How did we miss this nugget from the morning’s Post? Community Board 2 asked for harsher penalties against “repeat offenders” busted for solicitation in their neighborhood in a letter to the Manhattan DA’s office. “With sex workers on every corner — which they are on every weekend night in the far West Village — residents don’t feel safe and are frequently disturbed,” the letter said. According to police, the NYPD “made 183 prostitution-related arrests in the Sixth Precinct last year, targeting hookers as well as their johns in undercover stings. So far this year, police have made 59 arrests for prostitution-related offenses, and, they caution, as the weather heats up, so will the curbside sex trade.”
The Sixth Precinct extends from Houston to 14th Street, West of Broadway, and that’s like three hookers a week! (This was not an amenity we counted in our recent neighborhood rankings.) We know, we know, the area was much crazier years ago, but it’s just surprising, because we have literally never noticed a prostitute in the West Village. (West Chelsea? Sure.) Maybe that’s because in our imagination, sex workers still look like the ones Chuck Bass saw in Prague just before he got shot last night, and also are still walking around dark street corners in faux-fur coats and fishnets like they’ve never heard of the Internet.
