Confused NYPD Abandons East Village E-Bike Raid

Cops abandoned a hastily planned raid of a makeshift e-bike parking lot used by hundreds of delivery workers on Wednesday morning – prompting community leaders to call on Mayor Mamdani to create an infrastructure at the ad-hoc worker hub.

“We have an administration that says one thing about immigrants and the dignity of workers and then we have a police department that is left over from the last administration that seems to be totally different,” Community Board 3 District Manager Susan Stetzer told Streetsblog.

When Streetsblog arrived at 11th Street and First Avenue at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, workers had already re-organized the hundreds of bikes to be mostly on the south side of the block and out of the taxi relief areas in front of the Madina Masjid Islamic Council of America. 

Cops from the local precinct showed up at around 9 a.m. The commanding officer of the Ninth Precinct, Deputy Inspector Pamela Jeronimo, claimed that the bikes parked neatly on the street in what would otherwise be space used by car drivers for the same purpose were in violation of “the law.”

“If they’re not on a bike rack, then that’s outside of the law. [Bikes] are blocking parking for cars,” she said. “These are violations. It’s just the way the law is written, I didn’t write it.” 

There is actually nothing in the city’s vehicle and traffic code that prohibits bike users from parking against the curb in un-metered spots. Mopeds and scooters are allowed to park at an angle to the curb, in the same way the workers are parking their e-bikes.

When asked by Streetsblog why New Yorkers are able to park their private cars, but not their bikes, on the street for free, NYPD on the scene doubled down. 

“You can’t store personal property on the street,” said Matt Russo, a managing attorney at the NYPD. “A bike is personal property and a car is not.” (You might want to let that sink in for a second.)

One passerby thought of it differently. 

“I order delivery, these people have every right to be there, it’s never bothered me,” said Willaim Kelly, who lives near the delivery worker hub. “They’re both modes of transport, they [cops] should be encouraging people to use bikes and not drive cars.”

The area looked clean and orderly, thanks to weekly cleanups organized by the nearby community organization, Cafewal. The bike parking in the area isn’t concentrated to just that block; clusters of bikes spill over to the sidewalk on First Avenue, further west on 11th Street adjacent to a Citi Bike dock and further east in some free on-street parking for cars, but are mostly organized. 

For around 45 minutes, the cops from the Ninth Precinct walked around looking at bikes and handed out fliers with directions for what to do if a bike is seized. Someone from the mayor’s office showed up who would not provide a name to Streetsblog or say why he was there, and suddenly, the officers abandoned the mission, got into their cars and left. 

“I don’t think we’re doing any enforcement,” said Russo when Streetsblog asked why they were leaving without taking the bikes the officers said were parked illegally. “While this condition isn’t perfect, I think it’s in okay shape.”

The area exists as an informal hub for the community of delivery workers of African descent who make deliveries in the East Village. Most live outside the area and choose to park their bikes with their peers so they don’t get stolen. The app companies that employ these men as private-contractors are not required to provide them with bike storage, charging, or even spots to take breaks.

“What company gets to use the city streets to operate their business?” said Council Member Harvey Epstein (D-East Village) of the delivery app companies like DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub. “We think the burden’s on the app companies to find indoor locations for bikes to be placed. We’re working on legislative and policy solutions along with the mayor’s office to force those companies to take responsibility for the workers who are on the streets who have no place to go during the day and no place to put their bikes.”

Tensions in the neighborhood have been high over the bike parking. During the previous administration, a simple rage-bait article from the New York Post could get the NYPD to raid the area and take delivery workers’ bikes.

Back in March, Streetsblog reported that the Mamdani administration had changed that approach. Instead of sending the NYPD in response to the Post labelling the area a “junkyard,” it sent DSNY to help clean up— a welcome change, the advocates said at the time. 

Epstein said he is happy that no bikes were taken and said the anticlimactic result of the raid can be attributed to the community coming together to help workers organize the bikes and keep the area clean.

“We have worked hard to do an education campaign,” he said. “I think the education campaign was successful.”

But still it doesn’t feel like the administration is looking for a real solution, Stetzer, the district manager said.

“The only work the city is doing right now is to figure out the enforcement. I don’t see anyone doing anything or talking to us about how to create infrastructure so that all this can be done legally and so the neighborhood doesn’t have to bear the burden,” she said.

Mayor Mamdani’s preliminary budget allocated $25 million to build secure bike parking in the city. DOT recently selected California-based Tranzito to build an initial 500 secure structures over the next five years, which the delivery workers would be able to use for a fee.

Those who showed up on Wednesday to observe and warn workers of the impending raid said they were confused about what the workers were supposed to do with their bikes, and that the NYPD had been teasing a raid all month and nothing happened. 

“We ask if they can park here, but they don’t answer clearly,” said Diamy, who works at Cafewal and informed workers via Whatsapp group about the NYPD’s plans, and who didn’t want his last name published. Diamy said the bike parking has been a conflict since he started at Cafewal in 2024. He said the police first wanted to do the raid on Oct. 7, then they pushed it to Oct. 21, at which point some workers moved their bikes to racks in Union Square, where some were stolen. 

The NYPD confirmed this timeline and told Streetsblog through a spokesperson that it “worked with advocates and local leaders to inform them of this enforcement action and is responding to the complaints from the community.” 

Others who showed up to help workers saw the morning’s events as a sign that the community wants to find a solution to the parking issue that won’t hurt workers.

“There is definitely a stress on the block that people recognize but people are also very supportive of the workers,” said Shawn Garcia, a CB3 member and the executive director of Earth Matter. “Sometimes the narrative that is put out there is that the community is up in arms about it, but I think that’s not the case. It’s more nuanced than that.”

Still, landlords from nearby buildings on First Avenue are organizing a press conference on Thursday at noon at 180 First Ave. regarding the “ongoing concerns about bicycles and delivery workers congregating on East 11th Street,” according to an email sent to tenants in the area obtained by Streetsblog.