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]
There are vast stretches of Bed-Stuy without any projects.
And by “hip” you mean relatively low crime, because we all know hip = high-crime.
I love the “crime can happen anywhere” platitudes. I presume they are all written by mathematically-challenged liberal arts graduates.
puh-lease, are we talking about crime or “my choice?” i don’t care how long you lived in a place, those areas with a lot of projects will never be that safe. period. “acceptable” is irrevelant.
It really depends on how the guy feels. I don’t blame him for buying in Bed Sty, for being a target or a mark of some kind. I understand what it is too to be deep in renovation and deep in debt. I really don’t know his block or what is happening with him, but if he decides to stick it out, I think that he needs to get comfort, friendship, help and encouragement and the protection from his neighbors. The more of an insider he is the better. He needs friends and allies. There is always someone who is a leader, who commands respect (or fear) of the neighborhood and it is good to try to figure out what is going on and get support. Gradually somehow I became a known entity on my block, first for all of my struggles with renovation, insane tenants, etc. and then helping a few people out and now we watch out for one another. I wish that for this man, whereever he goes.
Anon 2:39 do you even know how ridiculous you sound? It has not been all that long that your beloved “right choice” has been considered “acceptable” by buyers like you, and you can thank others who have lived there far longer and worked hard for making it the hip destination that you covet. Barf.
Wow; this is the brownstoner of old 80+ post in record time
I see Bed Stuy is still a “hot” for more than one reason
I totally agree with Stop Snitching, that’s why this Joe Whiteboy wouldn’t set foot in Bed Stuy if you pay me.
I’m all for stopping gentrification, lets get back on with slumification.
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.