A Manhattan homeless shelter the place alleged mad stabber Ramon Rivera stayed has lengthy created “severe threats to human life,” the leaders of a prestigious close by life science middle raged.
Alexandria Heart for Life Science leaders despatched Metropolis Corridor a blistering letter Thursday — solely obtained by The Submit — calling for officers to meet their years-old promise to relocate the troubled Bellevue Males’s Shelter.
One among three victims killed within the heinous spree allegedly carried out by shelter resident Rivera, 51, this week was stabbed steps away from the Kips Bay middle, in line with the letter.
“This heinous and horrific act is unacceptable,” the letter rages.
“This lethal assault is yet one more instance of how the Shelter, which ought to have been demolished many years in the past, continues to drive strict safety protocol on our campus to make sure our tenants and their mission-critical analysis stay secure.”
Rivera, who’s mentally in poor health and has a protracted prison historical past, faces three counts of first-degree serial homicide within the savage slayings, which unfolded over a matter of hours Monday throughout Manhattan, from the West Aspect to the East River.
The surprising stabbing spree resurrected long-standing issues about mentally in poor health homeless folks within the Massive Apple, and prompted Mayor Eric Adams to double-down on his effort to involuntarily haul troubled vagrants off the road and into psychiatric care.
Fears about harmful homeless individuals are a every day reality of life for the Alexandria Heart, which has invested $1.5 billion to develop the town’s solely industrial life science campus, the letter particulars.
When Alexandria struck a take care of the town in 2006 to construct the middle, Metropolis Corridor officers promised to maneuver the shelter, the letter contends.
“Not solely has the Metropolis didn’t ship on that promise, it has as an alternative been pouring more cash into the constructing to take care of it as the most important males’s shelter within the metropolis,” the letter states. “The Shelter is the consumption middle for homeless males – together with these which have been just lately launched from Rikers Island for committing severe felony offenses and is infamous for being one of many – if not the – most harmful shelters within the metropolis.”
Vagrants on the thirtieth Avenue and First Avenue shelter have flashed weapons, angrily harassed and menaced folks strolling into the neighboring Alexandria Heart, states the letter, signed by Joel Marcus, govt chairman and founding father of Alexandria Actual Property Equities.
The threats have prompted the middle to take safety precautions, corresponding to partially closing its elevated plaza’s entrance gate, the letter claims.
However officers with the Division of Metropolis Planning have obstructed these efforts by flagging “enforcement points,” in line with the letter. Metropolis officers have additionally supplied a deaf ear to the middle’s issues in regards to the shelter’s “unsafe” facade and years-old scaffolding across the constructing, the letter claims.
Alexandria’s leaders referred to as for metropolis officers to create and implement a safety plan for the shelter’s neighbor and “be supportive, as an alternative of obstructive, of Alexandria’s safety protocols to make sure our tenants and their critically necessary analysis stays secure.”
“These are necessary measures the Metropolis must enact instantly, along with fulfilling its authentic promise to discover methods to shut and/or relocate the Shelter altogether,” the letter states.
Metropolis Corridor officers didn’t return a request for remark.
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