By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-22 00:17:40 | Updated at 2024-11-27 23:49:28
6 days ago
A Manhattan homeless shelter where alleged mad stabber Ramon Rivera stayed has long created “serious threats to human life,” the leaders of a prestigious nearby life science center raged.
Alexandria Center for Life Science leaders sent City Hall a blistering letter Thursday — exclusively obtained by The Post — calling for officials to fulfill their years-old promise to relocate the troubled Bellevue Men’s Shelter.
One of three victims killed in the heinous spree allegedly carried out by shelter resident Rivera, 51, this week was stabbed steps away from the Kips Bay center, according to the letter.
“This heinous and horrific act is unacceptable,” the letter rages.
“This deadly attack is one more example of how the Shelter, which should have been demolished decades ago, continues to drive strict security protocol on our campus to ensure our tenants and their mission-critical research remain safe.”
Rivera, who is mentally ill and has a long criminal history, faces three counts of first-degree serial murder in the savage slayings, which unfolded over a matter of hours Monday across Manhattan, from the West Side to the East River.
The shocking stabbing spree resurrected long-standing concerns about mentally ill homeless people in the Big Apple, and prompted Mayor Eric Adams to double-down on his effort to involuntarily haul troubled vagrants off the street and into psychiatric care.
Fears about dangerous homeless people are a daily fact of life for the Alexandria Center, which has invested $1.5 billion to expand the city’s only commercial life science campus, the letter details.
When Alexandria struck a deal with the city in 2006 to build the center, City Hall officials promised to move the shelter, the letter contends.
“Not only has the City failed to deliver on that promise, it has instead been pouring more money into the building to maintain it as the largest men’s shelter in the city,” the letter states. “The Shelter is the intake center for homeless men – including those that have been recently released from Rikers Island for committing serious felony offenses and is notorious for being one of the – if not the – most dangerous shelters in the city.”
Vagrants at the 30th Street and First Avenue shelter have flashed weapons, angrily harassed and menaced people walking into the neighboring Alexandria Center, states the letter, signed by Joel Marcus, executive chairman and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
The threats have prompted the center to take security precautions, such as partially closing its elevated plaza’s front gate, the letter claims.
But officials with the Department of City Planning have obstructed those efforts by flagging “enforcement issues,” according to the letter. City officials have also offered a deaf ear to the center’s concerns about the shelter’s “unsafe” facade and years-old scaffolding around the building, the letter claims.
Alexandria’s leaders called for city officials to create and enforce a security plan for the shelter’s neighbor and “be supportive, instead of obstructive, of Alexandria’s security protocols to ensure our tenants and their critically important research remains safe.”
“These are important measures the City needs to enact immediately, in addition to fulfilling its original promise to explore ways to close and/or relocate the Shelter altogether,” the letter states.
City Hall officials didn’t return a request for comment.
