NYC NOW - Midday News: MTA Worker Killed in Midtown, Hoboken PATH Station Closing for Renovation, and Roosevelt Avenue Prostitution Crackdown Extended

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

An MTA worker died Sunday night after an NYPD says a bus driver hit a boom lift he was working on in Midtown Manhattan. Meanwhile, the Hoboken PATH station will close just before midnight Thursday through February 24th as part of a $430 million modernization project. Plus, the Adams administration announced Operation Restore Roosevelt, an effort to crack down on prostitution in Queens, will continue past the original 90-day enforcement period. WNYC’s Arun Venugopal explains.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, January 27th. Here's the midday news from David First. The NYPD says a 39-year-old worker has died after an MTA bus driver hit a boom lift he was on in Midtown Manhattan last night. Police say the bus was heading south on 5th Avenue around 9.30 when it hit the base of the lift. which was protruding into the road at East 51st Street. According to officials,

39-year-old Vladimir Cruz of the Bronx fell off and suffered severe trauma. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. The NYPD says the driver stopped at the scene. Police are investigating there have been no arrests. The MTA says no passengers were injured in the incident. The Hoboken Path train station will close for nearly a month starting this week. The Port Authority says the closure starts just before midnight on Thursday and will last until early morning on February 24th as part of a $430 million plan to modernize the 116-year-old system. Cruise will tackle track, switch and staircase repairs all at once to minimize the disruption.

The agency is rolling out free shuttle buses, extra ferry service, and additional trains to help ease the impact. This comes just weeks after path fares increased to $3 per ride and as many commuters look to avoid Manhattan's $9 congestion pricing. In a previous version of the story, we misstated when the closure would begin. 35 degrees right now. Sunny today with a high near 40. This is WNYC. Stay close.

There's more after the break. Here on WNYC, I'm Tiffany Hanson. Roosevelt Avenue and Queens has been the center of attention for open-air prostitution. In October, the Adams administration launched a major enforcement action called Operation Restore Roosevelt. It was meant to last for 90 days, but last week, city officials said the enforcement operation will continue indefinitely. Arun Venigapal is a senior reporter in the WNYC Race and Justice Unit, and he has been following the issue closely. He joins us now. Hi, Arun.

Hi, Tiffany. All right, well, let's start with city officials. they saying about the operation so far and why they've decided to continue on with it? Well, they point to nearly a thousand arrests in the three months of this operation so far. That includes 134 arrests related to prostitution. They also say they've handed out 11,500 summonses. They've inspected nearly 300 buildings and ended with 18 vacate orders. They shut down a number of these operations, which include like illegal massage parlors. So they have all these results.

They point to a lot of community support as well. Kaz Daughtry is the deputy commissioner of the NYPD, and he had this to say at a town hall I attended in Corona on Wednesday night. Nobody should be outside of Roosevelt Avenue in 9-degree weather soliciting Johns for sex. That's not something that we're going to allow. And we are totally committed to staying past the 90 days. We're working on another plan and what phase two is going to look like at Roosevelt. we're going to make it a lot better than what it is now.

And Daughtry said overall crime in the Roosevelt Avenue corridor is down 21% in the year to date. So they have real results at that point in two. So I assume it's all of these results you're talking about here that the city points to in terms of the reasoning behind why they've decided to continue. I think it certainly helps. You know, this area, it's not just something that has drawn attention in Queens. or even in the city for the matter. I mean, there are YouTube videos where, you know, people watch this as, you know, internationally, sort of the spectacle of sex work and opening our prostitution in this neighborhood. It got a lot of sort of notoriety.

And now these officials say, like, look, we've really made a difference here. And it's worth staying the course. Well, what are community members telling you about this announcement? How are they responding? I mean, some people are really happy about where things have gone. There are members of the community who had become afraid, said they were, you know, urging the city to take action. One of these people is Masia Lugo. She's a teacher at public school, also a single mother of two kids.

And she said she was scared to take her seven-year-old son, who's autistic, on walks in the neighborhood. And that her 15-year-old daughter was getting cat-called constantly by drunken men, who she says, you know, were drawn to the presence of prostitutes in the area around Roosevelt and 90th Street. Since the operation began, though, she said there's been a complete turnaround. Right now, everything is great. Honestly, I have zero complaints. The neighborhood actually has been really quiet. I hardly see anyone now.

It's clean, able to walk to the grocery store with no issues. It's a huge difference. Well, Arun, that doesn't mean that there aren't people who aren't highly critical of this enforcement. You spoke to some, so what are they saying? Well, there are advocacy groups who say this is disproportionately hurting immigrants. You know, this area is overwhelmingly populated by different immigrant groups. It's sort of like a beacon for people who come from other countries and land in New York City. And people are saying that this is really going to hurt them the most.

Karina Kaufman Gutierrez is the deputy director of the street vendor project. And she says the crackdown on unlicensed vendors has really hurt immigrant workers who are just trying to to earn a living. It has been devastating. It has been devastating financially, mentally, emotionally. We are seeing families at risk of eviction. And there are also sex workers who say they're getting profiled. One of them told me she's been arrested three times, even when she's not engaged in sex work. She says she's also trans and she thinks that's part of the reason. I have reached out to the YPD about this and still waiting to hear it back. Well, it is complicated for some people.

Arun, you followed up with a restaurant owner who initially complained about the problem of prostitution has since the enforcement seen some results. She now has mixed feelings about the police enforcement. So talk us through why that is. The restaurant owner is Somo Dasel. She owns Himalayan yak on Roosevelt. She'd called 311 repeatedly to complain about this massac. parlor that's on her block. When I walked by the business the other day, the Department of

Buildings said Stalka do not enter sign at the entrance, you know, shut down. And Dessal says she's really glad about that. But then President Trump was inaugurated. And she says she's concerned that innocent people are going to be targeted, namely immigrants. And now she's not sure she wants the police around anymore. Arun Van de Gaupal is a senior reporter in WNYC's Race and Justice Unit. Arun, Thanks. Thanks, Tiffany. You can read all of Arun's reporting on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens right now at our news site, Gothamist. Thanks for listening.

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