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]
anon 3:58 here – oh yea and I second someone else who said that many parts of bedstuy are farther than a lot of “nicer” neighborhoods from the nearest housing project. in nyc everyone is a stone throw from public housing but bedstuy is one of the largest neighborhoods in the COUNTRY stuyvesant heights is definitely farther away from the projects than other neighborhoods like ft greene, and other neighborhoods that are considered “nicer”
Stop Snitching: Obviously your average criminal was stoopid as f–k if he couldn’t even take the $500 off his average white guy target.
In general: MAJOR TENSION IN THE ‘HOOD. So much for diverstiy. People just do not like change. “There goes the neighborhood” is what a lot of people are thinking when they see the hipsters, white guys, etc. . . moving in. And the resentment is palpable.
Does it deserve violence? No. But violence is an inevitable result. It’s the easiest way to respond to a situation that’s out of one’s control.Sad but a fact.
“i doubt many of the white people who move into bed stuy LOVE it.” – because you’re in on the consensus of poor white folks in big bad bedstuy amongst (gasp) people who aren’t white.
you’re pretty stupid for that comment.
I read all the comments and I decided not to comment at but this is just getting out of control. first of all, as a young professional black woman living in stuyvesant heights I was walking home from subway on nostrand with my notorious big hoodie, black sweats and timberlands and was slapped in the back of the head by a group of kids who I believe would have tried to attack me had I not immediately turned from victim to ass-kicker (risking my life as they could have clearly shot me if they wanted to). I was so pissed I chased them as far as I could until stopped by one of my neighbors. I said that to say it could happen to anyone. I’m not white, or gay, or new to the nabe so its ridiculous to say ‘why would you move to bedstuy if you’re gay’.
EFB I admire your courage to stand up for your decision and follow your dream to own a brownstone as I understand its easy to be discouraged by idiots who say stuff like “move to the other side of flatbush” or “you couldn’t pay me to live in bedstuy” – good, we won’t. I totally understand what its like to be caught up in the craziness of a move well into the early am. no, I don’t believe a mugger would have known that you have money in your pocket 1am in the morning but the fact that you were moving meant you were new to the nabe and you may not have been very alert because it was raining and you were just trying to be over and done.
I’m really sorry that happened to you and I know it must be frustrating and scary but don’t be run out of a place you truly enjoy because of a few jerks.
if you continue to get attacked it may be because they’re targeting you. word gets around the neighborhood about everything. perhaps you should be more alert and get something to make you feel safe. for me, I got a boyfriend who was 290lbs, 6’6″ and it worked like a charm. when I’d walk down the street I’d hear the neighborhood guys whispering ‘don’t mess with lil’ mama thats big man’s girl’. that said, some people can really get away with walking the street alone. sometimes it takes a little more to feel protected. my advice would be to take on a ‘I’m tired of ppl f@$%^&g with me’ attitude and show that you’re not scared by walking with confidence. good luck with your stay in brooklyn if you choose to stay, if not, chalk it up to life experience.
Common sense, yes, but criminals don’t have common sense and do unexpected things in unexpected places at unexpected times. You can’t blame the victim AND you can’t congratulate yourself for being so smart if you’ve never been robbed. Sometimes, it’s just bad luck. Having said that, I would ask OP to ask himself: are these the only three bad things to go down in four years? Bad luck plus carelessness. Do you have other problems on your block (tough guys, noisy parties, excessively late street activity, drugs, empty houses or SROs)? If so, then why stay. You’ve probably made enough since 2003 to try someplace safer because right now, and understandably so, that’s your big issue. No guarantees of safety anywhere–Newsflash: people in the burbs get robbed–but another nabe might have a better vibe for you.
What a complete loser. Who moves at 1am ANYWHERE in the city? Take a karate class and stop your whining – my guess is that he has a “kick me” sign all over him. Dork.
3:40pm you are completely incorrect. Brooklyn Heights started the “shift” to the brooklyn market, followed by Williamsburg.
Please do some research before openning your mouth.
Hey 3:35…did you copy and paste your comment from yesterday to today? Funny how your whole projects tirade with all the names (you are clearly very “up” on the names and locations) is the exact same as your post yesterday on a different thread.
Have some sortof sick obsessions with housing projects, do we??
Oh and for the record, nowhere in Bed Stuy are the projects “MILES” away!!!! You clearly don’t have any sense of distance at all. I guarantee you that if you stand at any point in Bed Stuy, you are within A MILE (or less) of a project.
you’re right 3:35.
it’s common knowledge at this point that park slope is number one. no one needs to bring it up any longer.
it’s the hood that started the whole freaking brownstone craze in the first place. if it weren’t for park slope, there would be no gentrification of ft. greene, clinton hill, bed stuy.
sorry, but it’s true.
everyone buying a brownstone these days…whether they want to admit it or not, wishes they could afford one in park slope. end of story.
myself included.
“looked at brownstone on hancock in 2003, did not feel welcomed by neighbors and bought in clinton hill. feel we definitely made the right choice. places with a lot of projects; ie bedstuy, harlem, will never be that safe. beautiful brownstone blocks do not get rid of projects or the crime associated with them. safer than they were perhaps, but never to the level people want. then no place is. “
Sorry to rehash old stuff but sometimes you simply have no choice:
I have friends who bought beautiful townhouses in Bed-Stuy on great blocks that are miles away from any projects. Most of the large projects in Bed-Stuy, e.g., Marcy, Sumner and Thompkins, are contiguous and exist in the far northeast section of the neighborhood along the Bushwick border. Moreover, what’s the big deal with housing projects as they exist throughout brownstone Brooklyn. And the housing projects in Boerum Hill/Carroll Gardens (Wycoff, Gowanus), Dumbo/Vinegar Hill (Farragut), Fort Greene (Ingersoll, Whitman), and Clinton Hill (Lafayette), for example, are located much closer to the prime section of those nabes than the Marcy projects is to brownstone Bed-Stuy and Stuy Heights. In any event, the last time I checked all of the above mentioned nabes are doing pretty well despite their proximity to public housing. So no one in Clinton HIll, which has its own share housing projects, should be condemning any other nabe because public housing exist within their borders.
Lastly, please stop the neighborhood pissing contest (e.g., SPer, et al). If you’ve been on this site for any length of time you would certainly know that this form of persuasion (e.g,., my hood is better than yours, please move here) rarely hits the mark and is the most ineffective use of one’s time.