‘IT’S A HORROR SHOW’:A man dozes and drools on a bench in Union Square Park as a pair of local residents do their best to ignore him. (Justin Hubbard)
Welcome to Methadone Alley!
Addicts flocking to the drug clinics that surround Union Square Park have created a “lawless city within a city” where they’ve been overdosing on drugs and committing crimes ranging from stabbings to exposing themselves, sources told The Post
Spurred by community outrage, the NYPD is stepping up patrols and the private partnership that helps run the park is hiring off duty officers.
The problem centers around what locals call Methadone Alley, a bench-lined path along Union Square East.
The section is named after its inhabitants who spill into the park after visiting the outpatient drug treatment clinics where they get their methadone fixes, said a law-enforcement source said.
“The public is not safe. It’s a lawless city within a city,” said Geoffrey Croft of New York City Park Advocates.
“It’s a horror show that’s been going on far too long.”
Preschool teacher Jenn Murphy, 29, said the park has gotten so bad, she now hesitates to bring her kids.
“It’s a little shady at times,” said Murphy, complaining about low-lifes who hang out near the playground.
“The language they use . . . and sometimes they try to talk to the kids.”
Cops have made at least 84 drug-related arrests in and around the park this year. Some recent frightening incidents have included:
* A 28-year-old man was attacked and stabbed three times in the back by a knife-wielding 50-year-old man screaming racial slurs on April 22. The victim survived and the attack is being investigated as a possible hate crime.
* Cops busted an accused perv exposing himself in a woman’s bathroom on May 8.
* A woman in her 30s was found unconscious and not breathing near East 16th Street after suffering an overdose on March 19, according to a law-enforcement source.
* A 13-year-old boy’s iPad was stolen out of his backpack.
* A 56-year-old man was busted in the park last Wednesday after cops caught him with more than two ounces of marijuana and magic mushrooms.
Parkgoers say the clean-up efforts are way overdue.
“This is horrendous,” said a 36-year-old woman sitting on a bench at the dog run with her pooch.
“All the drug addicts. There is a general rowdiness. You feel unsafe, especially when it gets dark out,” she said.
But she also vowed she wouldn’t be driven out of the park.
“It’s New York,” she said. “You deal with it.”