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]
4.15, you’ll have a tough time educating the race monomaniacs here on that.
why is it that people think something is new just because they never heard of it before? 4:05, lots of people got punched before your friends. i was jumped by two kids in 2003 in clinton hill and beaten up, apparently for the fun of it, as they made no move to rob me. i don’t remember if it was an anti-gentrification beating, or just a good ol’ fashioned ass-whuppin’. i believe the correct term is ‘wilding,’ and it’s a statement of nothing but surly-teen angst.
Yeah,
Poor white people. They ALWAYS get the short end of the stick. It’s always been that way and some things just never seem to change. Keep telling the truth anon 3:27.
And the NY Times, they are the worst in this respect.
Anonymous 4:05 PM, perhaps they mention it because of the sheer ignorance of some, who assume that gentrification equates automatically to “whites” moving into a neighborhood. When in fact it’s a class change, not necessarily an ethnic shift.
anon 405 professional black ppl have to make the distinction lest they be categorized as one of the loser kids in the neighborhood who are throwing bottles at ppl, wouldn’t want all black people to be put in the same category now would we? its the same reason why people think its relevant that he’s white and gay – its important when people are implying that your race, social status, sex and profession makes a difference.
Petty thugs DO have social issues on their minds- I know three different young single white people who have moved into traditionally black neighborhoods (Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy) and each gotten punched in the head by someone who then ran away without asking for money. I believe that punching white people in black neighborhoods has become a real anti-gentrification statement lately, which is sad and ridiculous, because the three people I mentioned certainly weren’t “evil gentrifying landlords out to get someone”, they were people who, like many of us, can barely afford to live in NYC and (naively, I guess) moved wherever they could find housing.
Also, to Park Slop’n- as someone who has worked next door to several notorious Housing projects in Bklyn, I happen to know that they ARE a big deal. Especially to the people who live there. And sometimes seeing the nearby area prospering while you’re stuck in the projects can make people angrier and more scared than before.
on a completely off note..why do “professional” black people, always have to state that they are “professional” black people…what the heck does that mean anyway???
nways….carry on
Stop Snitchin’ – Are you oblivious to the fact that the majority of victims who have suffered as a result of the street ethos of “stop snitchin” are in fact families who have lost loved ones? If so, are you that clueless to the fact that a great deal of crimes where “stop snitchin” is used by the witnesses is one of the main reasons why these crimes aren’t solved? Your ignorance trumps your bank account.
Nevertheless, anyone living in NYC should be aware that unfortunate events do happen regardless of your surroundings. Being discreet when it comes to cell phones, Ipods, etc. is usually a better bet.
EFB, I grew up off of 125th in Harlem and back in the days kids threw bottles off the trains at people all the time. They also unscrewed the lightbulbs from the train station and tossed them at people as well. NYC can be wild. Period. Knuckleheads will be knuckleheads.
Handle your business the best way you deem appropriate and feel confident in your decision. You blazed a path in ’03 and took a chance. Kudos to you. Now make sure you live to tell about your harrowing experiences 🙂
This thread really makes me want to go out and spend a couple of million dollars on a house in Brooklyn.
The fall of apartheid is a hard business anywhere. The process has begun in New York to a limited extent thanks to the younger generation who are putting aside their elders’ taboos.
I wish them luck.