Horrified residents of New York City’s Upper West Side spotted a crouching woman without pants appearing to give oral sex to a shirtless man while she freely urinated on the sidewalk at the same time.
The shocking photo was taken on Broadway between West 78 and West 79 Streets Sunday evening, reports the Daily Mail, which received the photo from a witness calling the scene “vile” and “the norm” for the area lately.
Residents have been fleeing the Upper West Side, one of New York’s wealthiest neighborhoods, in droves as lockdown efforts, riots and looting, and an explosion of homelessness has sunk the Big Apple into a pit of decay and despair.
The Upper West Side has been hit particularly hard, say residents, after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio relocated some 13,000 homeless people to the posh neighborhood. The homeless are being housed in luxury hotels across the neighborhood as the city attempts to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“It was vile, but [this] has become the norm for that area,” the Upper West Side resident who sent the photo told the Daily Mail. “It was Sunday night. Not much foot traffic. There were probably one or two others that walked by.”
“I don’t usually take pictures of others’ misfortunes, but this was a level of degeneracy I haven’t seen out in the open in the neighborhood yet,” he added.
Other residents, through a Twitter account called Save the Upper West Side, have shared more photos of the neighborhood’s despair, including several photos of men appearing to masturbate in public in broad daylight. They say the neighborhood is now a hotbed of homeless encampments, rising crime, and open drug use on the streets.
Moving companies are in high demand in New York, and moving trucks were spotted out in abundance over the weekend, just ahead of the first of the month, on the Upper West Side, reports the New York Post.
According to Fox 5, two in five New Yorkers now want to flee the city, with New York and New Jersey leading the nation in outbound residents. Forty-two percent of those surveyed by the Manhattan Institute reported believing the city was headed in the wrong direction.
Fox 5 reports fueling the negative perceptions of the city are things such as the economy, with 22% saying it’s the biggest problem affecting the city, crime and public safety at 21%, and race relations and healthcare following at 12% and 11%, respectively.
Home sales in the suburbs outside New York have also spiked 44% upwards from the same time last year.
As homeless encampments engulf the city, a surge in crime also has New Yorkers on edge.
A crime report released by the NYPD on Wednesday showed gun violence increased a staggering 166% across all boroughs except Staten Island, which is the city’s Republican stronghold. There were 242 shootings last month, up from 91 in August 2019. Murders were also up 47% from the same time last year. Burglaries rose 22% and robberies were up 4% from 2019, according to the report.