City workers moved in on a homeless encampment under the FDR on Manhattan's East Side, but left behind a filthy mess.
Page A7From§Eachthe early bird edition — 14 September 2026
NYC sweeps a homeless camp, skips the cleanup; LA's mayor quits the homeless authority as feds move in.
“They send a crew to clear the tents and skip the dumpster — that's not a mistake, that's a budget nobody signed off on paying for. Same week the woman running the agency that watches LA's homeless money quits right as Congress comes calling, and you're telling me that's coincidence? Sweep the people, dodge the audit, leave the trash on the sidewalk — that's not four bad weeks, that's the whole program.”
“Look, the Mayor stepping back from an oversight board — that's accountability, that's proactive leadership, clearing the decks for- okay, the timing next to the congressional hearing looks bad, I'll grant you that. And the sanitation situation, that's a separate contract line, you can't expect the encampment-clearance crew to also handle curbside pickup, that's not how municipal procurement works, that's- did I say "not my department"? That's not really the message we're going with.”
The receipts
A homeless woman tried to torch a luxury SUV outside a high end lighting business in Manhattan -- one of several terrifying encounters workers say they have endured after the resurgence of a West Side encampment.
· Viral video of homeless encampment around city of Berkeley sparks safety concerns from parent from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
· LA Mayor Karen Bass suddenly quits embattled homeless authority as feds turn the screws from the morgue, 9 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.