Exit the Park the same way you entered and continued down Avenue B until you reach the intersection with Second Street.

20.

During the late 1970s and early '80s, this intersection probably saw more heroin retailing than any other spot on earth. The scene at the time was unworldly, a Casbah gone mad: hundreds of bedraggled addicts milled around the sidewalks and streets, an eerie murmuring filled the air, sellers called out their wares - "China White!" "Mr. T!" "Black Sunday!" "Poison Rubber!" - and steerers kept the beholden, cattlelike junkies in lines with the smack of a stick.

This was a full-service center. Works - used needles, used syringes, used cotton, a dirty spoon - could be rented. Space could be had in a nearby shooting gallery, which could be a vacant apartment, unoccupied basement, busted storefront, or unusable stairwell in any of the abandoned buildings that often outnumbered the occupied structures on surrounding blocks. The more affluent lined up in their cars, creating traffic jams and gridlock on the weekend nights, and made transactions from the comfort of their front seat.

On January 17, 1984, the NYPD initiated Operation Pressure Point, a clampdown the sent over 200 cops into the Lower East Side and East Village. Operations Pressure Point called for massive sweeps followed by intense foot patrols and the stationing of cops on almost every corner. In three months over 3000 arrests had been made, and though most were for minor violations, the police claimed they had disrupted business and sent the dealers scurrying. Others said they had merely moved inside or downtown or over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn. Either way, the boom times at Avenue B and Second Street were over.