Mayor Adams pledges to clean up Midtown Manhattan

MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) -- Mayor Eric Adams is pledging to clean up Midtown and says he wants to address everything from cleanliness to drug use to Times Square entertainers who go too far.

"Eric Adams, please clean up Times Square, but leave alone the man in his underwear," crooned Robert Burck, better known as the Naked Cowboy.

Burck says he generally supports the plan. "I hope they crack down and make it a safer and better place for people who are legitimately working."

As for The Naked Cowboy? "We're gonna leave him there," Adams joked.

It came as Mayor Adams outlined the broad strokes of a cleanup plan at his weekly open press conference Monday. It stems from a walk-through of 8th Avenue and the Theater District Friday evening.

On the check list of things to address: the costumed entertainers of Times Square.

"We are dealing with people who appear to be under the influence of drugs that are just loitering, those with severe mental health issues in the area, we are dealing with Mickey and Spider-Man not in the area they are supposed to be," Adams said.

The Mayor also said he would like to address cleanliness in Midtown and all too frequent traffic jams along 8th Avenue, which has been narrowed to two lanes of traffic.

Plus, Adams previewed a coming plan to zero in on the most emotionally disturbed people in the subway system.

"In the next couple of months you are not going to see the severely mentally ill people on the system without the care that they need," Adams pledged.