🚌 Finally Some Progress at the Fulton and Franklin Bus Stop

🌟 Author’s Note

Hello and welcome to the two new advocates of the Better Block Project, bringing our group to 90 people dedicated to improving our blocks. This group is growing and our work is starting to get noticed, so I’m grateful to all of you for joining.

📆 Reminder: Better Block Meet Up on Sunday, September 21st @ First Quincy Street Community Garden 🏡 As I mentioned in last week’s update, we’re hosting a meet up on Sunday, September 21st from 3-5pm to gather our group in person. The goal is to meet, hang and talk about all of the work we’re doing, and how we can continue to work together to improve our blocks. Thanks so much to Ris for opening up the space on her block for our group. Hope to see you there!  

🚌 Finally Some Progress at the Fulton and Franklin Bus Stop

On Wednesday, September 3rd we held a walk partnering with residents from the Franklin Avenue-Brevoort Place block association to educate the city, state and city agencies on the state of open drug use on Bedford Place and at the Fulton and Franklin Bus Stop. In attendance was Councilmember Chi Osse and his office, Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest, several members of the NYPD including leaders from the Commissioner’s office, DSNY, DSS, Breaking Ground (a non-profit that aids in homeless outreach) and several residents who have lived on the block for many years and have been dealing with this issue for far too long.

Our goal with the walk was to show city leaders exactly what was happening in real life to motivate some action to fix the problem. We started the walk with a few of the residents sharing stories about what had been occurring on the block. What we heard was disturbing:

• Open drug dealing and use was a daily issue, with multiple known drug dealers frequenting the area

• Residents have observed people fighting, and in one incident an individual chasing someone else with a knife

• Residents have experienced car break ins and people attempting to break into their homes

• Residents have observed individuals having sex underneath the shuttle subway line on nearby Lefferts Place

I’m not sharing these stories to drive shock and awe, but it’s really to inform what’s some of our neighbors have to deal with on a day to day basis. Many of us have small children, some are elderly, and it’s just not acceptable for this to happen on our blocks.

After residents shared first hand accounts, we walked through Bedford Place where there is an active encampment and then up to the Franklin Avenue and Fulton Street bus stop. Residents shared how individuals will travel between both locations, buying drugs in one location and using in the other.

At first, when pressed to provide more resources from the NYPD, the leaders hesitated. We heard from the NYPD that (1) they didn’t have the resources, (2) they didn’t have the decision making authority, and (3) if we had dedicated NYPD here, every single corner that had an issue would want the same level of service.

It speaks a bit to a few core challenges on why this bus stop is the way it is:

• Even NYPD, with a $5.8 billion dollar annually operating budget, feels stretched for resources

• No single person has decision making authority to just clean the bus stop up

• The law as written today doesn’t really give them the authority to take the appropriate action

It’s difficult to know what the truth is. Perhaps NYPD could more thoughtfully spend their budget so they do have the resources? Maybe there is a playbook for cleaning up corners like this with the existing law, and the NYPD just didn’t know? Either way, it was remarkable that 10-15 people from various city agencies, when called to a troublesome corner, couldn’t just solve the problem. It felt like something was broken.

Despite this, after successful advocacy from residents, Chi Osse and Phara Souffrant Forrest, we were able to get some real results. NYPD agreed to a new patrol to the area, both day and night, and adding 2-3 sets of lighting on Bedford Place and the bus stop. We’re optimistic these changes will make a difference, and grateful for all the folks from the city who attended for stepping up and agreeing to do this for residents.

🚏 Lobbying to Take Down the Bus Shelter

In addition to the lighting and police support, we’re also lobbying to get the MTA to take down the bus shelter on Fulton Street. It’s a shame the bus shelter needs to go, but it is in severe disrepair and only serves as shelter for individuals looking to use and deal drugs. Chi Osse’s office did reach out to the MTA, who runs the bus stop, to ask them to take it down, and the representative said no. They didn’t give a reason why, but we’re following up with them to schedule another walk so they can see the situation directly. We’re optimistic that when they see what’s happening live, they will make the right call to remove the bus shelter.

It’s another example of the multi-agency problem we’ve discussed in prior updates. Normally, the Department of Transportation (a city agency) runs bus stops, but since this bus stop is next to a subway station, it’s actually run by the MTA. The MTA has a completely separate governing body, so it requires a different tactic of advocacy in order for them to cooperate. We’re actively working with Phara Souffrant Forrest’s team and Chi Osse’s team to get this follow up meeting scheduled.

🎯 What are the result so far?

The increased patrols from NYPD have helped, but they have been inconsistent and the lighting isn’t installed yet (despite a promise of a 48 hour turnaround). After driving by yesterday, the bus stop was briefly cleared which was a positive sign, but a visit a short time later showed the illicit activity had returned. We’re going to follow up with NYPD to ensure the increased enforcement works and the lighting gets installed, and pursue next steps with the MTA.

As we’ve stated from the beginning, it’s critical that we solve this problem so our community can reclaim the bus stop for all of us to use.

Lastly, I want to give a huge shout out to the residents of the Franklin Avenue-Brevoort block association. They came out in force and sharing their stories took a lot of courage, and our whole community will benefit when we get this situation resolved.

⏳ Where we are on the other problems we’re working on

• 🧹 Cleaning up Trash on Fulton Street: We had a fruitful budget meeting with the Bed Stuy BID this week where we narrowed in on an incremental budget of $300,000 in order to clean up Fulton Street. We’re now arranging a meeting with DSNY, City Council and the BID to discuss this request and other options to identify the best use of money to clean up the street. Our plan is to get this request in order for next year’s budget cycle, ideally as a permanent line item

• 🌳 Simplifying Tree Maintenance in NYC: We met again this week with Councilmember Gutierrez’s office to follow up on tree policy. They shared some news from the Parks department that they have never heard any complaints about their permitting process for tree maintenance 🫠. We’re aiming to follow up with the Parks department to schedule a smaller meeting to discuss the recurring issues we’ve heard regarding tree maintenance to get smarter on a potential solution

• 🏠️ Improving Vacant Buildings on Fulton, Jefferson and Macon: We finally heard back from the Brooklyn Public Administrator’s office, and now we’re playing phone tag to learn next steps on 75 Macon. Secondly, we saw workers at 1105 Fulton on the scaffolding this week, but it’s unclear what next steps are with the demolition. We’ll continue to monitor the situation over the coming weeks

That’s all for this week’s update. If you like what we’re doing here, share betterblockproject.com with other community members you know who are looking to drive change in Brooklyn.

See you next week,

David