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]
i notice how you said nothing to the generations of families who have lived in bed stuy for years. interesting how you’ve ignored them in your post completely…once again.
just as was done in park slope, carroll gardens etc…
who cares about them, right? as long as you newcomers are happy, that’s all that matters.
Well said, Brower Park.
After reading this thread from beginning to end, I’ve come to this conclusion – there seems to be a dedicated group (or several people with a lot of time on their hands)of people who really don’t want to see us all get along. It must really frighten or anger them that there are many in this city, of all races, that do not mind living next to people who are racially, economically and otherwise different from themselves. They want us to all be at each other’s throats. They are happy that people get mugged. They can then hate the mugger, and justify all of their bigotry in one fell swoop, and also delight in the supposed stupidity and naivety of the muggee, for thinking they could live with “them” and emerge unscathed.
It must piss them off no end when someone says they respect, enjoy, and like their neighbors, and their community. It pisses them off even more that these people have beautiful homes that they are proud of and want to keep for years. That they have put down their own roots in the community, and are willing to work to better it for all who live here.
There are bigots out there who don’t want us to do what most of us do naturally – co-exist in peace and harmony. So they are going to keep going on about the negatives, about the criminals, and rail against the wisdom of buying in the hood. Well, I think the outpouring of those who have gone against the conventional wisdom, and are happy with their choices, is a welcome antidote to the haters and naysayers. To all of you new Bed Stuyers – welcome, live long and prosper. You are the future, and these other people are a tired remnant of the past.
Sucker and 2:32 are absolutely right. I’ve never seen so much venom and vitriol from people who seem so angry that (white)people are happy to have bought or rented in BS, and love it, and are putting down long term roots. Why do people here assuming that those who love it are lying, delusional, or stupid. Obviously there is much here to love, and not just “cheap” real estate.
If you hate BS, please just go away and leave the rest of us alone. We don’t need your sage pronouncements on what stupid idiots we must be. Too many people – white, black, gay, straignt, and everyone in beween, are quite happy to be here. No one ever said it was perfect, or didn’t need a lot of TLC.
Anon 2:25….and you came on here to comment because….?
Weird.
anon 2:25, I’m not going to bother to count, but a great number of these posts are by people telling other people the choices they’ve made are “bad” (now who’s being defensive?). Sad but true. It is not 188 posts from people defending their own choices.
i’d say the fact that 188 people have commented on this thread is evidence enough of the feelings of its residents to be defensive about their neighborhood.
if it were so great and wonderful as it is now, why would you feel the need to come on here and let us all know how great it is??? seems like you’d want to keep it a secret, but i guess that’s not going to help your real estate value, now is it?
weird.
Can you please site some examples, other than crime statistics, of why you think the neighborhood is “crappy” and “horrible”? I want personal experience…since you hang out there so often.
I notice there have only been a few mentions of the Bed Stuy natives whom are NOT criminals. It’s a friendly, hardworking, very religious community. Yeah, there are some rotten apples. My neighbors, mostly homeowners, have been nothing but helpful and welcoming. Why shouldn’t they be? They’re happy that the prices of THEIR homes are shooting through the roof! Yeah, I displaced a family who bought their brownstone in the 90’s. They took the $ and moved to the suburbs.
Anyway, a few years from now, we won’t have to defend the neighborhood. I’m getting bored with it. I can’t wait.
but you think we care what YOU think lady??? do you have any idea what a hypocrite you are. this is a free country, lasy i heard.
don’t you have better things to do like pick that garbage up from your trash and needle infested yard???