Public Safety & Neighborhood Advocacy
Public safety has been central to our work since 1994.
Relationships built over years
We are the designated Community Partner of the NYPD 13th Precinct’s Neighborhood Coordination Officers and maintain close relationships with police, City agencies and elected officials.
We bring neighbors’ concerns directly to them, share safety information, and pursue solutions to problems involving construction, noise, sanitation and the use of our streets and sidewalks. Arlene Harrison’s longstanding connections with the precinct and Emergency Service officers are part of that neighborhood network.
Construction and street conditions
A construction entrance, blocked sightline or damaged streetscape can involve several responsible parties. The Block Association brings those concerns to the relevant project teams, agencies and officials, then uses its newsletters to keep neighbors informed about the response.
At 38 Gramercy Park North, meetings and correspondence dealt with working conditions and effects on nearby homes. In January 2026 we reported barriers, warning signs and a convex mirror at the pedestrian crossing.
Read a neighborhood advocacy recordConnecting neighbors and the precinct
From our earliest days in 1994 establishing an emergency two-way radio network for residential doormen around the Park, our partnership with the 13th Precinct has focused on making sure neighbors, building staffs, and officers know one another firsthand. Over the years, the Block Association has provided equipment for precinct bicycle patrols, shared timely crime-prevention briefings, organized security training for building staffs, hosted stationhouse visits for neighborhood children and a joint safety fair at JHS 104, and supported the annual National Night Out gathering.
Explore the precinct partnershipSupport for the people who respond
Following September 11, 2001, neighbors, restaurants, congregations, and building staffs from roughly fifty buildings worked through the 13th Precinct, Calvary Church, and the Olive Leaf Wholeness Center at Kenmore Hall to provide hot meals, supplies, and places to rest for rescue and recovery workers. The relationships formed during those months have continued ever since—through holiday meals for NYPD Emergency Service Unit personnel, a neighborhood welcome-home dinner after the 2010 Haiti earthquake rescue mission, and meals for local police commands during the 2020 pandemic, all made possible by residents, local restaurants, and neighborhood partners.
Read about meals and thanks for first respondersRemembering together
Families, officers and neighbors gather to remember those lost in service. The Block Association helps organize these occasions with the people and institutions involved.
These have included remembrance evenings at the National Arts Club and memorial luncheons after the funerals of Detectives Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora in 2022. Annual September 11 gatherings connect the neighborhood’s relief work with continuing relationships and shared memory.
Explore the remembrance stories