GRAMERCY — The number of people arrested for public lewdness has shot up nearly threefold in Gramercy — mostly due to people exposing themselves on the subway and at least three instances of couples having sex in public within the past two months, according to the NYPD.
Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 17, there were 20 arrests for public lewdness at the 13th Precinct — which covers Union Square, Flatiron, Stuyvesant Town, Gramercy and Kips Bay — compared to just eight arrests for those crimes during the same time period last year, NYPD data shows.
It bucks a citywide downward trend in public lewdness, with arrest numbers falling from 610 last year to 513 this year.
The precinct's commanding officer Brendan Timoney declined to provide a specific breakdown of incidents from this year, but said the subway exposures accounted for most of the arrests.
But several of the public lewdness arrests at the precinct in recent months have involved people having sex in public or semi-public places, including at least three such crimes in just the last two months.
On Oct. 21, a 25-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman were arrested after officers caught them having sex under a blanket at the corner of Irving Place and 14th Street shortly before 7 a.m., according to a police report.
During their arrest, it took five officers to subdue the fully naked man who swung at them and tried to bite one officer on the ankle, according to a criminal complaint from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
Both were charged with public lewdness and the man was slapped with an additional charge for resisting arrest.
The man pleaded guilty to the resisting arrest charge and took a seven-day jail sentence, while a judge released the woman without bail and ordered her to return to court on Dec. 17, court records show.
In an Oct. 23 case, officers found a 41-year-old woman and a 29-year-old man trespassing in the stairwell of the Strauss Houses public housing complex at 344 E. 28th St. with their genitals exposed, police said.
Police managed to handcuff the woman without incident, but when they tried to arrest the man he began to flail before falling to the ground with his pants down and kicking at the officers, according to a police report.
The two were issued summonses for public lewdness and trespassing. The man received an additional charge for resisting arrest, police said.
In a more recent incident, a 50-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman were caught having sex on the sidewalk of East 17th Street, between First and Second avenues, at 11:16 a.m. on Nov. 13, according to authorities.
Public lewdness, a misdemeanor, covers crimes in which the perpetrator intentionally exposes themselves or commits any other lewd act either in public or in a private setting in which he or she intends to be observed by the public.
Karen Lee, director of the Kips Bay Neighborhood Association, suggested an increase in homelessness in the area as a possible reason for the spike in numbers.
"I think it's safe to tie arrests to the larger problems the neighborhood is facing," Lee said.
"For some reason, in the last year there has been an amazing increase in the homeless population in the neighborhood. We’ve had a lot of trouble in the last year and a half, and the 13th Precinct has been very supportive."
But for longtime Gramercy resident Dorothy Gorgiulo, who described the area around her home at Second Avenue and East 21st Street as quiet and safe, the numbers came as a surprise.
"I've never witnessed behavior like that around here," said Gorgiulo, who's lived in the neighborhood for 50 years. "This is a wonderful area."
