Workers at a high-end lighting business in Manhattan say a revived West Side homeless encampment has brought a series of frightening confrontations to their doorstep, including an alleged attempt by a woman to set fire to a luxury SUV parked outside.
Bentley Meeker, who owns Bentley Meeker Lighting and Staging on West 45th Street, said the makeshift camp outside his company’s new office began expanding after the business moved in July. By this month, he said, the situation had grown increasingly tense.
“Come September, it started to change into some sort of an aggressive thing,” Meeker said.
According to Meeker, a woman from the encampment tried Thursday to ignite his Mercedes Benz G63, worth about $250,000, by wrapping a T-shirt around one of the SUV’s mirrors and attempting to set it alight with a lighter.
Employees noticed what was happening and intervened before the vehicle caught fire, he said.
Meeker said he reported the episode, and Department of Sanitation crews, assisted by the NYPD, cleared the makeshift shelters directly outside the business on Thursday, according to both Meeker and police.
By Friday, however, people from the camp had already been seen putting up belongings a few blocks away near West 52nd Street and Eleventh Avenue.
Even after the rapid cleanup, Meeker said he remains concerned the group could return to his block. Encampments in the West Side area near the Intrepid Museum have repeatedly disappeared and resurfaced for months, he said.
“Today it seems to be quiet. That happens occasionally but historically they come back,” Meeker said.
Under City Hall policy, outreach teams are required to spend seven days offering shelter placements and social services before a homeless encampment can be removed.
That approach has fueled frustration on the West Side, where residents and business owners say cleared encampments have quickly reappeared nearby, including after removals in July.
“This neighborhood continues to be a critical area of focus for the Department of Homeless Services,” a City Hall spokesperson said. “This administration is focused on connecting New Yorkers to shelter and establishing a pipeline to stable housing.”
Meeker said employees are still afraid to come to work after one was chased with a metal rod, Meeker said.
“What happened is, not only have they not solved the problem, but the problem is getting dangerous now,” Meeker said.
He also said another employee nearly drove over a man sleeping beneath a company truck after someone tied a tarp to the vehicle to create a makeshift home.
Luckily the worker noticed the tarp before pulling away, Meeker said.
“The fact that he stopped and got out to look what was going on prevented him from running over the guy sleeping underneath the truck,” Meeker said.
The company employs about 100 full time workers, including designers, artists and theater professionals.
“I want my employees to have a safe place to work,” he said. “It’s one thing for me to be able to provide my employees with a safe space, but the city of New York should be able to provide them with a safe street.”
