Where the Cameras Are the Eyes

By GREGORY BEYER

LIKE many residents of the

Elliott-Chelsea Houses, a public housing project in Chelsea, Phyllis Gonzalez tries whenever possible to stay within the gaze of the security cameras posted in the complex’s seven high-rise buildings.

Ms. Gonzalez, 61, who has congestive heart failure, uses a motorized wheelchair, and on Tuesday she could be found on tenant patrol duty near the front door of her 21-story building, not far from a camera mounted in the building’s corner. As she kept an eye on passing tenants, she recalled some of the ugly scenes she has witnessed. “I sat here and watched a kid get kicked in the face,” she said matter-of-factly. “They were ripping his earring out of his ear.” She called the police and was told that nothing could be done unless the young man came forward. She understood, but felt frustrated that the attacker had escaped.

In this complex, bounded by West 25th and 26th Streets and Ninth and 10th Avenues, a fear of retaliation keeps some victims from reporting crimes against them. “Don’t see nothing, don’t say nothing,” said a man asking strangers for money outside the entrance to the building. That attitude prompted Ms. Gonzalez to wonder aloud: “So, what is the use of the cameras?”

Still, many of the project’s nearly 2,400 residents are so unsettled by a spate of nonfatal shootings and muggings over the summer that they were heartened to learn that the city will spend $500,000 to install additional security cameras at both Elliott-Chelsea and Fulton Houses, which is about seven blocks to the south. “These cameras are literally eyes on the street,” said Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker, who obtained the money.

In May, shots were fired outside Elliott-Chelsea Houses, and on July 16, a camera captured an image of a man shooting two residents near a playground in front of one of the buildings.

The 10th Police Precinct, which includes Elliott-Chelsea, has seen a rise in murders, rapes, robberies and assaults this year, according to the authorities. And neighborhood advocates said night clubs bordering the projects are increasingly a factor in crimes at Elliott-Chelsea, with clubgoers, often intoxicated, committing them.

Currently, the buildings are equipped with 94 cameras, said Howard Marder, a spokesman for the New York City Housing Authority. But the cameras, which were installed in 2006, leave what Ms. Gonzalez and other residents refer to as “dead spots”: parking lots, playgrounds, maintenance ramps and other areas outside the cameras’ scope. Too often, residents say, these places become the province of drug deals, pit bull fights and other suspicious activity.

One of Ms. Gonzalez’s priorities for a camera is a desolate hallway with pale yellow walls leading from a staircase to the exit of her building. The hallway, she said, which makes many jagged turns that result in minimal visibility, is a favorite location of drug dealers and, in winter, homeless people seeking shelter. “If you’re caught down there, no one can tell,” Ms. Gonzalez said.