Brownsville's Bleak Urban Landscape

The Times’ Gina Bellafante visited Brownsville for her latest “Big City” column, and her depiction of the neighborhood is grim: “I encountered people who felt not only that the quality of life had barely improved since the days of the crack epidemic in the ’80s and ’90s, but that in certain respects it had grown worse.” Bellafante notes that the neighborhood’s murder rate hasn’t fallen in the last few years, and that gang violence is a regular occurrence. Some neighborhood businesses say that they have trouble moving inventory like men’s clothing because “of a retracted drug trade that however insidious kept money in the neighborhood in motion.” There are some small, hopeful signs of change, according to the article, particularly the renovation of the long-vacant Loew’s Pitkin theater, which will house a charter school on its top floors and retail on the bottom floors.
Where Optimism Feels Out of Reach [NY Times]