Arctic Cold Freezes City; Some Downtown Homeless Remain Outside

Brrrrrrrr—and beware! That was the message being proffered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and other politicians on Friday Feb. 6, as the City braced for a weekend of brutal arctic cold. With at least 17 homeless people confirmed dead from exposure since the snowstorm and deep freeze began on January 24-25, the Mamdami administration increased its efforts to get homeless persons off the streets—a project made more imperative by criticism of Hizzoner’s policy of ceasing Mayor Adams-era “sweeps” of homeless camps.

Were it not literally a matter of life and death, one might slough off the criticism as factional politics as usual. Given the substantial death toll, however, and the meme-like repetition, both in print and online, of a line from the Democratic Socialist Mayor’s inaugural address (“We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism”), the problem had political, as well as humanitarian, urgency.

In addition to adding more warming centers and promoting more homeless outreach, on Tuesday February 3, Hizzoner surprisingly announced the city was opening a homeless shelter at 320 Pearl Street, literally adjacent to the Peck Slip Elementary School. Formerly a Hampton Inn, 320 Peal Street is where the Adams administration tried to open a “low barrier” homeless shelter without proper review processes.

When the local community learned of the plans in June 2025, they organized, filed suit to stop it—and won, with New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Ergeron telling the city to start over. Straus News reported this saga in detail, calling it “The Battle of Peck Slip and Pearl Street, or The People versus Big Homeless.” Among the people in opposition were downtown Council Member Christopher Marte, who has called for more sensible siting of homeless shelters.

Exactly how the Mamdani administration can open 320 Pearl Street now while abiding by the Ergeron decision is unclear, but the principals remain the same, with the non-profit organization Breaking Ground leasing the building from Slate Property Group.

With Hizzoner’s proclaimed “New Era” of city politics recalling the old one, at least on Pearl Street, Straus News set out to see how some other known trouble spots from the Adams years were holding up.

Shantytown, My Shantytown

Starting at the Manhattan Bridge, whose Manhattan-side plaza was home to drug-addict filled shantytown until Mayor Adams sent the NYPD, Department of Homeless Services, the Sanitation Department and the Department of Transportation to clean it up, things looked good at first. The south, pedestrian, side of the bridge was well plowed and homeless free, while the plaza itself looked like Antarctica, with pigeons replacing penguins.

On the north side, where a bike path descends to Canal Street, things were different. While a small group of Chinese women were on the shoveled-out plaza doing their falun gong-like dance exercises, they were surrounded by both shanty detritus and the shantytown itself. Nestled in a grotto-like space adjoining Forsyth Street with St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church looming behind it, the contrast couldn’t be starker.

Heading over the south end of Sara D. Roosevelt Park, its miniature soccer field was a tundra, with the only people present being a middle-aged group of Hispanic males drinking on the park’s sun-filled Chrystie Street side.

While last year’s SDR Park cleanup was successful (“Out With Homeless Camps & Drug Dens, In With Chinatown Pride” read this paper’s March 2025 headline), the New York Post recently reported the junkies were back, as was the scourge of shoplifting and dirty, discarded needles. Though the Post speculated the junkies return followed the Washington Square Park’s drug crackdown, this causality isn’t yet certain.

Grand Street Confidential

As for the usually bustling Chinese social scene—men playing cards, men and women playing table tennis, everyone talking—it moved up to Hester Street, which was largely clear of snow, and its adjacent playground, which wasn’t.

Heading up to Grand Street, its reputation for trouble remains unsullied. This reporter watched two NYPD cops attempt to bring a grizzled Hispanic-looking homeless man inside, and recalled the words of the late NYPD Chaplain, Rabbi Alvin Kass, speaking in October 1971 during the Knapp Commission corruption scandal: “for every page of documented proof of wrongdoing, I’ll produce 100,000 pages of deeds of policemen bringing comfort, satisfaction and alleviation of pain to the people of society.”

Looping up to Delancey Street mostly revealed more frozen tundra. Back at Grand Street, meanwhile 5th Precinct cops had arrested the grizzled homeless man—likely because he was unable to pass a mental comptency test—and were escorting him along the south side of Grand Street “thieves market,” adjacent to the handball courts.

No bystanders interfered with the cops’ work, and the handcuffed arrestee was himself peaceable as cops hoisted his pushcart of belongings into their RMP cruiser.

Pick Up On South Street

Heading over to Seward Park, which has its intermittent problems with drugs and homeless, things were clean and snow packed, save for a few Chinese men digging out ice from the ping pong table along Essex Street. As is often the case at Seward Park both the men’s and women’s restrooms were closed with no explanation.

Heading to the South Street waterfront, the construction sites and closures related to the Brooklyn Bridge-Montgomery Coastal Resilience project meant no homeless camps were seen until crossing under the Brooklyn Bridge.

Where the underside of the FDR Drive is again accessible at Dover Street, there was evidence of the homeless who have fitfully made this their home recently. No tarps or tents were seen this day, but further down by two breathing but largely non-responsive men were sunning themselves on benches near Pier 17 and the ferry terminal at Pier 11.

Not that getting a response is always so helpful. The following day, up in Kips Bay, a New York Post reporter engaged a homeless woman who’d just refused help from FDNY, NYPD and EMS personnel. Deeming the woman acceptably coherent, the first responders let her be.

When The Post reporter herself approached the homeless woman she said, “I am doing an investigation.”

“That’s not a hospital,” she continued, pointing to NYU Langone across 1st Avenue. “That’s a repost. The entire area from 28th to 37th Street is a repost.”

A worker at the nearby Bread and Butter deli near told The Post that the woman had been living outside the store for three years and that “Sometimes we give her food.”