The crime-ridden neighborhood of Jackson Heights, where prostitutes ply their trade openly and brazen shoplifters abound, has only gotten worse since The Washington Post blew the whistle on it about five months ago.
Roosevelt Avenue near 91st Street in Queens has long been tainted by illegal open-air migrant markets and dozens of sidewalk prostitutes, but locals say the number of prostitutes there has now doubled.
Local residents said on Sunday that the thieves have become so defiant that they now threaten revenge if shopkeepers are caught.
“It's getting worse,” said Jesus Diaz, manager of Bravo Supermarket on Roosevelt Street. “Before, when we caught them stealing, they would say, 'I'm sorry, I won't do it again.'”
“Now they're starting to get angry. They try to hit you, they say, 'You're going to have problems,' 'We're coming back and you're going to get in trouble,'” Diaz said. “You call the police and tell them you caught them stealing and you're holding them and waiting, but the police don't even want to come and they don't want to arrest these people.”
Meanwhile, the block's thriving “lovers market” has doubled.
“There are too many beautiful women outside my store,” said the owner of a nearby jewelry store. “I just asked them not to stand right in front of my store and block the door. What can I do?”
“There are too many women at my door. It's not like before. It used to be so beautiful here.”
She added: “There's a brothel across the street and a brothel behind here. Everybody knows it.”
The Post first reported on the block in question in April, after residents and shopkeepers complained that immigrants were scamming stores and peddling popular items on the sidewalks outside.
They complained that a variety of stolen goods, from power tools to mouthwash, were being sold at discount prices and retailers could do nothing about it.
Meanwhile, prostitutes patrol the block, approaching potential customers as they pass by and then rushing into makeshift brothels set up in local apartments.
When The Washington Post investigated again in July, shopkeepers were outraged.
“The police don't do anything. They don't do anything!” an employee at a nearby cell phone shop said at the time. “Drugs, prostitution, alcohol, a terrible situation.”
They were still outraged on Sunday.
“The sidewalk here discourages people from coming to the pharmacy,” Mi Pharmacia pharmacist Jenny Lee said, pointing to a row of more than 50 illegal outlets along her block.
“The cops come and they sweep it out. Two weeks ago, two Sundays ago, the cops came and they did a sweep. Last Sunday, nobody was here. But today, everybody's here.
“The number of prostitutes has doubled in the past two months,” Lee added. “They are now acting like they are part of the community. We see them every day.”
One neighbor, who gave his name only as Bill, said he had given up hope that his part of Jackson Heights would ever return to normal.
“I gave up,” he said. “Look, this is the end. They've got it, they'd better get used to it.”
“I've been to police stations and it's not like the officers are neglecting their duties or not caring,” he said, adding, “They're outnumbered. They're really outnumbered.”
