Pratt Community Alerted to Rise in Violent Muggings
Last Friday Pratt Institute brass sent out an email to students and faculty warning them of a reported increase in violent activity near the Clinton Hill campus. The email said, in part, the following: The NYPD 88 Precinct has reported an increase in robberies within its confines. The robberies are reported to be committed by…
Last Friday Pratt Institute brass sent out an email to students and faculty warning them of a reported increase in violent activity near the Clinton Hill campus. The email said, in part, the following:
The NYPD 88 Precinct has reported an increase in robberies within its confines. The robberies are reported to be committed by a group of black males and females approximately 15-16 years of age. It has been reported that the group runs up to the victim, assaults them by kicking, punching, and scratching; then taking anything of value. These occurrences have happened during various times of the day. All students and Pratt community members are recommended to travel in pairs or groups. If you must travel alone consider using a car service. Avoid traveling late at night.
Repeated queries to the 88th Precinct for more information on the rash of robberies yielded no answers, but the precinct’s published report on crime for the 28 days that ended last Sunday shows there were 26 robberies committed during the period, a 37 percent increase from the 19 committed during the same weeks last year. Pratt isn’t the only neighborhood entity that’s been showing concern about safety in the area lately. Clinton Hill Blog has been chronicling appearances of a car in the neighborhood called the “Clinton-Washington Neighborhood Patrol,” a security measure undertaken by the Clinton Hill Co-ops. A couple months ago the Daily News reported that there’s been a big jump in the number of robberies and car thefts in Clinton Hill so far this year.
Clinton-Washington Neighborhood Patrol [Clinton Hill Blog]
Double-Digit Increase in Clinton Hill Crime Rate [Brownstoner]
Photo by PhillyBlunt.
Oh, and one more though Manitoba–
You say “Anytime you have people with money and expensive possessions move in next to people with nothing, you’ll have problems.”
That’s also my point! Building luxury condos next the projects is a dumb idea for exactly the reason you stated. This includes renovated brownstones! I see the looks some of the project residents give my white friend–envy and resentment! And the look they give me is traitor/uncle tom!
LP
Manitoba–
I study housing/urban affairs as well as architecture (grad student) and I realize that the problem will not be solved by just knocking down the projects–however, that is the first start. And as the article in Atlantic Monthly points out, some cities were successful. I think one of the main points to get out of the article is that poor people can not live together in high concentrations (40% poverty rate seems to be the tipping point), projects or suburban apartments; the tight housing market is also a problem (that’s why rent control/stabilization needs to go–especially in NYC); we are social beings and herd/group mentality dominates. As the article points out–they bring the ghetto with them, but it only becomes apparent or “activates” when poor people with ghetto mentalities engage with the like. They essentially recreate their old habits/environment. I believe that with better urban planning, i.e. dispersing poor people in areas throughout the city that keeps the poverty/crime tipping rate below 30% can work. Also, there is alot of architectural research that explains why highrise projects encourage crime. Building housing that encourages visibility/surveillance works. Yes, the teenagers robbed people during the day and risk being caught–however, they bank on the fact that people will not snitch in the hood. I don’t think this gang would get away with that behavior in central Park Slope or Tribeca.
LP
Vast exageration and stereotyping on the part of 12:01pm. There are many educated people in Carroll Gardens of all ethnic backgrounds if that is one of your criteria. I personally just want them to be kind and considerate as I try not to be so judgemental and status conscious. That’s a major reason that I live in the City.
12:01 – I am not 11:02 but believe that you are extremely presumptous to assume that a person of Italian descent from CG wrote this statement. There are plenty of newbies very happy in CG who could have easily wrote this. Your diatribe against people of Italian descent was disgusting – you sound like a monster.
I am really surprised by the whole “defend yourself” line of posts…I have had a few minor run-ins with kids in the neighborhood where a swift jab to the nose would have been warranted and deserved, however, the problem is you are playing the “guess who’s packing” lottery with angry, aggressive kids who aren’t necessarily thinking of the repercussions of pulling a trigger. There have been no less than 4 separate uses of handguns within a 100 yards of the Connecticut Muffin in the last 2 years. Given this fact, I don’t know if the right answer is to take up a street fight with a pack of youths (ummm, ever heard of “mob mentality”?) — getting your ass beat curled up in a ball on the ground is not the best option, not really sure if there is a definitive answer.
And on an unrelated note, why no foot/bike patrols in the neighborhood? Why the focus on traffic tickets, cell phone, and seat belt violations (this is rhetorical)? For Christ sake can’t the 88th get some better visibility? i know where the crimes/dealing are going down in the hood — how the f@#$ can the 88th not be on this shite?
It’s the project blacks that cause all these problems. They glorify crime and shun education. That is why they are in the sad predicament that they are in.
LP and others who advocate ripping the projects down, you should read the most recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly. I’m not saying your sentiments are unjustified, but the article highlights some of the major issues with your proposition. The article discusses Memphis mostly, but it also shows (as we all know) that simply ripping down housing projects doesn’t take care of the problem. Many of these problems are not just racial (even though that underlying current will never go away), but socio-economic. Anytime you have people with money and expensive possessions move in next to people with nothing, you’ll have problems.
I’m late to the thread, but I had to address 11:02, who said:
“stick to the old italian hoods if you want to be a “pioneer.”
Looks to be our old friend, the uneducated racist Carroll Gardens booster. Who would even claim Park Slope used to be an Italian neighborhood when everybody knows it was a wealthy, patrician wasp neighborhood that became a black neighborhood in the 60’s and 70’s. Dude, you can claim Carroll Gardens, Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge. Big whoop.
Let’s spell it out for you. The bad taste renovations and alterations to facades in the Italian neighborhoods are horrible. We’d be ashamed to invite our friends over if we lived in one of those houses. Also, liberal intellectuals working in media and the arts do not want to have to attempt to get along with loud macho Republican Italian neighbors.
I know it’s hard for you types to grasp, but there are other divides in society greater than race. Our black neighbors are college educated doctors and lawyers. We have a lot more in common with them than with you old timer Brooklyn Italians. Sorry.
My own blame for youth crime like this falls on local black leaders like Charles Barron and Al Sharpton: stop paying so much attention to what the cops might do once in a while, and pay attention to what the youth in your own communities are doing every single day. That is if you really actually want to help your people instead of posing for the cameras.
Used to live across the street from a housing project in East Harlem.
No problem.