Queens’ ‘Market of Sweethearts’ activists say sex trade has worsened since Mamdani took office

Community leaders staged a rally and march on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights to draw attention to ongoing prostitution and alleged human-trafficking activity along a corridor local media call the "Market of Sweethearts." Protesters say the situation has deteriorated since Zohran Mamdani became mayor in January.

About two dozen activists gathered outside locations they identified as brothels, ringing bells and chanting "Shut it down!" and "Stop Prostitution!" The march moved down the corridor, stopping at specific commercial buildings where organizers said illicit sexual activity occurs.

Former state Sen. Hiram Monserrate, now a local Democratic district leader, helped lead the rally and criticized the city's current approach. Rosa Sanchez of the community organization Restore Roosevelt Avenue said residents have "had enough" and described sex workers and solicitation happening "24 hours around the clock."

Organizers and neighborhood residents told the New York Post they regularly encounter female sex workers soliciting customers, including accounts of activity between parked cars. They blamed a lack of enforcement for allowing the market to re-emerge and called for nuisance-abatement actions against landlords who rent to pimps.

Activists pointed to Operation Restore Roosevelt, a previous multiagency law-enforcement and quality-of-life initiative supported by the prior administration and state troopers, as a period when conditions improved. They say those efforts have ended and that public-safety conditions have since declined.

Post has run multiple reports in recent years documenting crime, drug-peddling and illegal vending along the Roosevelt Avenue corridor, which stretches roughly two miles through Jackson Heights, Corona and adjacent neighborhoods. Organizers used those prior stories as background for their demands for renewed enforcement.

Rally participants want city and state leadership to: enforce prostitution and nuisance-abatement laws, investigate landlords allegedly enabling illegal activity, and reintroduce coordinated enforcement along the corridor. They asked both the mayor and the governor to visit the neighborhood and see conditions firsthand.

At the time of the protest, the NYPD had not provided corridor-specific arrest figures and city or state officials had not issued an on-the-record response. Without official enforcement data or a public statement, the chronology of enforcement actions and the scale of the alleged resurgence remain based on residents' reports and activist accounts.

Residents and activists in Jackson Heights and Corona say street prostitution and brothels on Roosevelt Avenue have become more visible and brazen since the change in city administration. They are pressing local and state leaders for renewed, coordinated action and for nuisance-abatement steps against properties they say facilitate the activity.