Bronx congressman demands action to dismantle open-air drug market in the Hub

the hub
Discarded syringes litter the ground at the Hub, highlighting the ongoing struggles with drug use and public safety in the area.
Courtesy of U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres office

Used syringes and needles lay uncapped, littered throughout a one-block stretch of the South Bronx that serves as a haven for drug dealers and users alike. Located in the Hub, one of the borough’s busiest commercial districts, is an open-air drug market operating around the clock — even in broad daylight.

For months, Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres has urged both Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul to turn their attention to the Melrose Avenue section of the Hub, where a drug hotspot has emerged between East 149th Street and East 150th Street.

Torres once again sounded the alarm in a letter to Adams and Hochul on Jan. 11, pressing them to permanently dismantle the open-air drug market, which he says is having a resurgence.

“What the Bronx needs is not a short-term band-aid but a long-term solution to the crisis in the Hub,” Torres said in the letter.

The borough faces the highest rate of overdose deaths in New York City, according to the Department of Health.

The Bronx saw 78 fatalities per 100,000 residents in 2023, more than twice that of Staten Island, which ranks in second place. Those in the South Bronx made up a disproportionate share of overdose deaths.

Torres, joined by community leaders, intensified his calls for a drug market shutdown during a Jan. 13 press conference at the Third Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) office.

“The Mayor would never tolerate an open-air drug market outside Gracie Mansion,” Torres said during the press conference. “The people of the Bronx are entitled to the same standard of public safety and quality of life as everyone else is.”

Congressman Ritchie Torres (center) walks through the Hub, as he looks to address the community’s concerns about drug markets and public safety. Courtesy of U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres office

He was joined by Pedro Suarez, executive director of the Third Avenue BID, and Javier Medina, executive director of the Southern Boulevard BID. Medina previously served as the director of ground operations at the Third Avenue BID.

“In the seven years that I’ve been here, the team has reversed upwards of 220 overdoses,” Medina said. “Seventy-six of those I did myself.”

NYPD officers, joined by sanitation and health department workers, visited the Hub in both October and November 2024 to address the disarray and provide resources to those in need, according to a New York Post report. Despite dozens of arrests and referrals to homeless shelters, the open-air drug market persists to this day.

“What we deserve and demand is not a temporary relocation of the drug users and dealers, but a permanent removal of the open-air drug market itself,” Torres said in his letter. “[It] has become a deepening rot at the commercial core of the South Bronx.”

As part of his proposed solution, the congressman called for a crackdown on repeat drug dealers, whom he accused of fueling markets like the one in the Hub. Torres also urged the State to amend bail and discovery laws to ensure habitual offenders remain behind bars.

He called on the State to grant the Mayor expanded authority to place those with severe mental illness and drug addiction into involuntary care.

“There is nothing compassionate or progressive about allowing those with severe mental illness and chemical addiction to languish in the streets of New York,” Torres said in his letter.

Attempting to force the commitment and treatment of individuals with mental illness has been a contentious issue in New York since 1987 when the State Supreme Court ruled against the involuntary hospitalization and treatment of a homeless woman under the Koch administration.

Adams advocated for relaxed guidelines to force people into treatment in 2022 and recently lobbied Hochul to codify those into law.

“A systematic solution requires not only enforcing the law but also amending it to the extent that the law itself is failing the People of New York,” Torres said in the letter.