{"id":833568,"date":"2026-05-31T01:57:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/833568\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T01:57:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T01:57:33","slug":"blakeman-calls-nyc-influencer-joe-sweeny-and-nick-shirley-patriots-for-pushing-canal-street-cleanup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/833568\/","title":{"rendered":"Blakeman calls NYC influencer Joe Sweeny and Nick Shirley\u00a0‘patriots’ for pushing Canal Street ‘cleanup’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman joined independent journalist Nick Shirley and social media influencer Joe Sweeny<\/a> on beleaguered Canal Street Saturday to show solidarity for locals and business owners plagued by illegal street vendors, <\/a>drug use and rampant crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a deterioration in the last six months of the quality of life in this community\u2019s safety,\u201d said Blakeman, who vowed to be much tougher on crime than Gov. Kathy Hochul if he defeats her in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople defecating and urinating in the streets; \u2026 peddlers without licenses are all over the place, peddling counterfeit goods.\u00a0It\u2019s a situation that needs to be cleaned up, and [Mayor] Zohran Mamdani won\u2019t do it unless he\u2019s forced to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman visited Canal Street in Lower Manhattan Saturday to show solidarity for neighborhood residents and business owners plagued by illegal street vendors, drug use and rampant other crime. Lone Pine Press for NY Post<\/p>\n

The trio called on Mamdani and Hochul to clean up the increasingly seedy Manhattan strip. The Nassau County executive called Sweeny and Shirley \u201cpatriots\u201d for hosting the rally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shirley and Sweeny later joined a group of volunteers for a clean-up effort \u2014 painting over a slew of storefronts and a nearby Broadway building defaced by graffiti.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis stuff shouldn\u2019t be happening here,\u201d Shirley said.\u00a0\u201cThis is one of the nicest spots of New York City. We shouldn\u2019t allow our streets to look like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweeny, a fellow conservative who is considering running for mayor in 2029, insisted the cleanup and rally isn\u2019t about politics.<\/p>\n

Joe Sweeny, a lawyer and social media personality, teamed up with Nick Shirley to remove graffiti along Canal Street. Lone Pine Press for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Mamdani or Hochul, or anyone from the left wanted to come down here and help out, they\u2019ve got an open invitation,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is about clean and safe communities. \u201c\u2029<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a right thing; that\u2019s not a left thing; that\u2019s not a conservative thing. It\u2019s not a liberal thing. I think this is something that the spectrum of folks can come out and support, and I frankly wish that they would.\u201d<\/p>\n

YouTuber Nick Shirley and social media influencer Joe Sweeny where they called on NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani to clean up Canal Street. Lone Pine Press for NY Post<\/p>\n

Canal Street has become a magnet for illegal migrants selling counterfeit goods on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

Despite crackdown efforts <\/a>by federal immigration officers and other law enforcement last year, the illegals continued to turn and the situation has gotten worse since Mamdani was sworn in as mayor in January, according to critics.<\/p>\n

There were no sign of illegal street merchants during the two-hour rally and cleanup after an NYPD cleanup earlier in the week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman joined independent journalist Nick Shirley and social media influencer Joe Sweeny on beleaguered…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":833569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,19607,22807,341824,50135,16090,78797,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,10435,5301],"class_list":["post-833568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-broadway","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-cleaning-services","tag-graffiti","tag-illegal-immigrants","tag-lower-manhattan","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa","tag-vendors","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116666711806916665","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}