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]
sorry 1:09 but i think your arguement is SERIOUSLY flawed. i don’t think it’s so simple to say either you have evil in your heart or not. that’s pretty simplistic and ignorant.
i’m not defending criminals, but how about you try imagining what it’s like growing up in poverty in a housing project in bed stuy with one parent, no father as a role model, crappy schools, no reason to think that the world is going to be a better place for you, etc.
to just say people are evil or not is crazy. the vtech guy…now he had evil inside him, no doubt.
but some of the kids in bed stuy are trapped in a cycle of poverty…some of which is caused by those of us with means to push them out and ignore their existence.
THAT is the problem here.
“when you hear about crimes and muggings in gentrifying areas it’s because the people there are angry and frustrated that they are losing their neighborhood”
You think petty thugs have these social issues on their mind? crazy.
wtf? Assaulting someone with a bottle is assault with a dangerous weapon. Buy a gun and use it.
1:09
What are you talking about?
rich and poor?
It’s about criminals and law-abiding citizens.
You’re saying the slime that mug old ladies do so because they feel frutrated that their beloved neihborhood is changing?
That’s crap.
One has evil in one’s heart or one doesn’t.
In America you can come from the poorest background and make something of yourself. On the other hand you can decide to mug skinny asian kids, or gays, or white people who look like they may have more than twenty dollars in their wallets.
Get real!
“Pricing people out of neighborhoods is horrible (I’m priced out of ever buying in mine, which I love), but say this for gentrification — diminishing street crime is a *good thing.* Finding a way to upgrade neighborhoods and create new opportunities for existing residents without displacing them is the right way to do it; like everyone, I’m frustrated that isn’t what happens.”
It would be nice if that happened, but I think that’s a dream – when you hear about crimes and muggings in gentrifying areas it’s because the people there are angry and frustrated that they are losing their neighborhood, and that results in understandable frustration (not that if it were me I’d take it out by mugging someone at gunpoint). Not every neighborhood wants to be “gentrified” by a Starbucks and pretentious restaurants (although I think it’s obvious that most would love less crime, rich or poor). And make all the arguments for gentrification, but it simply emphasizes the tension between the rich and the poor. Maybe in 30 years that won’t be so obvious, but it many of these neighborhoods that tension will remain for a while, and those that choose to buy there have to be wise to that – understanding about their neighbors concerns AND streetwise.
move to downtown jersey city. Better than Bed stuy and safer too. But no matter where you move in the city there will always be problems.
what bad luck. i think it’s a combination of how you carry yourself and luck. i grew up in brookly and been to more questionable neighborhoods in all 5 boroughs than anyone i know and never been mugged. i have heard many stupid racist and sexual comments (i am a petite asian woman). funny enough, the most physically harrasment i got was last summer in broad daylight in dumbo in the park less than 50 feet away from the park ranger when a young man grabbed my foot as i was walking. thinking back i let my guard down and let that young man follow too close to me without turning back and letting him know that i was aware of him.
as an aside, i bought in sunset park 2 years ago, and not in the better part. after the first few weeks, i am comfortable there except for the dog crap.
Most of Brooklyn is a hell hole, especially north of Flatbush. How many groovy young things will need to be mugged before this damn real estate bubble pops?
bro, three strikes and you’re out. simple as that. come on dude you are, obviously, an ideal target in the hood…