Police Up The Ante At The Lefferts Hotel
Why was there a police car stationed in front of the Lefferts Hotel all weekend? Click here to find out.
Why was there a police car stationed in front of the Lefferts Hotel all weekend? Click here to find out.
“There are real advantages to having the seedier elements of the community located in one place.”
John are you serious? I certainly hope not! This is a residential community – not Hunts Point! What about the families who live on this block? What about their children? What about their quality of life? Are you suggesting that their lives be sacrificed so to keep other sections of the nabe tranquil and peaceful? The audacity of some people on this board is beyond belief!
This is great news. It’s sad that something didn’t happen until yuppies started moving in. But that doesn’t mean it’s not good for everyone still.
Perhaps they won’t move next door to you, but they’re going to move next door to someone. That’s the point. Simply forcing these people to change locations isn’t going to solve anything. It might make you happy in the short term (at the expense of some of your fellow Brooklynites), but that’s it.
I can’t believe it but I agree. Why not now go through brownsville and rid them of all their seedy drug corners and hotels. i think the point is that is it great to displace drug addicts and prostitutes but it is only an “OK, at least they’re not near me anymore” attitude. I actually live on lefferts place and i say this and i hate this hotel but the sad, lost souls who happened to be whores and drug addicts need more then just a closed sign in the window. there is no community/activist/anything meeting being held to help remedy this microcosm called “that world in which they live”.
John, this is not the only place in the neighborhood. They already are in many locations near the Bed Stuy border. Things are much, much better than they were 15 years ago though. All of my neighbors in this area of South Eastern Clinton Hill are happy with the push to take care of the dealing and attendant crime on the Grand Avenue corridor – as people have started calling it in the last few community meetings – which includes parts of Fulton Street near the Washington subway exit through to Classon, and Grand from Lafayette to Atlantic. The do nothing approach will not help, and doesn’t stop the threats of violence by dealers or random crime by addicts looking for buck for a quick fix.
As far as comments stating that now the dealers or prostitutes will move in next door, that won’t be the case. The reason this particular hotel has been a real issue is that it is on a residential street full of old and new families. It sticks out like a sore thumb.
Anon 10:21am, why is this a bad thing? Shouldn’t families have the right to live in a drug and crime free environment? What type of impact, if any, do you think this hotel has on the children who play next door at the children’s park? Shouldn’t tax paying property owners and renters have a voice in shaping their own communities? Who granted Cobble Hill and Park Slope exclusive right to the “good life”? Why can’t communities be transformed for the better? Are quality of life issues not important to you and your family? Why should it be any different for others in the community?
As I understand the situation, the community has been against the hotel for years – far longer than the four years that you have lived in the area. IMHO, this is a very good thing and I hope that the recent efforts to improve quality of life issues in Clinton Hill continues.
I suspect it’s premature to celebrate the closing of this hotel. There are real advantages to having the seedier elements of the community located in one place. It means you know where they are and can keep an eye on them. If you scatter them to the winds, they’re apt to ‘take root’ all over the place. You are about to find this out.
If you want to fight drug dealing and prostitution, there HAS to be a more effective way to do it. This seems like a sink hole for police time and money…and for what? This will accomplish absolutely nothing.
If wanting to improve your community by ridding it of drug dealers and prostitutes means being a Bush aficionado, then consider me a registered Republican for life!
How does this get rid of a single drug dealer? When the hotel closes, will the dealers and prostitutes suddenly just wink out of existence? Hardly. They’ll just go somewhere else. And who knows…with the hotel closed now, they might just become your new neighbors.