Urban decay grows in New York City under DeBlasio

When I covered the 1992 Democratic convention in New York City for a Philadelphia area publication (it would be churlish to mention its name since the last nail in their demise had to do with a very unfortunate prank which I may have indirectly, okay-directly, encouraged), I had no surprises when I got to the Port Authority. It was as disgusting and foul smelling as I had remembered from my last visit to NYC less than a year before.

Fast forward four years. I had only been to NYC a couple of times in the interim, and then only for short business trips. But in the fall of 1996 I got to go for several days and had some time to walk around. I couldn’t believe it.

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Several years of GOP rule under Rudy Giuliani, the grace of which I had a chance to mention to him years later over cigars, had turned the place around. Gone were the omnipresent hookers, addicts, peep shows, shambling street people, and other consequences of Dem municipal administration. They were replaced in Midtown and elsewhere with Disney marquees and chain restaurants. I saw families with kids in strollers walking around the heart of the city…at midnight.

Rudy and his police commissioners saved that city. But no good deed goes unpunished or unchanged by the voters once they forget what Dems can do to a city. So it is with New York City today.

Aside from rising crime rates, urination in the streets, and other returning urban pathologies, according to the New York Post the squeegee men are back.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, squeegee men are guys who come up to your car unbidden at stop lights and, without permission, take a dirty rag and a spray bottle and begin to wash your windshield. Initially instead of the rag they used squeegees, hence the name.

They, of course, just make the windshield dirty, or dirtier, because the rags they use are filthy. They plagued NYC before Rudy. He got rid of them. Now under Dem Mayor Bill DeBlasio, they’re back. And how do they react to criticism of their activities?

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“The mayor don’t want to f*** with us,” one squeeger said to the New York Post. “This is nothing. Washing windows, asking for an honest buck. It’s nothing. They can’t lock us up for our s***.”

Under DeBlasio’s self-avowed hard left New York City regime the man is quite right. He’ll be left alone to harass motorists, tourists, and God knows who else.

Like the song goes, everything old is new again. Including, urban rot.