Stubborn vagrants are refusing to abandon their filthy encampments along Manhattan’s West Side, in some cases setting up new shelters a block away after city workers push them out, locals said Tuesday.
After weeks of gripes from locals, City Hall finally began dismantling some of the makeshift shelters that turned part of the Big Apple into skid row — but it’s not fixing the problem, The Post has learned.
“The cops came and moved them yesterday and they just moved right back,” a frustrated construction worker on 36th Street said. “They cleaned up the north side of the street, you know, cops, sanitation, everything and these guys were right back here the next morning when we came.
“They’ve been testing us,” the worker said. “This guy will go grab something and you’re like, ‘Hey! Where you going with that?’ They’ll just look at you and start taking a step towards you to see if you’re gonna fight them for whatever they’re taking. They’re not harmless.”
The unsightly shantytown ran more than a dozen blocks, roughly between the floating Intrepid Museum and the Jacob Javits Center, with a string of littered encampments that included drug and sex peddlers.
The Post first reported on the situation nearly two weeks ago, but City Hall has been largely mum.
Mayor Zohram Mamdani’s hands-off approach to the homeless crisis handcuffed cops, barring them from taking down homeless encampments in a new policy that first deploys homeless services and outreach workers to speak to the vagrants and offer placements and services.
New York’s Finest are only allowed to intervene seven days after the first outreach.
That deadline came Monday, when sanitation crews and cops began cleaning up some of the sites and taking down some of the shelters and tents — which did little to change things.
One shelter at 46th Street was taken down, only to have the sidewalk squatters move one block north and set up shop again. Another encampment at 34th Street — where one vagrant was nabbed tapping into city utility lines for electricity — was also taken apart.
That vagrant was shacking up with others on 36th Street on Tuesday — who were wreaking havoc at the local construction site by blocking truck deliveries and taking over Bella Abzug Park.
“There’s like 10 guys f—king in the ladies’ room at like 8 a.m.,” the construction worker said. “It is crazy what’s going on in that bathroom. Some third world s—t.”
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