{"id":312182,"date":"2026-08-03T01:43:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312182\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T01:43:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:43:39","slug":"summer-bummer-annual-car-free-street-event-squeezed-in-nypd-overkill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/312182\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Bummer: Annual Car-Free Street Event Squeezed In NYPD ‘Overkill’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing says people-first streets like an army of cops in idling squad cars.<\/p>\n

Attendees of the first of three Manhattan Summer Streets events \u2014 the first Summer Streets of Mayor Mamdani\u2019s term \u2014 were stunned by the sheer number of police and their official or personal vehicles clogging many intersections, a change in policing strategy that NYPD, City Hall and the Department of Transportation did not discuss before or after the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe choke points were just crazy,\u201d said Clarence Eckerson Jr., the documentary filmmaker who has covered Summer Streets events for Streetfilms since their inception in 2008. \u201cIt was extremely hard for bicyclists to get around at all\u201d because officers had deployed their cars to prevent the free-flowing cycling and jogging that Summer Streets has always promoted. \u201cI can\u2019t believe how overstaffed it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

One lieutenant manning a chokepoint at nearly entirely blocked intersection uptown told Streetsblog that the \u201cblocker cars\u201d were a direct order from Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and were \u201cobviously overkill.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the intention was to not leave any car-sized gaps at the closed-off intersections, including on the sidewalks, which is how police ended up with four to 14 cars at some intersections. The lieutenant cited terror attacks at public gatherings worldwide featuring drivers intentionally speeding into crowds, including recently in Berlin<\/a>, but the NYPD did not respond to questions from Streetsblog about whether it had received any advance warning that such an attack was being planned in New York City.<\/p>\n

But one longtime street safety and public space advocate saw the police response as anathema to the purpose of Summer Streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes Summer Streets so incredible is the way it invites New Yorkers to experience our streets as natural places for socializing and play,\u201d said Carl Mahaney of Streetopia UWS (which shares a parent company with Streetsblog). \u201cPeople get it instinctively and respond with an easy sense of joy and community. The kind of excessive police presence we saw on Saturday and the intensive \u2018hardening\u2019 of the route runs completely counter to the spirit of possibility and liberation that Summer Streets is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Here is the pinch point at Cathedral Parkway from two angles. First, looking north\u2026 Photo: Streetsblog<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2026 and now looking looking east. Photo: Streetsblog<\/p>\n

Commentary on social media were legion. Alex Duncan, who moderates Reddit\u2019s r\/micromobility page where videos from multiple attendees were posted, said the police response was excessive and futile.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people aren\u2019t going to like to hear this but you can\u2019t really entirely prevent vehicle ramming attacks for the same reasons we can\u2019t prevent mass shootings,\u201d he posted<\/a>. \u201cCars can be weapons, and the ubiquity of guns and cars in our society means a single crazy person is always going to be able to do huge amounts of damage if they want to. The only way to stop that is to limit them, which nobody in power seems to want to do. We can\u2019t just cripple every event in the city out of fear. If we do they\u2019ve won.\u201d<\/p>\n

A representative of an uptown business improvement district confirmed to Streetsblog that cops said the \u201cblocker cars\u201d are a \u201cnewish\u201d policy and not consistent to DOT\u2019s boast<\/a> that \u201cSummer Streets is an annual celebration of New York City\u2019s most valuable public space \u2013 our streets\u201d and that it takes \u201cour city\u2019s usual traffic noise and honking horns will be replaced with open streets teeming with walkers, bikers, runners, and performers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"And here\u2019s the pinchpoint at Broadway at 120th Street, also from two angles. First looking north \u2026 Photo: Streetsblog<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2026 and now looking south. Photo: Streetsblog<\/p>\n

An NYPD spokesperson who did not provide a name cited prior terror attacks around the world in a response to Streetsblog on Sunday. <\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past few years, we have seen a rise in terror attacks that involve the use of vehicles to ram into groups of people, causing mass casualties and destruction,\u201d said the spokesperson, citing Berlin and three others, none in New York. \u201cThis was an operational decision intended to ensure that people could enjoy summer streets safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson did not respond to Streetsblog\u2019s specific questions, and a spokesman for Mayor Mamdani also did not address specific queries, such as who ordered up the new policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to the hard work of the people at DOT and NYPD, an estimated 500,000 New York City residents and visitors were able to safely enjoy Summer Streets this past Saturday in Manhattan, with no major incidents reported,\u201d said the spokesman Jeremy Edwards. \u201cThe Mamdani administration looks forward to continue working with our partners to host more Summer Streets across the city in the coming weeks so New Yorkers\u00a0can walk, run, bike, play, dance or simply connect with their neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

That won\u2019t satisfy the most loyal Summer Streets fans. One attendee, who has enjoyed the program every year (and said she even wakes up early to experience every minute of it), was appalled by what she saw this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like the policing this year at previous Summer Streets,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir presence was palpable. At every car crossing street, there were four to six cop cars. Most of the cars were just parked with cops sitting inside, blocking the route. I also saw cops in SWAT gear with large rifles uptown. That was jarring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest issue was the cop cars blocking the intersections. It created an annoying and unsafe bottlenecks every few blocks,\u201d she added. \u201cWalkers runners and bikes would all suddenly need to slow down and merge together. I saw many people run into each other at various stops. It really didn\u2019t make any sense. I\u2019ve attended Summer Streets every year and there\u2019s never been any issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are some other photographs taken by Streetsblog staffers and others:<\/p>\n

\"\"Broadway at 145th. Photo: Streetsblog<\/p>\n

\"\"Broadway at 133rd Street. Photo: Streetsblog<\/p>\n

Other people posted complaints on . <\/p>\n

The police \u201creally made traveling the route today significantly less pleasant,\u201d , a Manhattan resident. \u201cHere\u2019s hoping DOT can work with NYPD to roll this back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, many people loved Summer Streets this year, though it is unclear if such people knew that the police strategy was a new one:<\/p>\n

But for every supportive social media post, there were many Streetsblog readers sending us videos in opposition to the positive spin. Here\u2019s one showing the hostile pinchpoint at 106th Street:<\/p>\n

And Eckerson posted this video:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time the NYPD has responded to the concept of car-free streets with an exceptionally large police presence. When then-Mayor Bill de Blasio created the open streets program at the start of the pandemic, the NYPD deployed four officers to every single intersection of the 34th Avenue open street.<\/p>\n

No explanation was ever provided, but subsequent coverage<\/a> in Streetsblog (including a song parody<\/a>) led to the NYPD realizing that it did not need uniformed officers to patrol a car-free street.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tRecommended<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n \t\"Eyes
\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani has insisted<\/a> that he controls the NYPD and will overrule its commissioner, but many observers haven\u2019t seen the mayor put his stamp on policing or execute his police reform strategy in deference to Tisch.<\/p>\n

In addition, the police staffing that the NYPD says is necessary to secure Summer Streets in previous years has repeated been cited as the reason that Summer Streets can\u2019t expand beyond the current five Saturdays per year for eight hours only<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Summer Streets continues in Manhattan on Saturdays, Aug. 8 and Aug. 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you want to tell DOT your opinion about Summer Streets, click the DOT survey here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing says people-first streets like an army of cops in idling squad cars. Attendees of the first of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-312182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}