NYPD commish makes first visit to migrant Market of Sweethearts with sex workers, illegal vendors in full view
The Big Apple’s top cop took his first tour of Queens’ sleazy migrant “Market of Sweethearts” over the weekend, vowing to crack down as sex workers and illegal vendors openly peddled their wares around him.“We’ve always taken it serious, but we’re gonna kick up to another level,” Interim NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon said of enforcement as he walked through Roosevelt Avenue’s hotbed of illicit behavior on Saturday night with other department brass, NYPD video shows.“I’m out here for the first time, but I want to come out here again,” he told Queens North patrol borough Assistant Chief Christine Bastendenbeck.“You know, once a week, twice a week, because this is very very important, and the public wants to see how we’re addressing this.”Nearby sex workers strolled the streets and migrant venders peddled stolen goods on the sidewalk — part of a surging pattern of crime along the strip that is driving local residents crazy and frustrating cops, whose periodic raids have failed to halt the madness.“What goes on on Roosevelt Avenue is a lot of different conditions here,” Bastendenbeck told the commissioner.
“If you take a look around, you’ll see that we have folks that are vending on the corner, you’ll see women that are scantily clad on the street, offering services or massages.“So we do have a lot of prostitution that goes on here,” she said.
“It is a team effort that we use here with our patrol officers, our vice officers — a really big collaboration to address the issues that are [on]going.”The Post has repeatedly reported on the troubled strip, where migrant gangs have set up sex-trafficking operations and goods stolen by migrant hoods are sold.“We appreciate the police commissioner visiting Roosevelt Avenue,”said Democratic district leader Hiram Monserrate, a member of the Let’s Improve Roosevelt Avenue Coalition, to The Post on Sunday.“It would have been great to see him at the community’s rally last ...