NEW YORK, NY- The USS Intrepid Museum on the West Side of Manhattan is (or used to be) an iconic tourist attraction in the Big Apple, boasting aeronautical legends such as the Concorde supersonic aircraft and the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
Yet, for anyone wishing to visit the museum, thanks to Marxist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, they must now navigate through a homeless encampment set up along a 12-block stretch nearby, The New York Post reports.
Mamdani, who never met a criminal he didn’t like, has put in place a policy that prohibits the NYPD from cleaning out the homeless, drug-addled, criminal hobos while instead sending unarmed city social workers and “homeless advocates” to deal with the issue.
Only until after a week where homeless theory college graduates are sent in will law enforcement be allowed in to take care of the issue.
In fact earlier this week, Mamdani blew off complaints brought forward by reporters, saying he’ll “look into it,” which is Marxist-speak for he’s probably not going to do anything.
“We are focused on connecting New Yorkers to shelter and on establishing a pipeline to stable housing, not just moving New Yorkers from one place to another,” the rookie mayor said. “To this specific encampment that you brought up, we’re going to look into the details of that.”
Meanwhile, as The Post reported, “it was business as usual along the putrid row of tents and shelters” near the Intrepid Museum.
A local mother, Diana Khabbaz, told The Post, “I don’t think he’s done anything. I think it’s still the same. There might be more people right now on the street.”
“You see people walking around half-naked in the street. They are smoking whatever they’re smoking. You see needles on the street every 20 feet. Sometimes you see a homeless person. And all day long, all night, a lot by the parks, there are a lot of people and there are tons of tents, and people are sleeping everywhere,” Khabbaz said.
An employee at the Intrepid Museum said, “these people have been here forever.”
While New York’s Finest patrol the area, they are pretty much handcuffed by Mamdani’s mandate that the homeless are not to be touched.
“The NYPD has not been given the green light to clean this encampment up, but we are ready to do so,” an NYPD spokesperson told The Post.
As of Monday, no sanitation, homeless services or other city staff had shown up, The Post reported. They finally showed up at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, according to locals.
Saritha Komatireddy, who is challenging rotund New York Attorney General Letitia James in November’s election, was drawn to the area by The Post’s coverage.
“The reality is, no one is actually solving the problem,” Kamatireddy said. “They’re choosing not to. Letitia James and the mayor have decided to turn a blind eye. They’re choosing not to actually take care of these people who are on the streets.
“People deserve to be able to walk around on public streets feeling safe,” she continued. “We need to make sure those streets are safe and clean.”
Thus far in 2026, there have been 22,930 complaints to 311 about “encampments” in the five New York City boroughs, down slightly from the same time period last year.
Mamdani Acres on the West Side has drawn 48 311 complaints this year, with 30 of those coming in the past month, according to records.
Former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton compared the current situation to that back in the 1980s and 90s, before Rudy Giuliani became mayor and cleaned up the city.
“The mayor is too young to remember the eighties and early nineties, and what a mess New York was,” Bratton told The Post. “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. It all began with non-enforcement of quality–of-life offenses.
“Remember the squeegee men at every entrance to the city?” Bratton asked. “Remember the rampant street prostitution and graffiti? Remember the 8,000 open-air drug selling locations? Remember the rampant subway fare evasion? I remember, and it’s happening again.”
So brazen have the squatters grown that on Tuesday, they tapped into public utility poles for electricity, The Post reported.
“In just half a year, Mayor Mamdani’s policies have managed to turn the West Side into Skid Row,” complained Councilwoman Joan Ariola, a Republican, to The Post.
“The administration is repeating the same ridiculous hands-off approach to the homeless that destroyed LA and San Francisco, and now we have a 12-block homeless campsite in Manhattan.
“Way to go DSA,” she said, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization of which Mamdani is a member and which seeks as a goal the destruction of the United States as we know it.
One of Mamdummy’s first actions was to repeal former Mayor Eric Adams’ policy that had the NYPD take an aggressive approach to clearing the streets of encampments and getting at-risk homeless hobos off the streets.
Under the rookie mayor’s policy, the NYPD has been forced to turn over enforcement to the “Department of Homeless Services,” and only step in after there is a crime or emergency, or to cover the behinds of city personnel.
A lackey for the city’s Sanitation Department praised Mamdani’s policies, claiming the new policies “will connect New Yorkers to the resources they need to thrive and to build a New York where everyone has a safe, affordable place to call home.”
So far, Mamdani has failed.
One veteran NYPD officer slammed the approach.
“This is embarrassing and a big black eye on the city, especially with FIFA tourists. The Intrepid is a big tourist attraction, and what are people from all over the world thinking when they walk by this encampment?”
FIFA refers to the World Cup, where the finals will be played at The Meadowlands this weekend.
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