Murders, Binge Drinking Up in Park Slope Last Year
While overall crime was down in Brooklyn South last year, murders were up more than 35 percent to 92 from 68 a year earlier. Such was the case in Park Slope where the number of homicides rose from one in 2007 to three in 2008. Meanwhile, says The Post, binge drinking was higher than other…
While overall crime was down in Brooklyn South last year, murders were up more than 35 percent to 92 from 68 a year earlier. Such was the case in Park Slope where the number of homicides rose from one in 2007 to three in 2008. Meanwhile, says The Post, binge drinking was higher than other neighborhoods around the city: 20 percent of Slopers ranked binge drinking as their favorite activity. “It’s the real people, and you feel like you are on ‘Cheers,'” said Samantha Stewart. “I can just go to the bar and see 10 people that I know.” The preference ties in with another borough-wide stat for 2008: Drunk driving violations were up 1.6 percent in Brooklyn last year, reports The Daily News, while they were down 3.4 percent around the city as a whole.
Murder Rate Skyrockets in 2008 [NY Post]
Home Is Where the Health Is [NY Post]
Increase in Brooklyn Drunk Driving [NYDN]
“The bars that I frequent (you can find one by following the smell of the aforementioned upchuck left by your trully) are pretty wreckless.”
lol. Is that you in the picture with the funnel?
So Benson, indeed crime started to drop under Dinkins, and if it was because people were demanding he do something, he did something, which is what a politician should do.
As for Giuliani, he won by a whisker the first election, largely because Staten Islanders were voting on a secession initiative, a cynical ploy by borough Republicans to bring out their vote — and put Giuliani over the top.
NOP
NOP;
I think your post is not entirely accurate. “Technically speaking”, the murder rate did start to decline under Dinkins, BECAUSE, the peak in crime had been realized under his reign. However, the significant drop in crime started under Giuliani, and continued under Bloomberg.
I don’t want to bash Dinkins, but he was pretty clueless about crime when he first entered office. Crime got so bad, and folks were so outraged, that he finally was forced to act. I will give him credit that he began the build-up of the police force.
More importantly than the sheer number of police, however, was the approach to crime-fighting. Dinkins had no use for the “broken-window” approach to crime fighting. Indeed, he felt that minor offenders were in need of social services.
It is no accident that Dinkins was a one-term mayor. Picking up on what harrythehat said, the irony of Dinkins’ reign is that it convinced the majority of New Yorkers that the Democratic establishment could not get a grip on crime. Thus, an overwhelmingly Democratic city threw him out, and put in Giuliani.
The bars that I frequent (you can find one by following the smell of the aforementioned upchuck left by your trully) are pretty wreckless.
The bars that I frequent (you can find one by following the smell the aforementioned upchuck left by your trully) are pretty wreckless.
“When I go out in Park Slope bars it’s complete mayhem. Locals drink for hours and hours nonstop.
By midnight everyone is hammered, slurring, and often upchucking in the street.
I have a strong feeling many of you folks haven’t been out much lately.”
Where u drinking?
I mean, there is that one big sports bar on 5th Ave near union, and Bogota looks like it gets a fairly lively crowd, and then there is that tiny hole in the wall place up 5th near flatbush where I suspect everyone just grumbles constantly about the smoking ban, but, c’mon…
Park Slope is not the East Village.
Frankly, it isn’t even Hoboken when it comes to boozing it up.
I mean, it might be triple A, but it is still minor leagues.
wow bayridge, really hucking stones from that bay ridge glass house today. the shiny guido-gates and greek columns must be glimmering extra bright today down there.
i kid i kid.
please let me know where these wreckless bars are. i need to make plans for tonight.
harrythehat : Compstat will not allow the good old days to return. Plus with new technology it’s almost impossible to go back to the high crime days. The City is installing cameras everywhere, computers have combated crime in ways that no human ever could. I agree that Bill bratton and Jack maple were the innovation behind the machine, but the machine is now on cruise control.
Brownstoner:
New York City’s crime rate started its descent under David Dinkins (a Democrat) who, with Police Commissioner Brown, instituted “community policing.”
And safety is a relative thing. Today’s stats are similar to what I remember as a boy in Brooklyn around 1960 — when everyone thought the city was spiraling out of control!
As for the “good old days” there were more than 700 murders per year in the city around 1900, at a time when the population was about three million. That would be the equivalent of 2100 annually now, a little under the peak of the “bad old days” when Dinkins took office.
New York and Brooklyn have always been tough places to live. Remember Bogart’s great line in “Casablanca?” Speaking to a Nazi officer he said, “There are some neighborhoods in New York I’d recommend not even you try to invade.”
When watching the film at the old St. Marks Cinema, the audience would cheer the line. We all knew what he meant (and were defiantly proud of it).
Nostalgic on Park Avenue