UNSAVORY VISITORS, CREEPING BACK AFTER A 10-YEAR HIATUS

Washington Heights/Inwood

The grandmother in the dark apartment darted to the window. "Come
here!" she said excitedly. "Look at this one!"

Less than 10 feet outside her building, a man with a shaved head was
bending over a scrawny sapling and rummaging in the grass at its base.
When he straightened up, he held a small plastic bag in his hands.

"I think today it's marijuana," the woman said. "Marijuana or crack.
They keep it at the bottom of the tree. When somebody's coming to buy,
they pick it up from there."

How often did this happen? "Every 10 minutes," she replied. Indeed,
over the next half-hour, a visitor witnessed two more visits to the
tree.

These events unfolded on Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights. Out of
fear of reprisal, the apartment's occupant spoke on the condition that
she not be identified. But stories like hers are heard with increasing
frequency in Upper Manhattan, where residents say that open drug
trafficking is returning after a decade of relative
invisibility.

"There's more visibility of narcotics sales in the street," said City
Councilman Miguel Martinez, whose district covers half of Upper
Manhattan. "We've heard a lot, and we've seen it." His constituents
have reported finding bags of drugs stashed in mailboxes and sitting
atop the tires of parked cars. He has seen drug dealers hanging out at
night on the sidewalk in front of his office. "I'm embarrassed," he
said, "because I have a public office here, and it's becoming a
shelter for drug dealers."

No one is suggesting that Washington Heights is as drug-ridden as it
was in the 1980's, when the neighborhood was a center of the city's
crack cocaine trade. These days, the drug most often sold in
Washington Heights is said to be marijuana, and the violence
associated with the trade is far less than it was. There have been 15
reported homicides in Inwood and Washington Heights this year; in
1986, the precinct that covered Washington Heights and part of Inwood
reported 72 killings.

Still, residents worry that the neighborhood could slide back. They
point to a spate of recent violence, including at least three killings
in Upper Manhattan since September. Two weeks ago, police arrested 21
people in Inwood, charging them with involvement in drug rings selling
cocaine and marijuana; many people see the arrests as evidence that
the drug trade is back in the open.

At a community meeting last week, organized by State Senator Eric T.
Schneiderman, residents expressed bafflement that the police could not
stop crimes taking place in plain sight. When Mr. Schneiderman
restated one woman's question for clarity by saying, "If kids in the
neighborhood know who's selling drugs, how come it's so hard for the
Police Department?" he was greeted with applause.

Law-enforcement officials cite two reasons the recent rise in crime is
hard to fight. One is that marijuana offenses are hard to prosecute
because most people arrested for selling marijuana are charged with
misdemeanors and don't face jail time. In addition, the 34rd and 33th
Police Precincts, which cover Inwood and most of Washington Heights,
have together lost about 60 officers, or 16 percent of their force,
since 2002, according to Martin Collins, district manager of Community
Board 12. (A Police Department spokesman would not confirm these
numbers, and a request to speak with the 33rd Precinct's commanding
officer was not granted.) The cuts parallel, but exceed, wider
reductions in the city's police force.

In her rocking chair, the woman on Audubon Avenue kept her eye fixed
on the window. "The police, they try," she said. "Sometimes they take
them into court. But the next day, you see them on the street."