Twelve blocks. That's how long the homeless encampment on Manhattan's West Side now stretches — from the Intrepid Museum to the Jacob Javits Center — complete with drug use, prostitution, tented homes, and illegal utility connections tapped from city infrastructure.

This is Mayor Zohran Mamdani's New York.

Mamdani, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, halted encampment sweeps upon taking office in January. In their place, he instituted what his administration calls a "revised removal policy" — a seven-day waiting period during which outreach workers attempt to connect residents with services before any clearing can begin. The NYPD hasn't been authorized to touch the site.

"The NYPD has not been given the green light to clean this encampment up, but we are ready to do so," an NYPD spokesperson told reporters. Ready, willing, and handcuffed by City Hall.

Mamdani himself acknowledged the encampment's existence with all the urgency of a man scheduling a dentist appointment. "This site has been noticed and it will be cleared," the mayor said. "As with any site once we notice there is seven days until the point of clearing." Noticed. Seven days. Then presumably another seven days after that, given how well the policy has worked so far.

Residents aren't impressed. One area resident who asked to go by Joan G. for anonymity reasons — understandable when your neighborhood has become an open-air drug market — called the situation "embarrassing." Joe the Dog Man, a construction-site security guard who works the area daily, was more direct: "They gotta clean them up, they gotta keep on top of them. This seven-day stuff is really not working."

Joe described what he sees every day in terms that would've been unthinkable for midtown Manhattan a decade ago. "It's terrible. Drugs, prostitution, and everything else in between."

The comparison to Los Angeles's notorious Skid Row — a permanent feature of downtown LA that every politician promises to address and none ever do is now not so unthinkable. Manhattan's historic Bowery served that function for generations before gentrification pushed it out. Now, under socialist governance, the city is building a brand-new one in the shadow of a world-class convention center.

Even Spencer Pratt, who ran for mayor of Los Angeles on the promise of cleaning up LA's skid row, weighed in with a observation that applies equally to both coasts: "They're not homeless. They're drug addicts... they don't want rules."

That's the part the "revised removal policy" refuses to acknowledge. You can send all the outreach workers you want during your mandatory seven-day cooling period. The people living in a 12-block encampment in midtown Manhattan aren't waiting for a pamphlet about transitional housing.

The Bowery took decades of private investment and market forces to clean up. Mamdani's building its replacement in months — for free.