After Three Strikes, Is Recent Bed-Stuy Arrival Out?
Writer Douglass Rushkoff made headlines last December when he announced in a blog post that he and his family were leaving Brooklyn after he was mugged on Christmas Eve outside his Park Slope apartment. While many people thought the response was an overreaction, getting mugged is a traumatic experience against which the rationality of statistics…
Writer Douglass Rushkoff made headlines last December when he announced in a blog post that he and his family were leaving Brooklyn after he was mugged on Christmas Eve outside his Park Slope apartment. While many people thought the response was an overreaction, getting mugged is a traumatic experience against which the rationality of statistics are of little comfort. Now another blogger is questioning whether he should stay in his neighborhood after having been mugged on Monday night for the third time in as many years. After five years in London and one on the Upper West Side, blogger Eating for Brooklyn scraped together enough dough for a down payment on browntone fixer-upper in Bed Stuy in 2003 only to get a rather jarring reception:
By the time we unloaded the last box from the rental truck, it was 1am. 1am and raining. The asphalt was shiny and slick and the street lights reflected yellow, red and green. Our block had the feeling of a movie set. It was picture perfect. Just as we closed the door to the truck with a thump, a passerby turned around and held us up. He ripped through my pockets frantically searching for cash. And I stupidly had $500.00 in my front pocket. I slipped a few singles off the wad of dough and gave it to him. He started walking away and came back with a vengeance as if the few singles I had given him were like spitting in his face. He ransacked my pockets again. Nothing. He never found the $500.00. Picture perfect and no one around.
We felt nothing but horror and panic later that night as we searched out the safest corner of the house to sleep — the fourth floor front room overlooking the top of the sycamore tree. With our sleeping bags on pine floors, our hearts pounded and kept us up all night. We had spent our life savings only to be held up at gunpoint. We felt we had been had.
All was quiet until February 2006 when the writer was pummelled in the head by a gang of teenagers; then on this past Monday night he was mugged again a block from his house.
I feel paralyzed. The rational voice says “Leave now.” The voice of fantasy says “Stick it out. It’ll be worth it in the long run.” Maybe I was stupid for not having left three and half years ago. With the neighborhood in transition and deep into renovation and debt, what would you do?
Well, what would you do?
3 Muggings in 3 Years, What Would You Do? [Eating for Brooklyn]
Bed Stuy is great in alot of ways but it has been my own personal experience that no matter how street smart you are, if someone wants to rob you they will rob you.This being said I have felt safer in Bed Stuy walking through at 11:30 in the morning than I have driving through in a car at midnight, but no matter how tough you look or how street smart you are,you can still get mugged or robbed.I have gone to visit friends many times there and have had friends move to crown heights,east flatbush etc.They tell me its safe when they want me to come visit but after they move the honesty comes out.They all have had bottles thrown at them,been mugged,robbed,harrassed etc.Ive asked friends if they felt safe in these neighborhoods and some say yes,but they have been robbed or there house was broken into.So its all up to the individual.Its hard to judge things based on others experiences.I just know this…….ive had some pretty tough/street smart friends get seriously harrased with/without getting robbed in these neighborhoods.Eggs thrown at them,rude comments,kids getting in there face etc.Its hard as an adult in your 20s and 30s to comeback at kids in there early teens if your being harrased.Its a no win situation.One of my friends got held up at gun point by a 12 year old in bushwick.What can you do?If its going to happen its going to happen.You dont have to invite it by being uneducated as far as street smarts go.Fact of the matter is you can get robbed anywhere!But i gurantee its more likely to happen on the bad blocks of a bad neighborhood.
well played, anonymous 10:29 AM.
After all this debate back and forth, all I can say is if you don’t want to live in a neighborhood don’t buy there. Why so angry about those who do choose to buy there? Those who buy in Bed-Stuy or PLG or any other borderline neighborhood are:
a) renovating the houses which would otherwise decay.
b) contributing to diversity to neighborhoods because you know, diversity goes both ways, it means white going into black neighborhoods, and asian into arab neighborhoods, etc etc.
c) helping bring attention to neglected public schools in certain districts.
d) contributing the health of the ENTIRE Brooklyn real estate market, and what on earth would be anybody’s problem with that?
Jeepers. You all are so competitive. Might be worth bringing up at your next therapy meeting. Figure out why you always have to feel superior to others.
Brower Park, thanks for both your sensible posts on this thread. Jefferson between Marcy & Tompkins is truly a gorgeous block. Hancock is not too shabby either.
4:48, I was not talking about Stuy Hts, although my comment certainly applies there, as well as in any part of predominantly black Brooklyn. I never lived in Stuy Hts. I lived on Jefferson Ave between Marcy and Thompkins from 1982 to 2000. There is not a think you can tell me about living in BS that I am not familiar with. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, as well as great beauty, pride, strong family tradition and faith. I did not mention the old timers in my comment because I take it for granted that they have been a steady source of stability for generations. They are the rock the rest of the community stands on.
In the course of living in BS all those years, I’ve been in many homes and on many blocks. Just as a for instance – do people realize that Brownstoners of Bed Stuy has been having tours for something like 30 years? I’ve been going on those tours for many of those years and what strikes me is that most of the homes belong to people who have lived there for years. Beautiful homes owned by people who are mostly teachers, city workers, police and firefighters, as well as lawyers and doctors. These people have been the bulwark of the community, and have been joined by their children, and other successful younger black families who want to live in Bed Stuy. They have been joined by new white, Hispanic and Asian families who also want to live here. Never in the almost 20 years that I lived on Jefferson did I think I was not safe, and I lived alone for much of that time. There were rough times in the 80’s and early 90’s, sure, and the crack epidemic was visible on our block. But it was never a drug infested, crime ridden hellhole. Not one of my many white friends was ever mugged, accosted, or verbally abused on my block. None of my gay friends felt they were in danger. Why? Because 75% of the people on that block were homeowners, successful multi-property landlords, the children of those homeowners, and tenants who were decent working people. We had a few criminals and crackheads, too. We dealt with situation, and dealt with those who brought the block down by organizing ourselves in a block association and worked with the police to get the dealers off the corners and out of the houses. It took a long time, and some of them are still there, but that hasn’t stopped people from staying or buying on one of the nicest blocks in Bed Stuy.
Granted, all of Bed Stuy is not as nice as Jefferson Ave, or Stuy Hts. Bed Stuy is the size of a small city, and yeah, Nostrand and Myrtle is not all that. However those who hate BS seem to have no problem insisting that ALL of BS has the look and problems of that corner. That’s just patently absurd. If every neighborhood was judged only by the worst or roughest part of it, people would be screaming foul, it isn’t fair! So why should BS be judged by a double standard? Can we not let the words of people who are proud of their part of the neighborhood, (which isn’t only Stuy Hts, either, btw,) be the norm, not the exception?
this wonderful thread only goes to show how hot bs is and i think it’s great that so many of you “just don’t get it”. it reminds me of all of the people who said-“oooh, but fort greene is so dangerous!” when i lived there not so long ago. some people lead and others just follow.
Locanda Vini? Learning about a few new businesses here. Great.
Now this thread has officially deteriorated.
But if we go by the dictum of “no publicity is bad publicity,” it appears that I live in the hottest nabe in Brooklyn! Dayum.
People in Bed-Stuy have options. Now go fuck yourself! How about dem apples?!?!