Berliner Tageszeitung - Queens residents seek renewed enforcement along Roosevelt Avenue

About two dozen community leaders gathered along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens on Saturday to demand renewed action against alleged brothels, street prostitution and human trafficking. The rally took place in Jackson Heights on a corridor that extends into Corona and surrounding neighborhoods.

Former state Senator Hiram Monserrate, now a local Democratic district leader, said street activity had increased since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office in January. He contrasted current conditions with Operation Restore Roosevelt, an enforcement and quality-of-life initiative conducted under former Mayor Eric Adams.

Monserrate said that earlier operation, which involved multiple agencies and state troopers sent by Governor Kathy Hochul, had improved conditions. His assertion that those gains had been lost reflects the assessment of rally participants; the report did not provide arrest figures establishing a change under the new administration.

Activists asked Mamdani and Hochul to enforce prostitution and nuisance-abatement laws and act against landlords accused of renting premises to people operating brothels. Mamdani supported decriminalizing prostitution before his election as mayor.

Rosa Sanchez of Restore Roosevelt Avenue said residents were concerned about activity occurring throughout the day and night in an area used by families and children. She called for the mayor and governor to visit the corridor and respond to those concerns.

During the demonstration, participants stopped outside an alleged brothel at 76-09 Roosevelt Avenue. They rang large bells and called for it to be closed, then continued to other locations along the avenue.

The New York Post has previously reported allegations of drug dealing, illegal vending and other crime along the corridor. Those longstanding concerns formed part of the context for the latest protest, rather than newly verified findings about each premises targeted by demonstrators.

Other residents interviewed by the newspaper also said conditions had deteriorated during the past year. One woman said she regularly saw sex workers with clients between parked cars. Her account was presented as a resident's observation.

Representatives for Mamdani and Hochul did not return requests for comment before publication. The NYPD was unable to immediately supply arrest statistics for the corridor when asked on Saturday.

The rally therefore brought renewed public demands for enforcement, while leaving the scale and timing of any change in recorded crime unresolved.

H. Müller--BTZ