a community under siege: the crack epidemic and washington heights

Bias 1

A Community Under Siege: The Crack Epidemic and Washington Heights

-- by Eric Stephen Bias --

New York is a city that constantly wrestles with a state of flux. With

the rough and tumble of city life, and of course, rising rents, businesses and

institutions that seem to have been thriving one year are often gone the

next, with many beloved names––CBGBs, the Limelight, 5 Pointz––now only

memories. When people recall the “old New York,” they often speak

nostalgically of the city before it became “sanitized” and “corporate.” The

Bad Old Days, when New York was at its rawest, when, as the nostalgic

argue, one could find more character and creativity. The city possessed an

elusive energy, that, opposed to cookie cutter bank branches and chain

stores, made New York, New York. But people forget what made the Bad

Old Days bad.

In the 1970s up to the early 90s, New York was not a place many

would want to live. Violent crime and homicide was at an exceptionally high

level city-wide, not just in the outer boroughs.1 Times Square was a seedy

haven for prostitution and drug dealing.2 Bryant Park and Tompkins Square

Park, now popular urban oases, were both known by: “Needle Park.” Other

iconic destinations like Grand Central Terminal and the grounds of the New

1 Kelling, George L. “How New York Became Safe: The Full Story.” City Journal, n.d. http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_ny-crime-decline.html.

2 Ibid.

Bias 2

York Public Library, were decaying, open air drug markets.3 The subways

were often avoided for fear of violent street gangs.4 But no area in the city

was as affected by crime as the Northern Manhattan neighborhood of

Washington Heights. Beginning sometime in the the 1980s, Washington

Heights became crippled by the explosive growth of a “new” type of drug:

crack cocaine. In a short time, Washington Heights became both the murder

capital of the city and the largest retail drug market in the United States.5

In this paper, I will examine the crack epidemic as it relates to

Washington Heights. I will draw from personal interviews, newspaper

articles and academic research to weave together a portrait of the

neighborhood, and the attitudes surrounding the crack epidemic in New

York City, with special attention given to media coverage, police tactics, and

the effects of the drug trade on the people who lived among it. How did the

local community deal with the epidemic, and how did the neighborhood

emerge to become what it is today? What led to the crack epidemic in the

first place?

Crack Cocaine: Demon Drug?

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Nix, Crystal. “Tales Of Two Precincts - One Better, One Worse; The 34th: Murders Surge As Crack Spreads.” The New York Times, March 29, 1987, sec. Week in Review. http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/weekinreview/tales-two-precincts-one-better-one-worse-34th-murders-surge-crack-spreads.html.

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Cocaine has a long and interesting history in the United States. Its

chemical name is benzoylmethyl ecgonine, and it is a crystalline alkaloid

derived from the South American-grown coca plant.6 Somewhat similar to

caffeine and nicotine in composition and effects, it has in the past been used

medicinally as a local anesthetic.7 In terms of consumption, it is most often

sniffed up the nose and absorbed in the mucus membranes of the nasal

cavities, although it can be dissolved in water and injected.8 In the

nineteenth century, cocaine was widely (and legally) available as an additive

in perishable, often alcoholic, liquids––Coca-Cola, most famously, is known

to have originally included cocaine as an ingredient when it was created in

1886.9 Cocaine and other “hard drugs” did not have the sort of stigma that

they carry today (one could buy heroin and other drug-laced medicines from

the Sears-Roebuck catalog, and Pope Leo XIII reportedly loved Vin Mariani,

a cocaine-laced wine), but once cocaine became a lens through which

whites could demonize racial minorities, particularly poor blacks, a moral

panic soon emerged that led to the criminalization of drugs.10 This is the

root of the punitive paradigm surrounding drugs that dominates today.

6 Helmenstine, Dr. Anne Marie. “Cocaine Facts - Information about Powdered Cocaine.” About.com Chemistry. Accessed May 2, 2014. http://chemistry.about.com/od/drugs/a/cocainefacts.htm.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Hamblin, James. “Why We Took Cocaine Out of Soda.” The Atlantic, January 31, 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/why-we-took-cocaine-out-of-soda/272694/.

10 Ibid.

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The drug known as “crack” is merely a different form of cocaine;

chemically it is the same substance.11 Once powdered cocaine is dissolved in

a solution of water and baking soda, the solution is boiled, and the solid can

be separated out and dried.12 The resulting rock crystal substance––crack

cocaine–– is a purer drug, as the process with which to make it also

separates the “cut,” or the substances wholesalers use to dilute the product

in order to gain more profit.13 To consume the drug, it is heated in a pipe or

spoon until the substance melts and produces a vapor, which the user then

inhales.14 Its name derives from the “cracking” sound the drug makes when

it’s heated.15 The effect of the drug is an intense, euphoric, but short-lived

high, lasting as much as five minutes and far more intense than that of

powder cocaine.16 However, the differences in effect between cocaine and

crack are not a function of the drugs themselves but from the way they are

consumed; transmission into the bloodstream and to the brain is much

faster when inhaled through the lungs than as absorbed through the mucus

membranes in the nasal cavity.17

11 Watson, Stephanie. “How Crack Cocaine Works.” HowStuffWorks. Accessed May 13, 2014. http://science.howstuffworks.com/crack.htm.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Helmenstine, Dr. Anne Marie. “8 Facts About Crack Cocaine.” About.com Chemistry. Accessed May 2, 2014. http://chemistry.about.com/od/drugs/a/crackcocainefaq.htm.

15 Ibid.

16 Reinarman, Craig, and Harry G. Levine, eds. Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice. University of California Press, 1997. p. 136-138.

17 Ibid.

Bias 5

In the 80s, with a glut in the South American cocaine market,

distributors priced crack cocaine extremely low to move supply. It was

typically sold in single quantities for as cheap as $5 or less.18 For

comparison, in 1984 an ounce of powdered cocaine could be had for around

$200.19 As a result, crack became very accessible to every strata of society,

from Wall Street financiers to the inner city poor. It was uniquely positioned

to take New York by storm.20

Washington Heights: The Drug Dealer’s Dream

Having lived in Washington Heights for the past four years, in a short

amount of time I have witnessed a great deal of change. After many family-

owned businesses closed their doors for the last time, like Olympia Florist

on the corner of Broadway and 158th, and the El Mundo discount store on

159th and Ft. Washington, their storefronts are now under the glow of the

corporate logos of Starbucks and Planet Fitness. A new independent coffee

shop recently opened up around the corner, attracting young professionals

that I would more typically see farther downtown. The signs of

gentrification can be seen and felt everywhere I go, so when I hear stories

of how dangerous this neighborhood was just 20 years ago I can’t help but

be fascinated. What let Washington Heights become that bad?

18 Williams, Terry. The Cocaine Kids. Kindle Edition. Da Capo Press, n.d. Accessed May 2, 2014. p. 6.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

Bias 6

Washington Heights is a neighborhood in Northern Manhattan,

spanning from about Dyckman Street to 155th Street north to south, and

from east to west the entire width of Manhattan from the Harlem River to

the Hudson. Its most prominent feature is the George Washington Bridge, a

major point of entry into New York City from New Jersey and the most

trafficked highway bridge in the world.21 The area is heavily Dominican,

although it is somewhat segregated both racially and socioeconomically.

Broadway serves as a dividing line bordering a small, traditionally Jewish

enclave on the west side dotted with upscale op-ops, gourmet restaurants

and wine shops. On the east side, the atmosphere is more culturally rich,

but also noticeably grittier. Tiny, hole-in-the-wall diners serving Dominican

staples such as fried plantains and oxtail abound, and in balmy summer

evenings, bachata, the characteristic style of music from the Dominican

Republic, can be heard drifting from apartment windows down to the

streets below. On Broadway, street hustlers line up used boots, cell phone

chargers, and bootleg DVDs to sell along the pavement outside of

McDonald’s. Little old Spanish ladies cheerfully set bowls of kibble and milk

for the stray cats roaming the vacant lots at night. Livery cabs chirp their

horns at passersby, trying to make a quick fare.

If you walk along 160th Street, past the renovated public library,

towards the Morris Jumel Mansion (the oldest house in Manhattan and

21 “History.” Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, n.d. http://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/gwb-history.html.

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where George Washington briefly based his command during the

Revolution), you might notice among the brownstones and co-ops that are

characteristic in this area one window a bit different from the others. Take a

peek through, and found inside is a conspicuously arranged collection of

books and memorabilia. This is the home of Kurt Thometz. Thometz is a

private librarian and historical curator who moved into the area in the

1970s. He found himself allured by the deep roots that jazz held here; the

neighborhood boasted such notables as Duke Ellington and Count Basie.22

Driven by this passion and a love of literature, he amassed an eclectic

collection of rare books on topics especially unique to the area, from black

culture, to jazz, to inevitably, narcotics. He invited me into his home to

discuss the neighborhood as it was before I came to know it, one that I

could not recognize. Just a few decades ago, livestock grazed in the vacant

lots and people could grill on their fire escapes, if they didn’t keep live

chickens on them.23 Many blocks had more than a few abandoned

tenements. The Heights were still a part of busy Manhattan, but it felt a like

a world apart.

The George Washington Bridge, in addition to five other bridges and

three highways, led easy routes into the city from New Jersey, Upstate New

York, Connecticut, and elsewhere, snaking deep into the island like roots of

22 Kurt Thometz, interview by Eric Stephen Bias, New York, NY, April 26, 2014.

23 Ibid.

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a tree.24 Furthermore, the large influx of poor, undereducated Dominican

immigrants into the neighborhood contributed to a large resident minority

desperate to enter the economy, entrepreneurs with nothing to sell and

little capital to open a business.25 Tenements in impoverished ghettos like

Washington Heights were perfect candidates to both produce and sell

drugs, due to a higher tendency for both tenants and landlords to be

apathetic to drug activity.26 Combined with an overstretched police

precinct, the 34th, which at the time was responsible for the entire northern

end of the island from Inwood 50 blocks down to 155th, and the Heights

was a perfect location to operate as a major drug distribution hub, not just

for New York but for the entire Northeast region.27

Standing on my very own street corner, with myriad stories about the

crack epidemic in mind, I look about with a sense of disbelief. But the grip

that drugs had on the neighborhood was absolute. Factors mentioned above

led the entire neighborhood to become an open air drug market. Scores of

competing dealers looking to make a sale would swarm customers in all

hours of the day without fear of the police. Cars from out of state drove in

over the George Washington Bridge and would double and even triple park

24 Halbfinger, David M. “In Washington Heights, Drug War Survivors Reclaim Their Stoops.” The New York Times, May 18, 1998. http://academics.wellesley.edu/Chemistry/Chem101/war/html%20pages/ny-heights-crime.html.

25 Ibid.



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to buy drugs.28 Street gangs like the Wild Cowboys and the Diablos would

own whole blocks, intimidating any and all around them who would threaten

their supremacy, keeping hold of their market with ruthless force.29

Discarded crack vials littered the pavement like cigarette butts.30 Dealers

would often employ teenagers as runners and lookouts, since the

Rockefeller drug laws mandated harsh penalties for anyone over eighteen in

possession of illegal narcotics.31 Murder and violence in the streets was a

common occurrence; one resident even reported seeing from her window a

man shot in the head in the middle of the street in broad daylight.32

To be fair, many of these problems were not endemic to Washington

Heights, but were unfortunately common in cash-strapped cities

nationwide. This was well-covered by the media to the point of exaggeration

at least, outright fear mongering at worst. A prominent example is the 1986

CBS documentary, “48 Hours on Crack Street,” which resorted to half-

truths and sensationalism at the expense of honest journalism. There are

scenes of poor, predominantly African-American young men lighting up in

the streets in broad daylight, despite statistics that the majority of drug



30 Ibid.



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users were middle class and white.3334 A pre-Fox News Bernie Goldberg is

shown trolling around the ghetto in his car, asking random, sketchy

characters for crack, even though there is no indication that they could

have been dealers. In another scene, a dealer is brazen enough to try to

make a sale with him even in the presence of a news camera.35 There are

various hospital scenes in which teenagers apparently under the influence

appear violently delirious, pulling at their restraints, lashing out at doctors.

Some are shown gazing into space as incredulous doctors, policemen and

journalists disapprovingly stare.36 There are even more scenes of indignant

whites complaining that their neighborhoods are overrun with depravity,

but there are few if any scenes of similar residents in black or Latino

neighborhoods like Washington Heights.37 A drug user complains that she

had been strung out for three days without sleep, despite the fact that the

effects of crack use are very short lived, usually only a few minutes.38 The

violence associated with drug use, highlighted of course in the

documentary, actually resulted from the illegal nature of the trade, not as

an effect of the drugs themselves.39 Even the enduring myth of so-called

33 Gwynne, Kristen, and AlterNet. “4 Biggest Myths About Crack.” Accessed May 3, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/busting_the_crack_propaganda_myths_partner/.

34 “48 Hours on Crack Street.” 48 Hours. CBS. Accessed May 2, 2014. http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/48-hours-on-crack-street/.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Gwynne, Kristen, and AlterNet. “4 Biggest Myths About Crack.” Accessed May 3, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/busting_the_crack_propaganda_myths_partner/.

39 Reinarman, Craig, and Harry G. Levine, eds. Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice. University of California Press, 1997.

Bias 11

crack babies––children supposedly born addicted to crack due to heavy use

by the mother––is just that, fiction. A recent long-term study concluded that

the characteristics associated with crack babies, such as smaller heads and

weaker muscle tone, were found to be an effect of poverty rather than

cocaine use.40

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

In light of all this, what initiatives were undertaken by the authorities

and the city to reduce the level of drug dealing and use in Washington

Heights? In April of 1986, the NYPD instituted Operation “Clean Heights,”

an interagency initiative to crack down on drug crime in the neighborhood

with greater manpower and resources.41 Unfortunately, it did not have a

significant effect. On one day in November, for instance, 300 police officers

and federal drug enforcement agents descended upon 160th Street, seizing

two buildings, 35 apartments, five pounds of cocaine, and arresting 31

dealers.42 The next morning, however, the dealers were back out on the

streets, selling to limos which had driven in from Virginia.43 Residents were

still terrified of stray bullets flying through their windows.

40 McDonough, Katie. “Long-Term Study Debunks the Myth of the ‘Crack Baby.’” Salon, July 23, 2013. http://www.salon.com/2013/07/23/longterm_study_debunks_myth_of_the_crack_baby/.

41 Kriegel, Mark. “Cocaine Capital Residents Live In Fear On 160th Street, The Worst Retail Drug Block In New York City.” Sun Sentinel, November 24, 1989. http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1989-11-24/news/8902110548_1_narcotics-officers-dominican-republic-drug-experts.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

Bias 12

Some, like Kurt Thometz, argue that the reduction in drug crime was

simply a result of time; generations of youngsters saw what had happened

to their older peers and decided to stay away from the violence and disease

that the drug trade had brought on their communities. Others attribute the

improvement to Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to clean up New York. The

reality though was a bit of both––a combination of police and community

efforts were instrumental in taking back the streets. The local residents,

weary of living in fear, were now proactively attempting to drive out drug

dealers. The tenants of one building, for instance, pooled their resources,

bought a neighboring building that had been populated with dealers and

addicts, and then promptly evicted them.44 Similarly, members of local

community groups and associations like the Jewish Community Council and

the Guardian Angels made nightly security patrols and neighborhood

watches around high crime streets.45 Residents were beginning to stand up

to the menace on their doorsteps before it began to infect everyone’s lives.

There were some police initiatives post-Operation “Clean Heights”

that had an effect in curbing the drug market’s control of the streets as

well. In 1996, the 34th precinct was split in two, so that police could better


45 Nix, Crystal. “Tales Of Two Precincts - One Better, One Worse; The 34th: Murders Surge As Crack Spreads.” The New York Times, March 29, 1987, sec. Week in Review. http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/weekinreview/tales-two-precincts-one-better-one-worse-34th-murders-surge-crack-spreads.html.

Bias 13

concentrate their efforts.46 The drug dealers that were driven inside by the

increased presence were further hounded when police began to negotiate

with landlords to be allowed to patrol inside buildings.47 The city, state, and

federal governments began to share their information more fully, which led

to more efficient police actions.48 Furthermore, with the advent of

CompStat, a system which allowed the NYPD to map out specific areas

where crimes occur and to gain valuable statistical data on their efforts,

police commanders could hold precincts accountable based on the number

and type of crimes in a given area.49Another factor in the decline of the

crack epidemic was the so-called “broken windows theory” of policing.

Pioneered by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton

(who is serving a second time as of this writing under Mayor Bill De Blasio),

broken windows theory surmises that if smaller crimes, like public drinking

and panhandling, are dealt with first by issuing summonses and

administering fines, the larger problems, like assault and murder, will be

less likely to erupt.50 These efforts proved to be highly successful; after a

high of 119 murders north of 155th Street in 1991, that number was


47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Kelling, George L. “How New York Became Safe: The Full Story.” City Journal, n.d. http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_ny-crime-decline.html.

50 Traub, James. “New York Story.” The New Republic, January 27, 1997.

Bias 14

reduced in 1998 to only 5.51 Today, Washington Heights is one of New

York’s safest areas.

In 1986, on the corner of 160th and Amsterdam Avenue, at the time

the center of the drug trade in not only Washington Heights but the entire

city, then-US Attorney Rudy Giuliani and Senator Alfonse D’Amato, both in

disguise and accompanied by a television crew, personally bought crack

cocaine on the street in plain view. Today, Washington Heights is the fourth

safest neighborhood in New York City.52 Few indication of the area’s violent

past is long gone. Now, the block is dominated by a recently-built

elementary school, P.S. 4, also known as the Duke Ellington School,

underscoring the neighborhood’s jazz roots. Old men in Yankees caps play

dominos and drink Coronas on the corner in the summer afternoons. The

crack demon is a distant memory, but the scars are still there. On the side

of a building above a parking lot, is a mural warning kids to “just say no.”

Bibliography

“48 Hours on Crack Street.” 48 Hours. CBS. Accessed May 2, 2014.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/48-hours-on-crack-street/.


52 Kriegel, Mark. “Cocaine Capital Residents Live In Fear On 160th Street, The Worst Retail Drug Block In New York City.” Sun Sentinel, November 24, 1989. http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1989-11-24/news/8902110548_1_narcotics-officers-dominican-republic-drug-experts.

Bias 15

Gwynne, Kristen. “4 Biggest Myths About Crack.” Accessed May 3, 2014.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/busting_the_crack_propaganda_myths_pa

rtner/.

Halbfinger, David M. “In Washington Heights, Drug War Survivors Reclaim

Their Stoops.” The New York Times, May 18, 1998.

http://academics.wellesley.edu/Chemistry/Chem101/war/html%20pages/ny-

heights-crime.html.

Hamblin, James. “Why We Took Cocaine Out of Soda.” The Atlantic, January

31, 2013. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/why-we-took-

cocaine-out-of-soda/272694/.

Helmenstine, Dr. Anne Marie. “8 Facts About Crack Cocaine.” About.com

Chemistry. Accessed May 2, 2014.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/drugs/a/crackcocainefaq.htm.

———. “Cocaine Facts - Information about Powdered Cocaine.” About.com

Chemistry. Accessed May 2, 2014.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/drugs/a/cocainefacts.htm.

“History.” Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, n.d.

http://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/gwb-history.html.

Kelling, George L. “How New York Became Safe: The Full Story.” City

Journal, n.d. http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_ny-crime-decline.html.

Kriegel, Mark. “Cocaine Capital Residents Live In Fear On 160th Street,

The Worst Retail Drug Block In New York City.” Sun Sentinel, November

24, 1989.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1989-11-24/news/8902110548_1_narcotics-

officers-dominican-republic-drug-experts.

Nix, Crystal. “DRUG INFLUX A STRAIN ON THE BEAT.” The New York

Times, September 26, 1986, sec. N.Y. / Region.

Bias 16

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/26/nyregion/drug-influx-a-strain-on-the-

beat.html.

———. “Tales Of Two Precincts - One Better, One Worse; The 34th: Murders

Surge As Crack Spreads.” The New York Times, March 29, 1987, sec. Week

in Review. http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/weekinreview/tales-two-

precincts-one-better-one-worse-34th-murders-surge-crack-spreads.html.

Traub, James. “New York Story.” The New Republic, January 27, 1997.

Reinarman, Craig, and Harry G. Levine, eds. Crack in America: Demon

Drugs and Social Justice. University of California Press, 1997.

Watson, Stephanie. “How Crack Cocaine Works.” HowStuffWorks. Accessed

May 13, 2014. http://science.howstuffworks.com/crack.htm.

Williams, Terry. The Cocaine Kids. Kindle Edition. Da Capo Press, n.d.

Accessed May 2, 2014.

a community under siege: the crack epidemic and washington heights

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