Rep. Ritchie Torres Sounds Alarm to Mayor Eric Adams on Open-Air Drug Market on Melrose Avenue

Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15) sent a letter to New York City Mayor Eric Adams regarding the concerning activity occurring on Melrose Avenue between East 149th Street and East 150th Street in the Bronx. The full letter, including photos, is attached to this email.

The letter reads:

“Dear Mayor Adams, I am writing to sound the alarm about the persistence of an open-air drug market on Melrose Avenue between East 149th Street and East 150th Street in the Bronx. The aforementioned area is part of a bustling center of commerce and transportation known as the Hub. Passing through Melrose Avenue, one could be forgiven for thinking that NYC had turned the clock back to the open-air drug-dealing of the 1980s and 90s, with drug users openly and shamelessly injecting themselves in broad daylight. When it comes to drug use in Melrose, sunlight is no disinfectant: the drug users are undeterred by the countless eyes on the streets. When I went to see the drug hotspot for myself, I found myself in a state of shock not only at the severity of the situation but also at the lack of an anything resembling a robust police presence. It was a scene of lawlessness and disorder. 

“Just as troubling as the open-air drug market itself is the absence of any attempt by the City to dismantle it. The tacit acceptance of unfettered drug use on Melrose Avenue, as though it were an inevitable fact of life, sends a dangerous message: that the public safety and public health of the Bronx is not a priority but an afterthought.

“Like most people in the Bronx, I have compassion for drug users who are in dire need of anti-addiction services and who have fallen victim to a drug crisis that has been compounding by the CCP, which manufactures 97% of fentanyl precursors, fueling the deadliest drug crisis in American history. But in the end, there is nothing compassionate about standing by passively while drug users languish indefinitely in the streets.

“I am calling upon City Hall to coordinate a robust interagency response, featuring the NYPD and DOHMH, aimed at permanently dismantling the open-air drug market that has cast a cloud over the health and safety of the South Bronx. My constituents and I refuse to be doomed to a diminished quality of life by stale stereotypes about the Bronx. Bluntly put, the wealthiest communities in NYC would never be expected to live under these visible conditions of social decay. Why must we? I look forward to your response.”