Exclusive | NYC refuses to tear down trash-filled encampments outside the Intrepid earning Mamdani rave reviews from homeless

A sprawling homeless encampment near the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan has been vexing business owners and passersby for months — but the city is effectively running a valet trash service for its rough-sleeping residents rather than clearing the eyesore.The steadily growing shantytowns — haphazardly strewn with all manner of bicycles, electronics and garbage — have taken over sizable portions of West 45th and 46th Streets along Twelfth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, between the museum parking lot and an Amazon warehouse.“You see how it looks? How dirty it is? How can you eat food and the next corner is smelly, dirty, nasty, crusty, disgusting?” a food cart owner at the corner of Twelfth Avenue and West 46th Street told The Post, adding that the campsite has been chipping away at his business.He said despite calling 911 and 311 “a million times,” the city has never dealt with the encampment itself, only sending Department of Sanitation workers out to clear the trash.“They take the garbage only, but nobody can move anyone, even 911,” the cart owner said, noting he’s had to move further down the block just to keep afloat, which, paradoxically, places him further away from the deluge of tourists entering or exiting the museum.Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s hands-off approach, however, is earning him rave reviews from the encampment’s occupants.“Mamdani is awesome.He, like, did a whole paradigm shift on homelessness and care,” said Markus C., who lives in an encampment on West 40th Street but visits the 46th Street shantytown roughly twice a week.He said he loves Mamdani, and how the administration treats the Big Apple homeless community, noting it’s the first time he feels like someone cared about his plight.“Before, when the police were doing their sweeps, the cleanups and site checks, there was a lot of pressure,” Markus, who’s been on the streets for a year and a half, said of the tactics under former Mayor Eric Adams.Since Mamdani got into o...