LSBID Services Update: October 2021

Throughout the past year and a half, the Lincoln Square BID has focused on strengthening our clean and safe programs to continue providing our helpful and much needed supplemental services to this special neighborhood. Now, as Lincoln Square has come alive as the city continues to emerge from the pandemic, we would like to share an update on these programs. 

We are proud of the excellent relationship the BID maintains with the NYPD, which is a key part of helping keep the neighborhood safe. Our district lies mostly within the confines of the 20th Precinct, and despite an increase in total index crime so far this year in the 20 (22% according to Compstat), the 20 remains among the safest neighborhoods in the city.  We are in regular communication with our contacts at the Precinct, including the Community Affairs Officers, Noel Pascua and Jonathan Bisland, and our Neighborhood Coordination Officers Rawdi Ali and Yelena Ast, keeping abreast of current trends and upcoming events. The BID also functions as an official community Partner for the NYPD’s Neighborhood Policing program.

While currently understaffed, members of our Public Safety Officer (PSO) team patrol the district daily from 10:00am to 10:00pm, 7 days a week. Our PSOs act as neighborhood ambassadors, answering questions for visitors and locals alike about how to navigate the area and where to find our many shops and restaurants. Additionally, they monitor quality of life concerns in the district, reporting things like homelessness, illegal vending violations and malfunctioning traffic signals to 311 for follow-up by the appropriate city agencies. Our team also helps reunite people with their lost property. Just last week we reunited two people with their belongings, including a wallet belonging to a tourist visiting the neighborhood to take in a performance at the Metropolitan Opera, and the other a wallet belonging to a resident of the neighborhood who mistakenly left it on a nearby bench. They also keep an eye out for other happenings in the district like store openings and special events, and they closely monitor pedestrian foot traffic. For the month of September, our Public Safety supervisors counted a total of 56,658 people, which we are happy to report is a 32% increase over the prior month of August! 

The additional foot traffic from returning office workers, school children, and Lincoln Center patrons has insured our 13-person Clean Team stays busy sweeping up litter and servicing the 125 trash cans in our district. The team, which currently works from 7:00am to 9:00pm during the week (8:00am to 9:00pm on the weekends), used a total of 7,375 trash bags for the month of September, a 58% increase over September 2020! They also arrange street furniture daily including our movable tables and chairs in our two small parks, and conduct regular early morning power washing of stains in public areas and around our trash cans and Big Belly Solar units. They also remove graffiti from BID owned property and from public street furniture. 

Our teams are thrilled to be able to keep Lincoln Square clean, safe and beautiful for all those people returning to the neighborhood -- and for those who never left! 

Photo credit: Elena Olivo