Let's Talk About the Rushkoffs, Dammit
Since we’re about the only publication in town who hasn’t written about writer Douglas Rushkoff’s Christmas eve mugging outside his Park Slope apartment and subsequent decision to leave (and, along with his wife, to write about leaving) Brooklyn, we might as well throw it out there. His wife now famously wrote that she felt safer…
Since we’re about the only publication in town who hasn’t written about writer Douglas Rushkoff’s Christmas eve mugging outside his Park Slope apartment and subsequent decision to leave (and, along with his wife, to write about leaving) Brooklyn, we might as well throw it out there. His wife now famously wrote that she felt safer in the East Village in the 1980s that she does in Park Slope today, which sounded kind of silly until her hubby clarified that this was only because they knew the drug dealers in the East Village. We got a call from a reporter a couple of days ago asking whether we thought the incident would have a negative effect on real estate prices. In short? No. In long? No, no, no. The Rushkoffs decision to leave was an emotional, albeit understandable, one. Unless the entire city enters a 1970s-like downward spiral, we’re pretty sure Park Slope will be just fine.
Do You Care If the Rushkoffs Leave Brooklyn? [New York Magazine]
On Leaving Brooklyn [Steven Berlin Johnson]
The Rushkoffs’ original blog posts are no longer available online.
I was mugged in Bushwick in 1994 and moved to the West Village 3 weeks later. Its no fun when a huge percent of your mental energy is spent worrying about personal safety. We all get to make personal choices about where we live.
I completely agree with ‘june 10:23’. Also, I’ve visited Brownstoner many times to see the bashing of Bed-Stuy when it comes to property values and it’s relation to its perceived crime and ‘elements’. The majority of comments have been borderline racist and it just strikes me funny how passive the comments have been on this topic as it relates to Park Slope.
Wake up folks. Crime is almost everywhere in NYC – pick up any of the local papers and read the Police Blogger section, you’re in for a treat.
What a spoiled, self-important narcissist this guy is. He gets mugged and the whole world has to stop and hear about it. Well boo hoo. I got mugged when I first moved to New York (in Park Slope too!) by a black guy in a hard hat. I didn’t leave NYC, I didn’t start spouting vaguely racial comments about black folk, and I didn’t run away every time I saw a construction worker. Gee, what a survivor I am! Can New York Mag do an article on me? Can I be interviewed on the radio? Where’s my book deal?
Do what I do – and take a look at the crime blotter in the Park Slope newspaper delivered every Saturday. It’s AMAZING the amount of muggings, break-ins, and hold-ups that happen in a given week in PARK SLOPE. What’s even crazier is that much of it happens in broad daylight, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. What I’ve learned: beware the area around the park and don’t walk alone at night.
People’s normative ideas are more important to them than facts. Are you people seriously arguing that inner city projects do not harbor or forment crime? projects aren’t good for the people in them or the people around them.
Why don’t you put your “understanding” of the real world to a real world test? Don some nice ostentatious gold bling and go and stand in any bed-stuy project of your choice for half an hour at 11pm. Then do the same in Park Slope.
Over-generalizations aside, there’s the world as you’d like it to be and then there’s the world as it is.
“Crime is almost everywhere in NYC” –
True but that doesnt mean that you arent at SIGNIFICANT more risk in certain places then others. Sorry you can look at all the police blotters you want but the likelihood of being the victim of a crime in Brownsville is much, much higher then in Park Slope.
I mean Tornados happen anywhere too but it is (and should be) much more of a concern to someone living in Kansas then in NYC.
I agree completely with June, and thank you for stating the point so well. It really is a shame that someone has to. Oh, and “right at 10:30”, don’t rest too assuredly. No one thought red blooded white Americans could possibly be responsible for the Oklamhoma City terrorist attack either. Desperate people, for whatever reason, do not just live in the projects, or are only members of minority groups.
More importantly, in terms of the Rushkoff’s – does NY Magazine ever write about real issues or about the lives of people who are not over-privileged whiners? From Wall Streeters who can’t manage to live in comfort on their million dollar salaries, to thirty-something Upper East Siders who can’t find boyfriends, to this? Has Britney Spears not sold her Manhattan loft yet?
I’m sorry to hear that anyone is a crime victim, and I’m sure the experience scared the hell out of them, but as someone else said, they wanted to leave anyway. They just managed to find a public outlet to vent in. Park Slope, and Brooklyn will go on.
you guys who think crime is evenly distributed around the city are la-la land morons.
The Rushkoff’s are smoking the crack their drug dealing EV buddies were dealing…they must have forgotten they live in NYC where crime does happen