Post: High Crime Near High Priced Housing in Bed Stuy, Bushwick
We debated whether to ignore or call out The Post’s story on crime in Bed Stuy and Bushwick, which reads like something written by an Internet troll circa 2008. It even has the requisite gentrifier who says “More people like me are moving in and changing the neighborhood. So that’s comforting.” Newsflash: Violent crime is less than half…
We debated whether to ignore or call out The Post’s story on crime in Bed Stuy and Bushwick, which reads like something written by an Internet troll circa 2008. It even has the requisite gentrifier who says “More people like me are moving in and changing the neighborhood. So that’s comforting.” Newsflash: Violent crime is less than half what it was in the early ’90s, thanks to the efforts of people who have been living here all along, including community boards and Neighborhood Watch groups.
Bed Stuy does have a problem with young black men shooting each other, and it’s horrifying and needs to stop — as people in the community recognize all too well. That’s entirely different from saying white gentrifiers will be preyed on by black bogeymen, which is the implication of the story — but not supported by facts.
“There has also been an uptick in burglaries and muggings targeting the gentrifiers who move in,” said the story, but it did not give any evidence to support that. Crime is down across the board. In the 81st Precinct, for example, which covers part of Bed Stuy, violent crime to date this year is down in every category, including burglary and felonious assault, except rape.
We hope violent crime will continue to decrease, including rape, for the sake of everyone who lives here, not just the newcomers.
If that is their experience, then it is what it is. Many of the incidents involve cell phone, I-pad theft as well as petty larceny.
Yes! As MM points out below, she and Morgan Munsey led the tour we went on and we booked through the same link posted. It is a great walking tour to start with, highly recommend.
Location, location, location is a great real estate mantra but as history has proven it’s definitely a moving target.
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Manhattan nabes like the UWS, MPD, WV, SoHo and Tribeca were all shunned and dismissed by real estate brokers at one time or another for being undesirable relative to the more traditional and established hoods. Now they are some of the most attractive neighborhoods in all of NYC. The same could be said about Brooklyn too. That’s why I love this city; it’s so dynamic and things are always shifting.
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Have you been to Harlem lately (Frederick Douglass and 115th St)? It’s basically the Upper West Side!!
But that only leaves out the most exclusive of the private schools. There are still many other, much better performing (schools that are cheaper than the most exclusive private schools) private schools (better performing as compared to many public schools) within NYC. Not to mention there are many good public schools, even if they sometimes require a bit of traveling to get to. There are plenty of good public schools (particularly high schools) within these areas, especially now that many of the old problem schools have been broken up and refocused. Take, for instance, Bedford Academy High School. Overwhelmingly black school. Has some of the best academic statistics among all public high schools in NYC in areas such as regents performance, college attendance rate (and they send many of their students to top-notch schools as well), etc. If gentrifiers don’t want to send their children to those schools because the “wrong” demographics are present, that’s their prerogative.
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Overall, the main point of my post is to dispute the contention that schools are keeping people out of certain neighborhoods. While this may be true for some, schools certainly aren’t stopping the many wealthy families who are scooping up multi-million dollar brownstones in Bed Stuy, etc. I suspect this is due to the reasons that I indicated above.
Well I’m anxious walking around the Meat Packing District, Lower East Side, Financial District, East Village, etc. at late night too but it doesn’t mean that they are not great places to live, work or play.
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Being anxious and exercising proper vigilance go hand and hand. This is NYC. If you’re not anxious about crime and your surrounding then your either inebriated or just willfully blind.
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With that said, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. I was definitely remiss in leaving out that critical consideration from my earlier comment. Yes, definitely visit nabes at night, particularly on Friday and Saturday after midnight. And take special note of any unusual/shady activities surrounding the ubiquitous corner bodega and its tendency to attract loiters and a criminal element. Lastly, please bear in mond that there is a huge difference with respect to street noise and activity depending on whether it’s winter or summer.
my boyfriend and i bought a rowhouse on halsey between lewis and stuyvesant approx a month and a half ago. we’ve been wanting to take a walking tour but aren’t sure who to contact. any recommendations? thank you!
Are folks even aware that Bed-Stiy is the largest neighborhood in NYC and that it has the largest concentration of historic brownstones in the US (over 6000) with most of the housing project located on the periphery outside of the brownstone belt?
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How can someone in Bedford Corner or Stuy Heights be affected by crime in The Tomkins or Marcy housing projects that are literally located one mile away? That’s like saying folks in Park Slope need to be worried about stray bullets from a shooting at Ingersoll-Whitman houses in Fort Greene (about the same distance). Same with Cobble Hill and it’s proximity to Gowanus and Whykoff Houses.
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Did Google Map get removed off the iPhone or something? What am I missing?
Ha! Busted! 🙂
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Folks on this site should really try to listen to residents who live in these often maligned, misrepresented and misunderstood communities. No one is on this blogsite is shilling for certain nabes in order to inflate property values. This is just incorrect. Instead they are simply trying to educate a grossly misinformed public of the true nature of their communities and the people who live there.
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I absolutely love this site and its old school contributors. When I decided to purchase investment properties a decade ago, I relied heavily on the insights and opinions of posters on Brownstoner. I had absolutely no idea of the incredible historic housing stock in Crown Heights North, Bedford Corners or Stuy Heights. Thank God for CHP! She really opened up my eyes to other parts of Brooklyn!
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I recommend that folks take a walk down Dean, Bergen, St. Marks and Park Pl in Crown Heights or Stuy Ave, Decatur or Macdonough in Stuy Heights or Hancock, Jefferson or Macon in Bedford Corner. CHP literally changed my world and I’m so extremely thankful and appreciative for all that she does for this website, her community and the preservation of our incredible architectural history here in Brooklyn. Thank you JB as well for this wonderful website. You changed everything.
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If folks are seriously interested in living in one of the aforementioned communities, the best advice I can offer is to take walking tours, talk to homeowners in the area and attend block association meetings. Block association meetings are extremely critical: there you will get a true sense of the problems in the community, how the community aims to respond, how well neighbors work together and, more importantly, you get unbiased insight into the neighborhood’s passion/pride or lack thereof.
We recently purchased and moved into our home in East Bed-Stuy and during our search I became (what I feel was) overly concerned, after reading articles like this one from The Post, about crime. During our search we actually took one of the walking tours that MM lead and she showed us many great things about the neighborhood and also she said something that stuck with me, (I am paraphrasing but) that Bed-Stuy is just a place where people live. This eased the concerns I had built up (and likely blew out of proportion) regarding the negativity and I am so glad that it did. We could not be happier in our new home and with our new neighborhood. It is a different location, but it is just as MM said, a place where people live. And now it is a place where we live very happily and without fear. Everyone, no matter where they live should be aware and to a degree cautious, but I have not felt at all that we need be more so in our new home over the other locations we have lived in Brooklyn. Just my two cents. Also, I highly recommend the walking tours!