When Nimby Met Maga

Liberals on the Upper West Side wanted to oust hundreds of homeless men from a local hotel. Then Tucker Carlson took up their cause.

- By Miriam Elder

BY THE TIME Alison Morpurgo heard that 283 homeless men would be moving into the Lucerne Hotel, just a few blocks from her apartment on the Upper West Side, she was already riled up.

It was late July, and Morpurgo was ven­turing outside after isolating for months with her two teenage kids—walks in the park, the occasional coffee with a friend. “It was like, Wow, this is amazing. We’re outside again,” she recalled. The Upper West Side, where the median income is almost twice the citywide average, wears its liberal­ ism like a badge of honor, and at the start of the pandemic, gestures of compassion abounded. Cozy Italian restaurants turned into grocery stores selling essential items. People put up signs offering help to those in need. A local student who delivered food to the elderly was invited to appear on Good Morning America.

But as the neighborhood came back to life, things felt … different. Amid the out­ door restaurants and the couples ambling down Broadway, Morpurgo saw discarded needles on the sidewalk and people passed out on benches. “The streets were starting to feel a little bit less safe,” she said. “We just didn’t know what was going on.” Everyone around her seemed to be abandoning the neighborhood. The streets were filled with moving trucks; many residents who had fled during the pandemic to second homes in Connecticut and the Hamptons decided to leave for good.