The “Broadway of the Bronx” is a drug-ridden wasteland, where hordes of zonked-out junkies openly buy dope, shoot up and overdose in broad daylight — despite city officials’ years-old pledge to end the ceaseless squalor.
The Post spent several days in “The Hub” — the commercial area between Melrose and Mott Haven that encompasses Roberto Clemente Plaza — and found scenes of drug-fueled depravity and an ever-present unwelcome haze of crack smoke.
Two addicts were seen suffering apparent overdoses and dozens more nodded off or involuntarily contorted their bodies into the telltale “fentanyl fold.”
One potential overdose victim lay face down on the sidewalk for 10 minutes until a fellow addict gave him doses of life-saving Narcan. A few feet away, a haggard man nonchalantly injected a syringe into a woman’s neck.
“These streets are full of zombies,” said Emilio Morales, general manager of the landmark Opera House Hotel, a 3-star inn on East 149th Street. “It has never been as bad as it is now.”
Morales’ concerns aren’t new — he and other local business leaders in 2021 sent a letter to then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, pleading for action on the drug-dealing, homelessness and crime consuming The Hub.
They’re still waiting.
Efforts by City Hall and the NYPD to permanently clamp down on the open-air drug markets have been unsuccessful, said frustrated locals and elected leaders.
“It’s very bad, very bad, very bad,” said Siraj Bhaiyat, the owner of local variety store Willis Discount. “It’s been like this for three years, but it’s getting worse and worse.”
‘You can’t walk through it’
A cadre of local leaders cut the ribbon on Roberto Clemente Plaza in 2018, with hopes of turning it into the Herald Square of the Bronx.
But local after local said that sunny vision for the plaza — and The Hub as a whole — quickly became eclipsed by darkness.
“When they opened the plaza, they had jazz music and everything, it was very nice,” said Morales, the hotel manager. “Now you can’t walk through it and you can’t sit there.
“The drug use is out in the open and it’s rampant.”
By 2021, The Hub became so crime- and drug-ridden that leaders with the Third Avenue Business Improvement District wrote a desperate letter to de Blasio pleading for the city to “protect our neighborhoods and the small business lifeblood of our community.”
After the letter and a face-to-face earful from business owners, de Blasio promised to conduct walkthroughs and dedicated $8 million to fight the opioid epidemic in the Bronx.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration continued efforts to scrub The Hub, launching what City Hall calls a “comprehensive, multi-agency approach” against drug activity and associated problems.
But even as City Hall-driven efforts – including an October-to-November targeted enforcement sweep – cleaned up thousands of syringes, handed out overdose reversal kits and led to dozens of arrests, the dismal conditions keep coming back.
The Hub remains at the frontlines of New York City’s opioid crisis, with nearly 139 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents in the surrounding neighborhood — more than three times the citywide rate in 2023, according to health department data.
Crime in the 40th Precinct covering the corridor is up nearly 4% so far this year compared to last – and up 94% since 2010, NYPD data shows.
Much of the problem with The Hub is Roberto Clemente Plaza itself has become a hub for New Yorkers struggling with addiction, said Pedro Suarez, the executive director of the Third Avenue BID.
“It’s been difficult for us as a community to reclaim that space,” he said.
‘The dealers are everywhere’
The addicts’ deadly habit is fed by a bevy of brazen dealers peddling a litany of drugs in Roberto Clemente Plaza and surrounding streets, calling out with impunity: “Methadone, methadone, methadone.” “I got K.” “Klonopin. Singles.”
The dealers also hawked a menu of other drugs, from crack cocaine to synthetic marijuana.
Their illicit wares are also strewn on the pavement, as used syringes and thousands of orange safety caps cover every street branching out from the crossroads.
A litter of used glassine bags can also be seen, many stamped with narcotic brand names, including “Passion,” “Prada,” “La Sabrosura,” “Bugatti” and “Hummer” – and containing a potent combination of heroin and synthetic opioids fentanyl, xylazine and carfentanil, according to chemical testing by outreach group St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction.
Drug deals in Roberto Clemente Plaza are not subtle either. The same dealer takes the cash, rustles around in their pocket and hands over the drugs, completely out in the open.
The Post watched as dealers took money for pills that they dispensed directly in buyers’ hands, sold syringes from freshly opened boxes and — in the most discreet hand-off — pulled yellow bags from a shoe after palming bank notes.
Filth, human waste and bombed-out addicts also litter the ground — sometimes all at once.
Many addicts nodded out under trees in Roberto Clemente Plaza with overdose-reversing Narcan kits hanging from the branches.
The Post watched as a middle-aged man clad in Jets gear passed out cold into a flower bed and was only revived when a friend punched his chest repeatedly. A few minutes later, he vomited into a flyer reading “Prepare to meet God.”
Pigeons ate the vomit at his feet while he lit and smoked a cigarette.
“This area is garbage, but nobody cares,” lamented Halima Akter, manager at Shurovi beauty spa, near where the pigeons feasted.
“It’s been like this all the time ever since they opened [Roberto Clemente Plaza]. But it’s getting worse. More and more people come here to use drugs.”
One such addict is Edwin Gonzalez, 43, who injected heroin as he spoke to The Post on a rocky outcrop in St. Mary’s Park.
Surrounded by bright orange syringe safety caps, Gonzalez outlined his daily regimen of 10 to 12 “John Doe” bags of heroin, a speedball and K2 at night to help him sleep — all of which he buys from dealers on The Hub’s Third Avenue subway station.
“I buy there at least three times in a week,” he said. “The dealers are everywhere.”
“I go through 10 or 12 bags (of heroin) a day and a speedball. A speedball is $20 because you’re buying the dope and the coke.”
City Hall spokesman William Fowler pointed to the ongoing efforts to clean up The Hub.
“In addition to deploying additional police officers, our health partners have cleaned up and safely disposed of more than 7,300 syringes, engaged more than 860 people to initiate addiction treatment, and referred 89 people to additional services,” Fowler said.
“We’ve also distributed more than 13,000 overdose reversing naloxone kits in the surrounding Hunts Point-Mott Haven neighborhood. We will continue to vigilantly address the issues in the area to ensure community members feel safe walking down their streets and those suffering from a lack housing, employment, and health care are connected to the support and services they need to get well.”