Grand & Putnam Gets Lip Service, Maybe More
There was a big turnout–over a 100 people, we’d guess–at last night’s Town Hall meeting to discuss the problems of drug dealing, gambling and violence at the corner of Putnam and Grand in Clinton Hill. Tish James and Captain Cosgrove of the 88th spoke for the first 45 minutes or so about recent crime stats…
There was a big turnout–over a 100 people, we’d guess–at last night’s Town Hall meeting to discuss the problems of drug dealing, gambling and violence at the corner of Putnam and Grand in Clinton Hill. Tish James and Captain Cosgrove of the 88th spoke for the first 45 minutes or so about recent crime stats and the historical efforts to combat the entrenched lawlessness in this particular hotspot. (What do you know! There just happened to be a squad car, shown below, parked on the corner before and during the meeting.) In particular, Cosgrove expressed frustration at the inability to purge 435 Grand Avenue despite numerous raids and busts; he also admitted his frustration at how quickly those arrested reappear on the corner. Numerous people stood and told their own stories–mostly of being intimidated by thugs and of being treated rudely by police.
Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes showed up about half-way through the evening and promised to pay special attention to the corner, pointing to the mass arrests in the Red Hook Houses as proof of his resolve. When we got our chance we made two comments: (1) we told Cosgrove that, regardless of the degree to which it has basis in truth, his precinct has a massive p.r. problem with the community that needs to be addressed and (2) we put on the table the idea of installing a surveillance camera, something which several of us in the neighborhood formulated as a top priority a couple of weeks ago. It turns out that there may be a way to fund this privately, though it’s unclear what it would cost (possibly as little as $18,000). A show of hands revealed that more than 90% of the room was in favor of a camera. Hynes said he had no problem with surveillance cameras but cautioned the audience not to look at them as a panacea.
The message that all three speakers kept hammering home was that the residents have to stay vigilant in reporting crimes and working closely with law enforcement. It’s hard to argue with such advice, but many of the people in the audience who’ve lived in the neighborhood for a while have endured years of feeling helpless and ignored by the police; they are also aware of the potential repercussions of taking too high a profile stance against the drug dealers. It seems like there’s a lot of momentum among residents now and we hope the efforts to clean up the nabe and hold the public officials’ feet to the fire will not recede along with the memories of the recent shootings.
One suggestion that came up in conversation after the meeting was to bring in the Nation of Islam as private security. This has never occurred to us, but supposedly they did a fantastic job cleaning up Coney Island (who knew?). Does anyone know anything about how that would work?
DA Hynes Hits Town Hall Meeting [Brooklyn Record]
Concernedres,
Lay off the ignorant racial insults. Obviously, everyone wants to be safe, enjoy their neighborhood, and make money off their real estate investments, regardlless of race. Thats what we are talking about here. This forum is for open communication, which includes complaining if necessary. I personally am extremely happy to have found this site, and applaud the many voices represented.
-bmeterp
The proposed rezoning of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill should help a lot with bringing more business and residential to Fulton Street. The new zoning will provide for increased density where it belongs (on Fulton) and reduced density where it belongs (all of the brownstone blocks).
As a fairly recent transplant to Classon Avenue, I was struck by how many fewer police officers Capt. Cosgrove said he had now versus a few years ago. I believe the numbers were 129 now versus 169 in the past. I thought that he was very candid about needing more resources, and I was surprised that Tish James wasn’t doing more to address those needs directly. She mentioned that she had talked with Ray Kelly about this, and that he wasn’t terribly responsive. Maybe we need to lobby Ray as a community. It seems to me that getting more cops on the street, particularly on Fulton between Grand and Classon, is key to solving some of these problems.
Bu ultimately, I agree with putnam-denizen that more business on Fulton would help tremendously. That’s really what improved places like Smith Street and Fifth Avenue that were in bad shape in the 80s and 90s. When there are a lot of people on the street, crime goes down.
Even though the condos at Fulton and Classon are ugly as sin, I really hope that they help to inspire some services and businesses to come to the area.
ItsAWrap – I hear you and understand. Thanks for the clarification, and thanks for being a voice of reason.
Yeah, I had the fine experience of sopending an entire afternoon at the criminal arraignment court downtown this past winter waiting for a friend to be arraigned. Over the course of the 6 hours I was there, I’d wager there were a dozen different men under the age of 18 arraigned for possession of large quantities of crack viles. That’s two underage crack dealers per hour on one apparently normal day, in only one court, in only one borough. How many minors are being arrested for this on a given day citywide? 50? I have no clue what the actual numbers are. But I remember thinking to nmyself that these children must be viewed as expendable. And there must be enough of them that 50 can get arrested in a day and it doesn’t effect the trade.
The problem is overwhelming and I’m not sure law enforcement, while clearly an issue, should be taken as the real answer.
I read an article in Tuesday’s Metro (http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/realestate/neighborhoods/features/
11775/index.html) about the gentrification of Jefferson Avenue and it made, among other things, a fine point about the power of community.
I still remember a day two years ago when I was walking by the building that runs the block on Putnam between Grand and Downing. This woman was tehre drinking a beer in a lawn chair as she almost always is. I walked by as I had done for two years already, acknowledging her with little more than a friendly nod. She yelled after me to come back and introduce myself since she had seen me there all the time. I introduced myself as well and she said “see? This is how you build a neighborhood. You gtotta watch out for me and I gotta watch out for you. if we all know eachother, we all know what’s going on and we can all say “hey! Stop! I know that guy!”
Start young. Engage the younger kids in the neighborhood, the 5 year olds and 8 year olds and ten year olds, so by the time they’re 17 they have not just their immediate community around them, but the feeling that they live in a sanctified ciommunity as a whole.
That’s my thinking for now anyway.
Brownstoner there were not over a hundred people at that meeting. There were about 50-60 people. FG/CH section of Brooklyn is not bad compared to other sections.
Oh, you silly white folks in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy. Instead of Blogging and complaining, (which is what you do best) why dont you get off your asses and demand change. Just face it and admit you’re too scared and you’re white guilt is killin’ you!
I attended the meeting last night and honestly believe that many politicians have self serving and personally motivated reasons to everything they do. I work in politics and I know politicians. You have to hold ALL of these people accountable by checking in with the status of their promises on an almost weekly basis!! The bottom line is we (concerned residents of grand, or whatever you want to call any future organization) have to put pressure on all of those people (Tish James, Capt. Cosgrove & DA Hynes) and make them step up or vote them the hell out of office.
Too often, those who are the grassroots activists are tired of doing everything while other people sit back and don’t care. Yesterday and in years past, there are people who are able to look the other way as the hand to hands are happening or as someone is packing a gun. How has that become the norm or the way of life? I’m tired of that s***. I don’t care if you’re black or white, if you didn’t grow up that way, you don’t want to come home to that nor do you want to invite people over to your place and they have to pass that activity in order to get to your front door. I shouldn’t be afraid to speak up, or complain, or call the police or worry about whether my car will be damaged because some fool doesn’t like what I’m doing or saying.
I have lived on Grand for 6 years and have witnessed things at a status quo because everyone is afraid. I don’t feel comfortable coming home by myself after 10pm or so esp. because in recent months, there have been women attacked at knife point entering the C train at Clinton-Washington. Ultimately, while this event was being planned, the organizers didn’t care if those willing to help out were white or black, the important thing is to unify and fight for the same goal which is improving the quality of life of the block and more specifically Putnam and Grand. At this point, we need to lay out an agenda of short term and long term goals as well as how we plan on accomplishing them!
I worked for a management co in Alphabet City when they were selling pot out of garbage cans and even Grandma was selling crack out of her mailbox. I spent many an hour at the 5th Precinct filing complaints for various landlords. Did you know that a landlord can loose his building if they make several arrests from the same address. The law regards the landlord as profiting from the illegal activity. Our problem was that the dealers were using underage kids for the street sales so they couldn’t be sent to jail. Maybe it’s true that most drug dealers still live with their mothers.