46 new york | october 12–25, 2020
toldmethroughanintermediary. “Many
neighbors,oncestrangers,cametogether
tocreatea virtualtownsquareandeffect
compassionate,constructivesolutions.”
Withina week,SaferStreetshadmore
than1,000members.Morpurgo, whohad
beeninvited by a fellowparent,was
amongthefirst.
“Thereweresomany posts aboutpeople
leavingNewYork,”sherecalled.“SoI said,
‘Canwejustmake thisaboutstaying?What
wecandotomakeit betterforanyonewho
eitherwantstostay orhastostay?’” She
wasaskedtobecomea moderator.
Butmanypeoplewhoflockedtothe
group, she quickly learned, weren’t inter-
ested in any form of moderation. Members
posted photos of Black men gathered at the
meridians on Broadway, close-upsof feces
and condoms on the pavement, andpictures
of encampments set up by those sleeping in
the streets. There was no evidencethat any
of it involved the men from the Lucerne, but
that stopped no one. “We worked very hard
to be here,” read one comment. “The home-
less did not. They must me [sic] taken
where they belong.” Some in the grouptook
to calling the men in the hotels “creatures.”
There was talk of smearing neighborhood
benches with molasses to discourage them
from sitting down. As the group ballooned
to 15,000 members, QAnon symbolsbegan
appearing in profile photos. Peoplewere
shouting about “law and order.” Somedidn’t
live on the Upper West Side at all. Others
admitted they were Upper West Siders who
were watching things unfold from afar.
The New York Post and Fox News quickly
seized on the group. Morpurgo had wanted
press coverage—anything to bring attention
to the issue—but this wasn’t whatshe had
bargained for. Sean Hannity and Tucker
Carlson devoted segments to discussing
how this nice, expensive (read white) corner
of the city was descending into homeless
(read Black) anarchy. The correspondents
Fox sent “into the field” came back with
stories—but no footage—of men shooting
up in the streets. “A preview ofcoming
attractions if Biden’s America became a
reality,” Hannity warned. PaulJoseph
Watson, a far-right YouTuber, featured the
neighborhood in a video called New
York City Is a Sh*thole that attracted
nearly 1 million views.
Morpurgo and her liberal neighbors, it
seemed, had failed to understand the
current state of America’s culture wars.
“When the men came into the Lucerne,
it ded s ug oric,”
s Lo al r who
opposed Safer Streets. “I was soembar-
rassed to have that coming out ofa neigh-
borhood toward people who are in need.”
But it was also becoming uncomfortably
obvious that the rhetoric, while ugly, was
clarifying. In the age of Trump, the line
between “not in my backyard” and “go
back to where you came from” has been
all but obliterated. What is maga, after
all, but a globalized version of nimbyism,
intent on chasing people of color off
America’s pristine lawn?o one moves to the Upper
West Side for the drama. This is a
neighborhood of reliable habits—
ofdevoutreadersoftheSunday
Times, Friday-night dinners at
Cafe Lux, and afternoon strolls in
either Central or Riverside Park (a
rivalry more contentious than
Trump-Biden, in which every
resident must declare a favorite).
Morpurgo was stunned by the
vitriol that was overwhelming
Safer Streets, even if she agreed with the
underlying goal. She had never even seen an
episode of Carlson’s show, and now here he
was, exploiting her neighborhood’s private
pain for political gain. Only two months ear-
lier, the Upper West Side had been thrust
into the national spotlight aftera white
woman called the cops on a Black bird-
watcher in Central Park. But in Morpurgo’s
mind, the battle over the homeless wasn’t
about race—it was about public safety. After
all, she had gone to Black LivesMatter
protests, and her kids were still marching.
“I was really worried with some of the
narrative that’s been spun around this,”
she said. “The last thing I want is for my
teenagers to think I’m a bad person.”
With Safer Streets erupting into chaos,
Morpurgo and four other members slipped
away and registered a nonprofit called the
West Side Community Organization.
Known as WestCo, the group raised more
than $200,000 through GoFundMe and
private donations. In a sign of its desire to
play hardball, the group retained Randy
Mastro—the former deputy mayorto Rudy
Giuliani—who threatened to sue the city if
it did not move the men out of the Lucerne.
Some of the group’s leaders met forthe first
time in the backyard of a brownstone
belonging to Dana Lowey Luttway, a real-
estate magnate who is the daughter of
Representative Nita Lowey. “I justwanted
to hug people, but you couldn’t,” said
Morpurgo, who was named vice-president.
They ordered sushi and sat six feetapart.
But while WestCo didn’t engage in the
around by SaferStreets,
ate it from accusations of
liberal hypocrisy. White people make up
almost 70 percent of the Upper West Side,
while Black people comprise 58 percent ofthe city’s shelters. One longtime resident,
Peggy Taylor, recalled the first thing she said
when the men arrived at the Lucerne: “Now
I’m not the only Black face on the Upper
West Side.” Low, who teaches economics
at the Wharton School of the University
of Pennsylvania, compared WestCo to
segregationists from the ’60s: “It’s about
wanting the Upper West Side to become
this more and more exclusive space.” In
response, she founded a group called the
Upper West Side Open Hearts Initiative,
which organized a series of events in front
oftheLucerne—donationdrivestoprovide
the men with clothes for job interviews, art
projects where people chalked messages on
the sidewalk outside the hotel: all are
welcome here and yes in my backyard.
Inside the Lucerne, meanwhile, things
were rough, especially at the outset. Fights
broke out in the middle of the night. Few
people wore masks. The hallways were
filled with cigarette smoke. Douglas
Rowan, who has lived in one of ten rent-
controlled apartments in the hotel for 35
years, took to leaving his homeonly to
walk his mastiff and Shih Tzupoodle.
“They brought 283 people into a building
without notice, did not enforce any of the
protocols, and dumped them in the laps of
ten people who are all seniors with pre-
existing conditions,” he said. “These people
have the right to be safe, but so dowe.”
One of the temporary residents, who
goes by the name Da Homeless Hero, was
also unhappy with the way things started off
at the hotel. In the first few weeks,security
wasn’t doing its job. Men tryingto stay
clean were roomed with those still in the
grips of addiction. The smoking was out of
control. He understood why neighbor-
hood residents were upset, but he didn’t
understand why they didn’t focus on trying
to fix things instead of evicting those in
need. It was traumatic being shuffled from
shelter to shelter. In one, Da Homeless
Hero had contracted covid-19. Now he
just wanted a place to sleep.
One day, he left the hotel andsaw the
messages written on the pavement by mem-
bers of Open Hearts. “I seen all the chalk on
the floor and all the hoopla and stuff,” he
said. “I’m just a straight shooter, soI sent a
message to them—I appreciate it, but get the
fuck outta here. This ain’t gonna donothing
for us. They hit me back immediately and
said, ‘Oh, so glad that you reachedus. Can
you tell us what we can do?’ ”
Most residents, though, remained intent
on evicting the men. In August, nearly 1,400
people tuned in to a community-board
meeting devoted to the issue—a Zoom
record. It was a public and, for the Upper
West Side, fairly frank airing of grievances.