By Benjamin Ibarra
A surge in sex workers and brothels – along with foot traffic, crime and trash – on busy Roosevelt Avenue in Queens has sparked a debate over public safety and resources, pitting community members against law enforcement and city officials.
The mayor has launched an ambitious project to address the rise in prostitution called Operation Restore Roosevelt. But some advocacy groups in Jackson Heights have pushed back, saying their priorities are affordable housing and better-paying jobs, among other things.
Still others say they don’t worry about the proliferation of brothers and sex workers – who sometimes solicit customers on the street – but they do worry about crime.
“I heard, and I feel sometimes, that Roosevelt is dangerous, but not because of the sex workers,” said Diego Mesa, manager of Friends Tavern, a neighborhood gay bar on Roosevelt Avenue. “It’s because there are a lot of gangs around here. People don’t want to walk here from the [subway] station.”
Roosevelt Avenue began to grab headlines over a year ago, as reports in local media showed sex workers walking up and down the street and brothels operating near schools and churches. Parents have talked about needing to shield their children as a flourishing prostitution trade operates around them.
The area that locals call “The Market of Sweethearts” cuts through Jackson Heights, Corona, and Flushing neighborhoods south of LaGuardia Airport.
Mayor Eric Adams has blamed the uptick in sex workers on a rise in migrants, particularly from Venezuela, who are struggling to find work in the city. He announced Operation Restore Roosevelt this October, an initiative to focus on brothels, sex trafficking, unlicensed vendors and other issues raising quality of life concerns.
The 90-day multi-agency crackdown has brought additional law-enforcement support, including state troopers, to assist local police precincts patrolling Roosevelt Avenue. The additional manpower was needed because of a shortage of officers, according to NYPD Inspector Ellen Downing, commanding officer of the 115th Precinct that patrols the avenue.
“We are down about 90[officers]. But it’s not just 115th, it’s city-wide,” Downing said at a community board meeting earlier this year. in a Community Board 3 meeting in May.
Police won’t provide data on the direct impact of the operation until the 90-day period is over. Queens local police precinct data shows robbery and burglary rates declining, but assaults, rape, and murder are still on the rise.
“Yes, since I have been working here, it’s been crazy,” said Mey Mendez, who has been working on Roosevelt Avenue for two years at City Smoke Shop and grew up in Jackson Heights. “People have been robbing and fighting. I’ve been seeing more action recently since they started doing all this.”
The shop is right next door to Lagumas De Cache Barber Shop, where a gunman opened fire a week prior, sending their customers scrambling for cover last week.
Fetah Abdulurahab, an employee of Choco Loca on Roosevelt Avenue, said a week before “Operation Restore Roosevelt,” a group of police officers went into the café looking for contraband and spent over an hour inside.
Abdulurahab said the café has been robbed three times in the last two years. When he called the cops, they came late, and nothing was resolved.
“Customers are going to think I have something bad in the business,” Abdulurahab said.
Some local Latino organizations have rallied against Operation Restore Roosevelt.
“The City and the State are using tax dollars to raid sex workers and flooding neighborhoods with police, taking away resources from our communities,” said Make the Road New York, an advocacy group in Jackson Heights.
“Our people need licensing reform and concrete solutions that will not further criminalize us. Yet, our leaders have made a cynical ploy for headlines at the expense of a population that has already disproportionately borne the brunt of police violence,” the group said.
But other local groups feel differently. Former Democratic State Senator Hiram Monserrate and the Improve Roosevelt Coalition, represented by local resident Ramon Ramirez, have advocated for increased law enforcement.
“I think there was a combination of factors, so the dramatic increase of just human people coming to Roosevelt Avenue coupled with very lax law enforcement and a political class that seems to be abandoning law enforcement and the important role that the laws and compliance with the laws play in our society,” said Monserrate, a former State Senator who was expelled after a conviction for domestic violence and later found guilty of committing fraud to fund his 2006 New York State Senate campaign using public money.
Monserrate declined to comment on another run for office.
The group released a five-point plan which includes increased police presence, stricter enforcement of garbage disposal regulations, attraction of new businesses, further community outreach, and infrastructure improvements which include sidewalks, streets, and public transportation.
Since the launch of Operation Restore Roosevelt, there has been a noticeable decline in daytime sex workers and illegal food vending across the major thoroughfare that starts at Woodside, crosses Flushing Creek into downtown Flushing, Queens. While some residents, and Mayor Adams, tie the increase to the arrival of roughly 200,000 asylum-seeking migrants in the U.S. in the last two years, Queens local Christina Cornelli says the issues have always been there.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding that poor people don’t care if there’s filth and prostitution and things like that, and that’s really disrespectful to the poor people who live here and myself included,” said Corneilli, who lives two blocks off Roosevelt Avenue and is a member of “Make Queens Safer,” a neighborhood group.
NYPD spotlight with two NYPD officers standing by on 81st St. and Roosevelt Ave. Photo by Benjamin Ibarra.
Fire Department of New York, Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and New York City Police Department patrolling Roosevelt Ave. Photo by Benjamin Ibarra.
New York State Trooper patrolling Jackson Heights, Queens on Roosevelt Ave. Photo by Benjamin Ibarra.
