Prostitution Is Booming In Mamdani’s New York City

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani admires former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s soft stance on prostitution, and the city is now feeling the consequences.

Prostitution-related arrests along Queens’ notorious Roosevelt Avenue have fallen sharply, and local leaders say the sex trade there is flourishing. A 40-year-old Manhattan man identified only as John told the New York Post he gladly rides the subway out to the stretch known as the “Market of Sweethearts” because prices are low and police, in his telling, can do little to stop it. Along the corridor, sex workers reportedly solicit passersby openly. New York repealed its law prohibiting loitering for the purpose of prostitution in February 2021.

Police made 193 prostitution-related arrests along Roosevelt Avenue through September 13, compared with 468 during the same period last year, a decline of nearly 59%, according to NYPD figures reported by the Post.

The decline follows an enforcement crackdown under former Mayor Eric Adams. In a June 2025 update, City Hall reported that prostitution-related arrests along the corridor had increased 477.8% compared with the same period a year earlier, while reported sex crimes had fallen 52.5%. Operation Restore Roosevelt, launched in October 2024, had resulted in 397 prostitution-related arrests by that update.

Former New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa warned before the election that Mamdani would likely make the crisis worse. As a state assemblyman, Mamdani supported Cecilia’s Law, legislation that would decriminalize consensual adult prostitution.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani said he backed former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s approach, under which the NYPD scaled back prostitution arrests and the city offered social services to sex workers. In de Blasio’s final months in office, his administration pushed to decriminalize sex work statewide.

At the time, another of Mamdani’s mayoral rivals, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, argued that de Blasio’s approach had eroded the city’s quality of life.

“Not enforcing a law is effectively repealing a law,” Cuomo said. “We saw many laws simply not enforced during de Blasio’s time in office and quality of life dipped. This issue is particularly dangerous because, along with the poor people swept into this life who are hurt and abused, it empowers gangs, organized crime and other criminal enterprises and entire neighborhoods suffer. Anyone who remembers the Bad Old Days of Times Square does not want to go back and that is exactly what will happen if this comes to pass.”

Advocates of decriminalization contend that criminal penalties drive sex work into the shadows, cutting into prostitutes’ earnings and leaving them easier to exploit.

A City Hall spokesman told the Post that Mamdani is working with neighborhood groups and residents on the corridor and combining enforcement with services for victims.

Mamdani’s office did not respond to the Daily Wire’s request for comment.

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