Since the start of the New Year various Wall Street employees have noticed an increase in homeless people loitering and squatting in various public places around the Financial District. In recent weeks some New School students residing in the William Street dorm have also become aware of the rising number of Bums and Hobo’s who come around late in the night and scavenge through garbage or try to find a place to sleep. Why homeless people are becoming more and more fond of the Financial District (FiDi) is not entirely clear.
“Ever since the blizzards the bums have been a major thorn in my heel,” Rob Burleson, a police officer stationed at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Maiden Lane, said “ Now every night I have to check if anyone is sleeping on the benches and in the park across the street and sure enough there is a new batch of vagabonds every night”
Officer Burleson isn’t the only security detail that has been troubled by the escalating amount of hobo’s. Pierce Cullen, a security guard for the Pace Univerisity and Intern Housing Residence on John Street, has repeatedly scared away a certain homeless person who seems to think that its alright to ‘set up camp’ under the Dutch street scaffolding adjacent to the dorm.
Security guards are not the only ones aware of the homeless people’s growing presence. A small number of New School University students and city construction workers have been involved in several odd incidents with these transients.
“I was about to walk up the staircase from the J train when I saw a hobo with his pants down,” Anthony Juno, a junior at Eugene Lang College, said last week. “He was at the entrance squatting with his back to me and I realized he was in the middle of taking a shit. He looked back at me, finished and then left. I ended up taking the elevator up instead of walking by that pile of crap.”
These vagrants as of this Monday have even started to bother construction crews repairing Nassau Street. Donnie Castillo, a construction worker from Queens, has to stand lookout every time his crew gets to work so as to prevent any drifters from taking shelter in the dug out street caverns.
The reason for all this homeless people activity in the FiDi may have to with its actual location and surroundings. Jace Patterson, a homeless 51-year old “free spirit” (his preferred term for being a bum) who is frequently seen on Platt Street, likes to come down to the Wall street area because come nightfall the foot traffic is significantly less than in other parts of the city thus he is not noticed as much when he tries to go to sleep on someone’s stoop. Patterson says he and his associates always swing down to the FiDi because “the holy houses on Platt and John are always giving out free grub on Sundays,” (In reference to the Evangelist and Methodist churches on Platt and John Street, respectively).
The homeless at first only appeared during the night and if seen during the day were brushed off as public nuisances, like most other bums, but Brian Ribiero a Freshman at Parson’s had an experience this Sunday that proved otherwise. As he rounded the corner off of Dutch street onto Fulton, Ribiero was confronted with a homeless person shooting up intravenously with a syringe through his buttocks. To say the least Mr. Ribiero was shocked.
This individual case should serve as evidence that something should be done about the homeless people strayed about a relatively quaint area.
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