Trash, littering, illicit activities, drug dealing, urinating, etc: NEED TO BE ADDRESSED AND HALTED. Totally not acceptable.
Random comments about "threatening" street vendors (the majority of whom seem to be extremely elderly men over the age of 65) on 73rd, tacky ethnic decorations, being supposedly consistently spat on and coughed at, limiting store hours to your liking: I'm not so sure how productive or valid these are in terms of complaints and battles.
Welcome to NYC, folks. There's always Greendale, Wisconsin if you want it to be tailor-made to your liking. That's my home-town and I left it because everything was too perfect--the stores close at 8pm promptly, everyone's lawn is perfectly mowed, almost everyone looks and acts the same and the sidewalk is clean enough to eat off of.
Speaking of the very threatening and hateful street vendors that are mentioned, I notice that some of the elderly men physically haul their street carts with much difficulty. One of the men hauls it up 73rd street every early afternoon and it takes him so long to get his cart there that it's hard to watch. He has to take long rests. I once bought an incense holder from him and asked him why he does it every day; he said he needs it to pay his room share rent because no one will hire him because he's so old. He's not an illegal immigrant, just a green card holder who apparently left a very poor village in Bangladesh. He was so horribly threatening to me that at the end of our conversation, he gave me free beads (like rosary or something). So remember that some of these people are just trying to make a living. By some turn of fate, we were born into situations where we are coop share-holders and have time, money and ability to post on this board. Any one of us could have easily been in that old man's shoes. And no, he didn't spit on me or threaten to destroy me in some Muslim way at the end our conversation.