens New York .
— VeBee🇺🇸✝️ (@VeBo1991) November 19, 2024
Enforce the law and they will leave voluntarily ! pic.twitter.com/NKGqjtRR96
Bronx residents do have a legitimate gripe in the location of the repurposed shelter, a 2,200 bed renovated storage unit facility. It sits near The Hub, historically the oldest shopping center in the borough. The center of The Hub is the intersection of Willis Ave, E. 149th St., Melrose, and 3rd Ave.
In recent years, The Hub has become less about legal commerce and more a center of drug dealing and open-air drug use. Adding 2,000 illegal aliens to the area is not going to help matters.
Or will it?
A pattern has developed with illegals and the police: the city places large numbers of illegals in a specific area. Then they wait for the situation to boil over. Police move in, raiding the prostitution rings and drug dealers.
It happened in Midtown near the Roosevelt Hotel. It happened at the Market of Sweethearts, and at Penn Track. Draw the undesirables into a confined area, monitor their illegal activity, then pounce. We predict that headlines in the late winter and early spring will include news of drug and sex trade crackdowns in the Bronx.
Even if the aliens are released based on New York's revolving door policies for nonviolent crimes, at least a rap sheet has been established. When Trump takes office and begins to collaborate with Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul--both of whom have stated publicly that they want criminal aliens deported--at least ICE will have plenty of low-hanging fruit to pick.
