Riverside Drive Car Break-Ins Spike Amid Coronavirus Crisis: Cops

UPTOWN, MANHATTAN — For Washington Heights resident Peter Doherty, daily dog walks during the coronavirus pandemic have come with another new normal — sidewalks littered in shattered glass from smashed-in car windows.

Doherty, who lives near West 156th Street and Broadway, is one of at least two residents who has noticed what turns out to be a near-double increase of car break-ins near the Harlem-Washington Heights border.

Every few days, as many as six parked cars near his route around Trinity Church Cemetery have had their passenger side windows smashed, Doherty said, a trend that seems to have become more frequent during the coronavirus stay-at-home order.

"I’ve seen it on and off for the last four or five weeks," Doherty told Patch. "[Before] it might have been once in a while, but definitely since COVID has been around it's been more frequent for sure."

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Glass litters the sidewalk on Riverside Drive. (Submitted by reader).

Specifically on Riverside Drive, police tell Patch that there have been 16 car break-in burglaries so far this year between West 133rd and 155th streets, compared to just nine in the same period in 2019.

Thirteen of the 16 break-ins fall under petit larceny, meaning the thieves didn't steal anything worth $1,000 or more. Three were grand larceny charges, police said.

And although Doherty says he's seen the same shattered glass left on the street for days at a time, police say local officers are aware of the problem.

"The Commanding Officer of the 30th Precinct is aware of the condition and is working to address it," Det. Sophia Mason, an NYPD spokesperson, told Patch. "Both patrol and plain clothes units are being deployed to areas of concern and during hours when the crime is being committed."

And it appears thieves aren't just breaking into windows, but stealing cars, too.

In West Harlem's 30th Precinct, there have been 17 car thefts so far this year compared to just five in the same time period last year. Car thefts have also spiked in Washington Heights' 33rd Precinct, doubling from eight to 16, according to NYPD data.

Riverside Drive. (Submitted by reader).

Doherty, who said he's also noticed smashed windows on Broadway, West 155th and 153rd, said the increase in break-ins has made him more nervous walking around the neighborhood.

"Walking the dog I might have to go out late at night or early in the morning, I might be afraid of me getting caught up in that," he said.

The spike is part of an increase in certain crimes that some have credited to the shelter-in-place order during the coronavirus, which has shutdown the city's businesses and made for relatively desolate streets.

While some crime rates have gone down in Northern Manhattan so far this year, burglaries, robberies and car theft, meaning when the car isn't just broken into, but stolen, have all increased.

The biggest jump has been in car thefts. There were 148 thefts so far this year in all of Northern Manhattan compared to just 68 stolen cars in the same period last year, according to police data.

Overall crime rates for Northern Manhattan are up 4 percent this year.

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