Murder Up in North Brooklyn, Down in South
The number of murders in North Brooklyn spiked 34 percent in the first half of the year while just about every other comman center saw declines. There were 59 homicides in the Brooklyn North Command (which includes precincts 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 84, 88, 90, and 94) through June 10 this year, versus…
The number of murders in North Brooklyn spiked 34 percent in the first half of the year while just about every other comman center saw declines. There were 59 homicides in the Brooklyn North Command (which includes precincts 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 84, 88, 90, and 94) through June 10 this year, versus 44 in the same period in 2006 and 36 in 2005. The main cause? According to John Jay College’s Richard Curtis, it’s a rise in “disrespect shootings” by teens, which includes such death-worthy offenses as looking at someone’s girlfriend the wrong way, as someone did around the corner from our house last year. Of course, all parts of North Brooklyn are not created equal. While murders in Bushwick’s 83rd Precinct rose from 2 to 6 in the first half of 2007, Brooklyn Heights and Boerum Hill have none for the second year running. Street crime in those tony nabes has risen considerably though: Robbery is up 21 percent, assault 12 percent and grand larceny 4 percent this year. None of this is exactly news for real estate brokers to play up.
Surge in Slayings Shocks Brooklyn [NY Post]
this is not news. people have been coming on and saying that clinton hill is dangerous all along. it’s the new residents that claim it isn’t so to protect their investments.
can’t blame them really, but the numbers do speak for themselves.
while things are a lot better than they used to be, i hear more than enough stories about friends and friends of friends getting beaten up to/from the subway to keep me on edge.
yet everyone likes to talk badly about park slope, which is still, along with brooklyn heights, boreum hill and carroll gardens the safest of the brownstone neighborhoods.
I’m not in a gang, I don’t sell drugs and I don’t have to protect my ‘rep’. So i’m not really worried about being murdered.
As a homeowner in the 88th precinct i am worried by the crime stats. In the past month robberies, felony assaults and grand larceny have increased!
Houses are listing for $2 million plus in the 88th precinct, yet FG/CH is in the midst of a crime wave.
I am more likely to be robbed, possibly with a weapon and have by stuff stolen than i was a year ago. WTF?
Brenda,
I believe you are right–to an extent. I think a continued increase in murders would affect RE sales at the margins. For instance, Brownstoner mentioned a “respect shooting” going on around the corner from him. Personally, that would turn me off from moving somewhere if I knew it had happened–even though it might be totally irrational. But others like Brownstoner may not be bothered by it, or not enough not to buy in an area, and that’s fine too. It may take a few wimps like me out of the market, so you have somewhat fewer people bidding at open houses, but it’s hardly going to wipe a neighborhood out.
But I do think if a gentrifier gets accidentally shot somewhere, all bets are off. Remember in the late ’80s / early ’90s when the yuppie got shot at a phone booth in the Village? I t became a kind of symbol for the dangerousness of NYC. Granted, you also had the whole crack epidemic of the time, the wilding phenomenon, etc.
But the point is, one shocking, widely reported crime can matter more than statistics. As you say, “As long as crime, even spiking crime, is perceived as being predominantly punk-on-punk…” The key word is “perceived.”
As long as crime, even spiking crime, is perceived as being predominantly punk-on-punk (which is the case for most murders), I suspect that RE values won’t suffer much. Punks shooting punks, or even punks shooting the occasional unlucky hard-working neighboring kid, still exist in a reality far enough removed from affluent homebuyers to stave off panic. A big surge in muggings of middle-class or affluent people would actually do more damage.
It’s also worth noting that, the lower the crime rate in raw numbers, the more easily a short-term statistical trend can arise from chance (as one poster alluded to above).
11:33 – it is definitely more than just economic – for example the Bronx has the same poverty problems as the Brooklyn (actually as a ‘whole’ boro it is worse) yet YTD the WHOLE Bronx has the same # of homicides then E.NY + Crown Heights + Bushwick, Brownsville and Bed Stuy
anon 11:33- if that were the case, the Bronx and Brooklyn would not still be home to hundreds of thousands of hardworking, working class people who obviously managed to make both boroughs attractive enough- through good times and bad- that those in upper economic brackets want to live there. And whether or not you care to believe it- Manhattan has quite a few serious issues of its own. Not to mention- if its so great why are so many people looking to live outside of it?
Real estate agents can’t ‘play it up’. We’re not allowed to even discuss crime statistics; it can be considered a discriminatory practice. Customers are referred to local police precincts or the internet to research crime stats.
Violent crime should be considered unacceptable in all forms in every neighborhood, even if it happens to gang members in Bushwick or East NY. As long as people allow for pockets of crime to fester, it will always grow stronger. The view should always be towards eliminating all crime everywhere as the goal.
Brooklyn has always been dangerous.
There are a lot of despertely poor people here as well as those who are third, fourth and fifth generation welfare recipients.
People who buy multi-million dollar homes in Brooklyn must be a little in la-la land in terms of where they are moving. Some places are definitely safer than others, but it is still Brooklyn, which like the Bronx, has pretty serious social/economic problems.