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]
This thread is not about advice. It was not anyone who lives and owns in Bed-Stuy asking ye great real estate sages if they have paid too much or made the wrong decision to live where they do. Some of you took it upon yourselves to turn it into that. The only thing I see people who live in Bed-Stuy saying here is, Look I love my ‘hood, I know it’s not perfect and long- and short-term residents alike are working together on lots of issues (including things as mundane as getting people to pick up their yards, an issue EVERY neighborhood needs to deal with), etc. No one asked for anyone’s opinion on the price tag of our homes or if we live in the “right” area. You are free to offer your opinion if you must, but just know that no one really cares what you think!
i wish other morons on here didn’t assume that just because someone says something of a differing opinion or something they don’t like, that they come to the conclusion that the other person hasn’t set foot in their precious neighborhood.
i’m so happy you love your neighborhood but take a look at the nypd’s brooklyn crime maps and you’ll notice that you are indeed quite wrong. i think you’ll be surprised to find out how many crimes happen right around the corner from you, dollface.
I wish the morons on this board who have never set foot in Bed-Stuy would stop referring to my neighborhood as “crappy” and “horrible.” I came home the other day to find an architectural tour group in front of my house. Walking home from the subway every evening after work is a joy for me: I love the community, the gorgeous buildings and the whole feel of the neighborhood. I love the way people offer to help me carry my stroller up the subway stairs (try getting that kind of help in Manhattan!). Why does everyone think that Bed-Stuy residents are just holding on waiting for the change? Personally, I am hoping the neighborhood doesn’t change too much or too fast. (And yes, I own here.)
Thank you to 11:52 for pointing out that the crime is concentrated in the projects regardless of neighborhood. You are the lone voice of reason. People need to get a grip.
add to that 1.4 million price tage private schools for all kids for all grades, car services back to your house if it’s after dark and the added cost of having groceries and meals delivered because of the lack of any good grocery stores or restaurants and you’re not far off the mark than had you paid a little more for a place in a nicer neighborhood. all these things add up. and let’s not forget the added stress of having to be so alert anytime you are outside of your home. these things do matter to many people and they do take their toll over the long run.
we’re talking about a significant savings alone by buying a place in park slope by being able to send your kids to ps. 321. (just an example as i have no children).
If the houses were more in line with the ‘hood…let’s say 500K or so I could see it but now that they are topping out in the low millions, I think it’s a false economy for many.
To sum up this thread:
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
End of story.
(And to clear things up, there were not 6 murders in bed stuy last year, the stats are that there have been 6 so far this year…that’s in the last, not even 4 months. A big difference).
You all can be as dillusional as you like and create statistics to suit your own real estate/money hungry needs, but Bed Stuy is still considered one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States. You’ve paid too much which is why there have been 170 something comments, by a lot of people trying to protect the fact that they spent an awful lot of money for a pretty awful neighborhood.
i’m not claiming that bed stuy townhouses would ever again be 300K (i’m not one of those bubble bursting folk) but I am saying that for you to have paid 1.4 million dollars for a house in bed stuy is pretty absurd given the crime rate, lack of quality schools, lack of services, good restaurants, bars, etc.
i understand that it’s a personal decision and i’m not a bitter renter…i own myself in brooklyn but it doesn’t make sense to me how people spend so much money to live in such a crappy neighborhood.
even bed stuy now…given all the progress it’s made it nowhere near what park slope was like in the 70’s and 80’s. the prices should somewhat reflect the neighborhood, and in bed stuy they simply do not.
it may be worth 1.4 million to you, but look at the broad real estate market as a whole and you’ll see how ridiculous it is that you’ve spent 1.4 million dollars for such a horrible neighborhood. it shouldn’t be so. i’m not saying you aren’t perfectly happy and that you shouldn’t have moved to bed stuy…especially because you love it and clearly the pricetag was worth it to you, but 1.4 million for BED STUY????
I just don’t get it. And trust me…many of the people who live there don’t either.
11:39AM = cheap-ass
>to pay more than 300K or so for a townhouse in a neighborhood as dangerous as bed stuy is a COMPLETE ABSURDITY! if you’ve paid more, you are a total sucker.
i don’t mind being a total sucker, bought 2 of them for over 1 mil in total, got great tenants and business has been GREAT! i don’t know why you are even checking this blog…go to jersey.
11:39 and 11:47….ahhhhh….so boring.
It’s a personal decision. Perhaps you can’t understand the choices made by others but that’s your problem not theirs. Don’t like? Don’t buy? It shouldn’t pain you so much that people in ever increasing numbers are moving to Bed-Stuy to secure homeownership; despite the drawbacks. I paid over a $1 million for my Stuy Heights property and then spent under 400k to get the place into five star condition (you name it, I got it). For a little over $1.4 million (no mortgage) I have a mansion size/quality home on a most coveted block. And you know what? I love my house, my block and my community. I have no regrets whatsoever. I plan to stay here forever.
I don’t get all the hoopla. Some white guy gets mugged in Bed-Stuy and all hell breaks loose?!? Why is this news? Why should anypone get worked up about this crime? Don’t muggings occur everyday all over New York? Give me a break.
This neighborhood is going nowhere but up up up! It won’t happen overnight but I’m not a short term investor so I’m not worried about it. The day Bed-Stuy brownstones go $300k again is the day that you can fetch a prime house on Montgomery in the Slope for $900k. You can wait for another 100 years and that ain’t happening anywhere in brownstone Brooklyn.
Sorry, 10:52 AM, I’ll put it more simply.
Some low-income people believe they should be able to afford houses in Brooklyn, and blame gentrification for making the houses unaffordable.
Pulling an unrealistically low number out of my hat, I said what if the houses were $100 per square foot?
Even at that price the houses would cost too much for low-income people to buy.
Plus, even at a price that would reflect normal inflation, not a bubble effect in Brooklyn like we’ve seen, the houses would not be affordable to them.
And then I was trying to say “gentrification” doesn’t happen because white people are moving in, but because affluent blacks choose not to buy in that neighborhood.