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]
Criminals don’t rob random victims. They SELECT their victims. Just like the cops, criminals PROFILE their victims.
What makes a good victim? Is it their gender, is it their race, is it their sexuality or is it their age?
None of the above. A good victim is someone who has potential for a big payout. Right now, the best mark seems to be Average Joe Whiteboy and his girlfriend . For some reason, they regularly walk the streets with $500 in the wallet or purse. A $500 “payout” is a lot for your average mugger.
Too many White Folks walk around with 500 bucks stuffed in their wallets or purses. You make yourselves an easy mark. Every time one of you gets robbed and taken for your $500, 40GB ipod and Treo you simply make the bullseye that much bigger on the next white guy.
I’m a black man with plenty of money and fancy toys, just like Joe Whiteboy. However, i don’t walk around with a wad bills in my pocket and i don’t flash my ‘toys’ as I’m walking down the street.
Collectively, all you Joe Whiteboys need to change your image in da Hood. If you stopped acting like human ATMs maybe the criminals will stop treating you as such. Stop walking around with so much cash.. Thats just plain stupid.
You might want to read again.
It was three times in three years, not three times in one year.
I don’t think it was pick-pocketing, it was mugging, which is a violent crime.
There is nothing benign about a mugging.
It is an evil act. If you don’t think so them you are somehow impaired either morally or ethically.
Some of you folks are so lame and dumb! Not everyone is rich and can afford to buy a huge beautiful Bed-Stuy quality brownstone in Cobble Hill, Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights where the same Stuy Heights townhouse would cost you $3-$4 million more! Why would someone white and gay move to Bed-Stuy? For the HOUSE stupid!
Some of us, who are of more meager means, simply want to own a nice house and have to “get in where we fit in,†i.e., where we can afford to live. Everyone knows that the nabes east of Flatbush Avenue (e.g. Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens) are predominantly black, economically diverse and with much higher crime rates than the nabes west of Flatbush Avenue. Nevertheless, families increasingly continue to move into these neighborhoods because (a) the housing stock is truly spectacular; (b) the risk of crime is well understood and accepted; (c) the upside potential is far greater than the rest of brownstone Brooklyn; and (d) people understand that the vast majority of residents are hard working law abiding citizens who truly want their neighborhood to improve and change for the better.
And you know what? Things are changing and will continue to change for the better. The gentrification wave that is engulfing all of brownstone Brooklyn is virtually unstoppable and will ensure that nabes like Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights will not be left behind. Now that doesn’t mean that the journey will be easy because it rarely is. Man, when I first bought in Fort Greene 15 years ago it was rougher than rough and my friends and family thought I was nuts. But I stayed and rode it out. There are still muggings in and around the park (projects are literally on the other side) but I wouldn’t change anything. I loved the hood then and I love it now. I’m sure Bed-Stuy buyers feel the same about their nabe too. In the end, you got to be smart about living in a “developing neighborhood†and the lifestyle/sacrifice isn’t for everyone. For example, if you’re looking to buy on the cheap into an architecturally superior neighborhood then you basically limited to nabes east of Flatbush Avenue and simply have to expect some headaches (a lack of goods and services, crime, etc.) until those nabes more fully mature. On the other hand, if money is no object and you don’t want the hassle of living through the growing pains of a slowly gentrifying nabe then I would move to one of the “more established†neighborhoods west of Flatbush. I personal prefer the race, class, cultural and economic diversity that exist in the nabes east of Flatbush Avenue – but different strokes for different folks.
Sorry to hear of your plight EFB. You seem like a real good person and it’s so sad that the horrible actions of a few knuckleheads have tainted your experience. I was in your exact same shoes years ago. Like I said, it won’t be easy. In my fifteen years in Fort Greene I’ve witnessed many temporary upswings (some would call it head fakes) in the neighborhood before it eventually took off for good in the late ‘90s. Bed-Stuy is a great nabe and I see it taking off too but it won’t happen overnight. The sooner you accept this reality the easier it will be to adjust.
EFB – You are indeed a very courageous individual for having moved to Bed Stuy back in ’03. However, I don’t know whether the mental and physical aggravation is worth it anymore. I personally would pack up and count my chips somewhere else. You are no less of a person if you decide to move on.
The neighborhood will continue to evolve, but it will take years before it may be considered “safe” in most people’s minds. I’m not saying that pockets of safety and well-maintained blocks don’t exist. I’m simply saying that the overwhelming social and economic issues holding the neighborhood back will continue to be there. The type of change required on so many different levels in order for Bed Stuy to fully “gentrify” is still quite a few years away. You must decide whether you want to risk waiting it out. Either way, you are a trailblazer regardless of whether you stay or go.
Those punks that assaulted you will be on the same street corner in 10 years. They prey on those they deem easier targets and are thus cowards themselves. You are probably a victim of unfortunate circumstance. However, you have my respect and best wishes.
I am really sorry but I am crying with laughter.
I lived in bed stuy 10 years ago.. a 25 year old little white girl and I was a bartender and came home on the train at 3 or 4 in the morning. .. And it was a pretty slummy place.. the cheapest place in all of new york on a train that I could find to be precise.
And I own a house in the neighborhood now… so it’s been 10 year in the neighborhood.
I can not imagine what you would have to do to get “stones and bottles†thrown at you.
I’m not suggesting it is a crime free paradise (although I have never had an incident) but I am saying that either you are cursed or.. what’s more likely is that you hate your neighbor’s.. and so they hate you back.
Seriously.. there is no reason to get mugged 3 times in a year.. even in big bad bed stuy. And seriously.. you have to suck the big one to get “stones and bottles†thrown at you. Or you are really just being a drama queen about a couple of kids playing kid jokes and pranks.
EFB–
My neighbor, who owns in the neighborhood, has been mugged 3 times as well– all three times by the gang of teens that hang out around the Utica Avenue stop on the A. My neighbor is a young, professional, black gay man who, unfortunately, likes to listen to his ipod or chat on his cell on the way home from the subway late in the evening. He’s gone through the same thought process as you, and decided to stay, although he’s decided to stow the cell and ipod in his bag until he gets home.
I think I probably live near you in Bed Stuy– we’ve been here since 2003 as well and never had a problem, and whether it’s dumb luck, wrong place-wrong time, or something else, I’m sorry you’ve had this happen to you so many times. As above, being more aware, joining/forming your block association, talking to the neighbors, etc. are helpful and constructive ideas. I also do think that 1.36 pm and others’ comments about getting a huge scary-looking dog would be quite effective as well, on two counts– people are are more likely to leave you alone when accompanied by one, and since you’ll need to walk him every day you can use that opportunity to get to know many more of your neighbors. I walk my dog every morning and evening on all of the streets between Halsey and Chauncey and I’ve made many friends on these blocks– and not all of them are dog owners, surprisingly. Maybe raising your profile in the neighborhood with the good folks might make you feel better about living in BS?
And for those of you making the argument that these poor criminals are just mugging people because they have no other options in life, save it. They’re mugging people because they’re sociopaths who think the world owes them something. They have no respect for others; it has nothing to do with gentrification. Yeah, like there was no crime whatsoever in Bed Stuy before the rich yuppies moved in and made everyone feel all displaced and shit. Give me a break.
i don’t believe anyone said they are really good people deep down.
evil?? don’t buy it.
we weren’t talking about a murder here. we were talking about a pickpocket essentially.
I agree with David,
There is this ridiculous, outdated notion that criminals are really good people deep down, but they have a beef with society.
It’s the fault of the middle class as oppressors blah blah blah. I thought this sort of crap went out in the Krushev era.