“Street bazaars, rats, handcuffed cops: Our politicians are turning New York into the Big Crapple Yesterday, I was chatting with two grammar school friends, who live on the Jersey Shore.”
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“One suggested they come into the city to meet me for holiday cocktails — but the other protested. “You couldn’t pay me enough to visit that rat-infested hellhole,” he said.

After more than two decades of living in New York City, I am used to some variation of that sentiment — especially since the pandemic.

Normally, I laugh and move on. Sure, but it’s my rat-infested hellhole.

For once, however, I had to agree wholeheartedly.

Three years on from Covid lockdowns, the city somehow looks even shabbier. The streets are back to people capacity, but we’re outmatched by bustling rat colonies.

Garbage bags are piled all over the sidewalks. The once quaint picturesque streets of Soho — where I lived for 16 years — are cluttered with graffitied restaurant shelters and litter. The old hood could use a good bleach scrub.

Then there’s Sixth Avenue (and Fifth for that matter) in Midtown and the Brooklyn Bridge, both of which now resemble medieval open-air bazaars. For the last month, I’ve had many out of town visitors, which meant venturing out to these spots regularly.

And the degradation is as striking as it is disheartening.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a bottleneck of selfie-snapping tourists, shopping from vendors selling tacky tchotkes on folding tables. A flea market on our historic marvel.

Sixth Avenue, which is usually made grand this time of year by the corporate buildings’ glitzy holiday display, is a gauntlet of filth.”

nypost.com - Politicians are turning new york into the big crapple