Grand and Putnam Goes Legit
The Daily News picked up on a trend that’s near-and-dear to our heart—the turnaround of the corner of Grand and Putnam Avenues from one of the borough’s most notorious drug corners to an increasingly thriving center of legitimate storefront commerce. “A neighborhood is just like a human body: if you don’t nourish it, it will…
The Daily News picked up on a trend that’s near-and-dear to our heart—the turnaround of the corner of Grand and Putnam Avenues from one of the borough’s most notorious drug corners to an increasingly thriving center of legitimate storefront commerce. “A neighborhood is just like a human body: if you don’t nourish it, it will die,” Michael Allen, proprietor of Desserts by Michael Allen which has been located at Grand and Fulton since 2008, told The Daily News. “If you want to stop crime and drugs, you have to clean and build.” Recent openings include the Fulton Grand Bar, directly across the street from the bodega and payphone that have been ground zero for illegal activity for years, and Mago, a creperie across Fulton Street. The transformation should be secured if and when the Greene Hill Food Co-op signs its lease for the space at the corner of Putnam and Downing. And don’t forget, as The Daily News did, Kush, the pioneering restaurant which has held it’s ground on Putnam between Grand and Cambridge for years as the drug trade swirled around it. All the openings don’t mean the drug dealers have just packed it in and moved away: We were offered weed yesterday as we walked down the block, the first time that’s happened in five years. Maybe the drug dealers are just evolving as good businessmen do by beginning to target the new batch of potential customers.
Dangerous Drug-Ridden Clinton Hill Corner Transformed [NY Daily News]
Call a spade a spade and keep it real folks, ok? This is why the President just signed the crack vs cocaine bill. Drug dealers caught with the 1 gram of crack got much heavier sentences than drug dealers caught with 1 gram of cocaine. They ARE the same drug by nature. Let’s keep it real. Don’t marginalize “yuppie” (if that’s the word you’d like to use) drug dealers as not having a negative impact on a neighborhood because they don’t get arrested. Stop.
If you know about it…actually he doesn’t do his business on the down low. Boom!
“And, this may be even more of a stretch for you, but the Yuppie dealer is not a better person than the corner dealers. ”
uhh – yes he is. he does his business on the down low, which doesn’t have a negative impact on the neighborhood.
Anybody know if late-night noise coming from Lox Lounge is still a problem at this location?
Who said anything about better? Is your ass reading challenged?
Hardly, I’m just surprised that you realize that. And, this may be even more of a stretch for you, but the Yuppie dealer is not a better person than the corner dealers.
Even if he did go to Sarah Lawrence.
“Uh, where do you think your “yuppie” dealer is getting his weed? Oh, wait, I know, I know… it’s grown by socially responsible Tibetan Sarah Lawrence grads on a farm upstate. Organically. And couriered to New York in a solar-powered car along with the weekly raw milk shipment.
Right?”
Actually, the Yuppie gets his from the same place the thug standing on the corner does, but I’m guessing you think corner dealers are some king pins rolling in dough, right?
I gotta say that it has been amazing watching this part of the neighborhood transform. I have lived in Clinton Hill for 8 years but over here only two and since I moved in (Oct 08) it has been so amazingly improved–a vacant, grafitti riddled building turned into the Co-op School, the planting of trees, Fulton Street cleaner and better paved, new businesses, multiple houses along Putnam being restored–all of these things have had a profound effect on the appearance and overall disposition of my immediate neighborhood. I’d like to take some credit but really I am just enjoying seeing the neighborhood take off and doing my best to support the new businesses. Michael Allen in particular should be thanked for opening a business there when it seemed like nobody would take that chance. And the Fulton Grand bar is awesome! I am pleased.
“I agree, *rob*. I wouldn’t buy my supply from a thug because I would need a stable supplier. A Yuppie dealer is less likely to get arrested for driving on a suspended DL, have outstanding warrants for child support, or most other charges thug like dealers usually get tossed in jail for.”
Uh, where do you think your “yuppie” dealer is getting his weed? Oh, wait, I know, I know… it’s grown by socially responsible Tibetan Sarah Lawrence grads on a farm upstate. Organically. And couriered to New York in a solar-powered car along with the weekly raw milk shipment.
Right?