Bragg Brushes Up in Washington Square as Harm Reduction Groups Outpace Police Efforts

As New York’s signature squares become unwilling stages for addiction, the city weighs artful gestures against hard policy questions in its bid to reclaim public space.

It is not every day that Manhattan’s district attorney, better known for legal briefs than watercolours, is seen painting beneath the groaning sycamores of Washington Square Park. Yet there was Alvin Bragg this week, dabbing at a canvas amidst slumped figures and the unmistakable clatter of syringes underfoot, as city workers and police navigated a tableau that has become as familiar as it is dispiriting for New Yorkers. The performance—billed as an “art of healing” workshop—was instantly upstaged when, a few benches away, officers attempted to rouse an unresponsive addict, while outreach workers from the Drug Policy Alliance discreetly distributed free syringes.

The DA’s event is part of an annual, publicly funded summer series intended to foster community resilience in neighbourhoods wracked by gun violence and, more recently, by open-air drug crises. For Mr Bragg, his art class was a “deliberate” bid to reassert civilian uses of a corner that has become notorious as an impromptu shooting gallery. “We want to take back the park,” he insisted, brushing aside critics who suspect art therapy will struggle to compete with the headier enticements on offer.

That view is not universally shared. Trevor Sumner, president of the Washington Square Association, voiced what many in the Village have come to believe: that well-meaning performances by officials, however creative, are an inadequate response to real disorder and pose the risk of “gaslighting” long-frustrated residents. To many, the sight of a district attorney—accused by detractors of being soft on crime—painting trees while addicts nod off nearby, amounts to a pantomime of concern rather than a serious policy intervention.

The reality on the ground is indeed grim. For several years, the northwest corner of Washington Square has served as both de facto social club and operating room for those caught in New York’s opioid grip. Police from the Sixth Precinct continue their Sisyphean struggle, arresting a regular handful of dealers, most of whom return like clockwork, a testament to both the repeatability of the problem and the fragility of enforcement. The city’s approach is further complicated by the presence of harm reduction groups—most notably, the Drug Policy Alliance, flush with $13m and the indirect blessing of George Soros and his philanthropic apparatus—who offer sterile paraphernalia to those in active addiction.

Critics argue that such groups, by refusing to push users toward treatment, merely enable a destructive status quo. “Most people addicted to drugs are addicted for their whole lives,” notes Charles Fane Lehmann of the Manhattan Institute, charging that harm reduction’s patient philosophy too often degenerates into passive acceptance. For city officials, the risk is that compassion for the afflicted degenerates into callousness for everyone else—a subtle but corrosive outcome.

And yet, the palpable presence of nonprofits and police officers alike reflects a dilemma that stretches beyond the five boroughs. Major cities from San Francisco to Philadelphia have wrestled with the same cycle: well-resourced harm reductionists handing out clean supplies with one hand, while police attempt—largely in vain—to remove dealers and users with the other. The United States, with its turbulent history of drug waves, has little evidence that periodic crackdowns alone will make urban parks family-friendly. New York, for all its resources, seems stuck: torn between the ills of over-policing and the perils of laissez-faire drift.

Economically, the blight carries a quiet but pernicious tax. Tourists and local foot traffic alike have dwindled at problem spots, patronage for street vendors sags, and residents are voting with their feet (and dollars), lamenting a sense of lost public safety. Prominent donors fret about property values and prospective tenants, while the informal economy—always quick to exploit regulatory hesitation—adapts its wares and methods.

Public symbolism and policy gaps

All this has left the city’s political class caught between grand gestures and practical realities. While artists and officials gather at Washington Square, the debate over what actually constitutes effective urban renewal grows ever more febrile. New York has flirted with a spectrum of responses, from periodic “sweeps” that clear encampments but solve little, to proposals for safe-injection sites that have attracted both cautious support and vociferous opposition. The current patchwork approach, critics argue, neither deters the underlying business of drug sales nor delivers compelling treatment options for those trapped in addiction’s undertow.

Nationally, America’s cities are laboratories of the possible—each experimenting with variants on harm reduction, treatment, and policing, with, at best, mixed results. Europe’s experience, so often invoked, is hardly a panacea: Portugal’s lauded decriminalisation coincided with both improved outcomes and new challenges, while Switzerland’s rigorous, medicalised heroin provision remains politically unpalatable to most stateside policymakers. New York’s civic debates echo this uncertainty, with prevention advocates, civil libertarians, and neighbourhood groups rarely able to summon a unified front.

If Washington Square Park is a bellwether, the prognosis is worrying. A blend of high-minded rhetoric, visible disorder, and scattershot enforcement signals a city unsure whether it can, or even wants to, excise open-air addiction from its communal life. The calculated symbolism of a DA painting in a public square is unlikely to shift behavioural incentives for dealers, users, or long-suffering residents. The slow, attritional effects—on trust, commerce, and the urban fabric—are mounting.

We reckon that while art is a pleasant enough palliative, it is not a substitute for policy. New York must stake out a clearer, evidence-driven approach—drawing on global best practice, robust treatment capacity, and, perhaps most crucially, a willingness to defend the hard-won status of public spaces. Until then, both the paintbrushes and syringes will remain in uncomfortable proximity, daubing their competing visions onto the city’s most storied landscapes. ■