January 3, 2007
Park Slope May Be Over and Out For Some
We've been following a debate about leaving Park Slope pretty avidly. On Christmas Day, writer Douglas Rushkoff blogged about being mugged the night before while taking out the trash on his Park Slope street.
His wife, writer Barbara Rushkoff, blogged about it as well on her blog A Girl Grows in Brooklyn and revealed that the cop got "really defensive, acting as if Doug was in the wrong for not calling immediately last night when it happened." Plus, she wrote:Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it makes me question working two extra gigs (I won't divulge which ones they are) in order to pay the exorbitant rent this part of Brooklyn - when the streets are less safe than they were in the supposedly bad parts of Manhattan where I used to live.
The deep dark secret about Park Slope is that there's tons of crime here. According to the detectives from today, Manhattan is safe, but Brooklyn is decidedly not.The Rushkoffs discuss leaving Brooklyn in their posts and in the comments, and, now, their friend and neighbor, writer Steven Berlin Johnson, enters the fray with a comment to "make the case for Brooklyn", in spite of terrible muggings that do happen. He mentions the diversity as well as the fact that crime is down in the city and pulls out some stats:
Barbara talked on her blog about feeling much safer in the east village in the 1980s. If you look at the precinct data on the NYPD site, you can see that the there were literally FIVE times as many crimes committed in the east village in 1990 than in the Park Slope precinct in 2005, even though the east village has only about 20% more people in the precinct. (Exact numbers: 5,991 crimes in the east village in 1990 vs. 1,138 in the Slope in 2005.) Interestingly, the east village in 2005 had slightly more crime per capita than Park Slope.While city touts and its residents revel in the fact that NYC is the safest big city, it's still a city and there will always be some level of crime. All in all, a very complicated, very subjective debate - what would you do in this situation (or what have you done)?
Photograph of brownstones and blue skies on Flatbush by Newington on Flickr
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Please leave so the rent will get cheaper.
Thank you.
As a current Brooklyn resident, I too have been following this debate, and I have to say that, no offense, but the Rushkoff's have come off quite whiny. It's a big city; peopled get mugged. You know what? Yeah, that sucks, but it happens everywhere. It happened to some friends of mine in the middle of Riverside Park a few years back. It happens to people in Chelsea, in the Meatpacking District, in Riverdale, in Brooklyn, everwhere. If you don't want to get mugged and fear for your safety in Park Slope, then move to Westchester or some gated community outside of the city.
Otherwise, use common sense. There's no need to paranoid; just be alert of your surroundings. These two need to get over what happened. Rushkoff get mugged, and that sucks. But he's not the first or the last person to get mugged in New York.
An easy way to compare is to check the crime stats on this site:
http://gis.nyc.gov/ops/mmr/address.jsp?app=MMR
Crime is like a sick game of statistics where you hope that the odds are with you.
haha! its all good in the hipster hood. Looks like NoBr is better!
Still waiting to find out why he was carrying his wallet to take out the trash.
I was mugged in the late 1980s. Lost about $5. The wallet and the rest of the contents came back in the mail. We had a break-in the early 1990s. Lost a VCR and some jewelry. Someone broke our car window and took our air bags a few years ago. That's it in more than 20 years.
I wonder how much money I've lost to white collar crime during that time.
I wish crime stats were displayed per square mile, rather than per capita. It would give a better sense of whether the two blocks between your place and the subway is dangerous.
Why are we paying attention to this? Shit happens, everywhere. And why is there a weird dig at Park Slope. It seems to be that NYC is over for this couple. Or Brooklyn, at least. The title made it seem that there was a backlash against the slope. Things happen and people get scared and run. That's the way its always been. Now they blog about it and it becomes an event.
as easier way to compare is see how 'white' your neighborhood...the whiter the safer
Those numbers mean very little in a post-Comstat NYC. There are incentives to keeping the numbers down in the various precints and one of the easiest ways to do that is to discourage the filing of charges.
I got mugged at gunpoint on 5th avenue and 16th street! If you can get mugged in front of freaking Anthropologie, you can get mugged anywhere.
i read a similar article in the New York Press:
http://nypress.com/19/46/news&columns/feature3.cfm
this takes place in Crown Heights, but that's only a stroll across the park!
Why are we paying attention to this?
Because when you're going to tout your city as "The Safest Big City" you open yourself up to it.
...and you can't disagree with the original premise of his post: sure the city is dangerous, by why pay more to live in a dangerous neighborhood? As a Wshington Heights resident, I've never understood.
Breaking News, a NYC resident was mugged.
Everyone guard your wife and children.
It's still a big city and there will always be some level of crime but I'm sick of hearing so many people act as if it has to be anywhere near our current level. I'm convinced we could see a serious dip in crime if we continued to push as vigorously for it as this city did just a few short years ago. The recent attitude has been that we've bottomed out. When walking around certain streets of Brooklyn, or most subway stations, or most school corridors, it's clear to me how easy it would be to take a big chunk out of the stranger-on-stranger, out in public crimes that have us all chattering and worrying just a bit here. What was the NYPD response to the wild pack style attacks in Prospect Park? Nothing much. Attacks in Central Park and Flushing Meadows? Nothing much. The very noticeable spike in aggressive and actively threatening panhandlers in the streets of too many neighborhoods and on the subways? Nothing much.
We need a return of the NYPD force size to per capita pre 9-11 levels. More importantly we need a shift in attitude and public policy from the highest levels of this administration and from everyday New York pundits (which for our city means everyone, since all 8 million+ of us have at least one opinion on everything). We need to see a rapid response, high visibility, flood the zone approach to neighborhood problems like the one in Park Slope (or in my old Harlem neighborhood, even if that's more politically difficult). We need constant visibility on the subways and in the stations and in school corridors. But more than that we need to make sure the sergents are drilling the message over and over again to actually engage when something is obviously not right. I can't count the number of times I've seen officers turning a blind eye while a homeless person or recently released mental patient has taken over an entire train car with their stench or their violent threats. Sure, it's a symptom of this administration having a miserable failure of a homelessness policy... That doesn't mean it isn't time to turn it around.
It may just be perception, but if we have learned anything from the turnaround from the 80's to the 90's and today it's that perception counts for quite a lot. It is the canary in the coal mine. It indicates to us what's likely to happen with the hard data of crime stats not too far down the line. If the overall perception throughout this city has recently been one of "we've reduced crime all we can", or "we just have to live with things the way they are", then I don't see how that isn't explicitly a return to the old "ungovernable city" dogma. I really don't think it's just my perception that people engaged in stranger-on-stranger crime are learning the lesson that they can be more brash and get away with it.
This has gotten to be a real problem. No where near as bad as what this city has gone through before, but much worse than it needs to be. Let's stop sitting around mimicking Dr. Pangloss and get back to work reducing crime but another third or two.
But J., the NYPD can't reduce stranger-on-stranger crime, they've got cyclists to arrest!
This story really takes me back. There was a time when a story like this would have been greeted with nothing more than a series of "Yeah, that's bad, but wait until you hear what happened to me!"'s.
My first job in the city, twenty years ago now, I remember a guy came in late because he got mugged the night before. All day long everyone, and I mean every last person who worked in that office, came up to him with their war story. Everyone had had an experience. Now, a guy gets mugged and it's front-blog news. Maybe the fact that this story has become such a thing is telling us how much crime in the city has really come down.
Blah...so he got mugged. File a report and move on. My bike got stolen from fence in front of my apartment two nights ago...I guess I shoulda bought a better lock.
Tim, that's my point. They need to lay off Critical Mass and get back to the real crime that still happens out there. Just because the city is a hell of a lot safer than it used to be doesn't mean it can't easily be better. Try to remember what we are talking about here: Getting a gun or knife shoved in your face, sometimes having it kill you or someone you know and care about. How can so many of you be so jaded about that?
I can't imagine how awful this must have been for the two of them but when I first read about their situation (linked from Gothamist last week) I thought they were overreacting a bit as well. I know that it's a horrible situation, getting mugged sucks, but I am going to have to agree with what some of the others have said. This happens. It happens everywhere. It apparently hadn't yet happened to them.
I live in a relatively safe area of Brooklyn as well (Greenpoint), but my husband constantly reminds me that anything can go wrong and at any given moment. Would I be pissed if something like this happened to one of us? Oh hell yes. But surprised? Not really. Would something like this make me pack up and head out? Probably not. Now, if you want to talk about the actual cost of living here or there, that's something that I can get whiney about. My husband and I both make a pretty decent amount of cash yet we simply can not afford to buy a place here. That's something to whine about. ;] That's something to move to the suburbs over.
I guess I'm surprised that they're so surprised. Did they think that Park Slope is somehow immune to crime? It sucks. It really does. But good luck finding anywhere that's crime free and entirely safe.
Just some bad luck, really.
Despite my old jaded self :>), I do agree with you, J.
J. I'd like to be clear that I'm not being jaded here. I actually got radomly assaulted by a two teenagers last winter. It sucks. However, I lived in Fort Greene at the time (moved for unrelated reasons) and no matter how nice Fort Greene is there are large housing projects with lots of problems around the corner. There are large housing projects with lots of problems near Park Slope. There are rough neighborhoods Park Slopers wouldn't be caught in at night within walking distance. The city is safe for the most part and we forget that people of all types live in the city. It is an accepted risk. When they started paying there rent they should have known this. There was no magic bubble keeping the crack heads and thugs out of their neighborhood. Yes, the cops need to do more, but it seems to be blown out of proportion. That this has become a "debate" is a little baffling and the structure of the Gothamist post is even more so.
God, I just read the wife's blog. I hope she leaves and bothers another community. Her and her yenta squad.
Crime happens. I had my motorcycle stolen in NH. The cop asked me why didn't I lock it? I said, who knew a small town on the coast of NH would have crime?
You live out in the burbs, your neighbor could be making Meth in the basement or growing weed.
You could get killed walking your doggie, according to Lt. Vincent Hanna.
It's not an accepted risk. It's a risk we can do something about. We can continue to reduce crime. To say that crime emanating from housing projects just has to be a fact of life in this city is ridiculous. It's not just the cops that need to do more, it's the New Yorkers who just take all of this for granted that need to take some ownership of the city we live in.
Okay, J. you are missing the point. I'm saying that this is getting blown out of proportion because people like to pretend that crime doesn't exist and then are surprised when it happens to them. Sure, I'd like crime in certain areas to be reduced, but I've also read about gangs turning much of the projects in Red Hook into a meth lab. It was broken up and the bad guys were put in jail, but that is some serious shit.That is a LOT bigger than a mugging. Sure, the police should patrol more, leave the cyclists alone, etc, but no matter what you do there still going to be a measurable percentage of that 8 million who are desperate, addicted, or just downright bad. To act surprised by this or to complain about brooklyn when you are confronted by those realities is naive and a wee bit absurd.
I'm glad upwardly-mobile people with children live in Brooklyn rather than the city. This means I will see less yahoos sipping their Starbucks frappuccinos walking around with those stupid front-pouch-baby-holdster things. Yuppie kangaroos, that's what they are.
WWFU, crime is not a force of nature. It isn't a random shower on a sunny day or a cold front coming in to spoil our freakishly springlike winter. It's a symptom of the buildup of many individual negative actions. We can't eliminate it, but there is nothing about the current level that we should accept as natural. Would increasing the force size, ditching "more with less" as a policy, and prioritizing presence patrols in neighborhoods, on subways, and in other socially impactful zones higher than harassing bike riders do us any good? I think that's a strong yes on that one. Do we need a good homeless policy, mental health system reform, significant improvement in our god awful education system, and public housing reform to go with it? Of course we do. But why act as if there's nothing we can do?
The internet is broken and worthless.
You can run but you can't hide. All those people Guiliani put away in the eighties are getting out.
With no jobs, they're going for easy money.
Oh, how bout that Mr. Autrey? what a guy.
actually the kops have pushed crime down as much as they can........
statistically speaking that is.
I can't count the number of times I've seen officers turning a blind eye while a homeless person or recently released mental patient has taken over an entire train car with their stench
While I don't disagree with the sentiment, being stinky isn't a crime. If the dude's sitting there minding his own business and smelling bad, tough for you.
Tim, that's my point. They need to lay off Critical Mass and get back to the real crime that still happens out there.
No, unforutnately they can't. You want the police out enforcing the city's laws and ordinances, you can't just pick and choose the ones you want them to enforce. You have a high profile event that clogs traffic with people who are making a general nuisance out of themselves once a month. The cops can't let that go. Sorry. Out of curiousity, if all the gang members in the city decided that, on the first Thursday of every month, they were going to parade through the streets, would you still be cool with it?
It's not an accepted risk. It's a risk we can do something about.
Unfortunately, you can't. In New York City, law abiding people can't "take back their neighborhoods." You think crackheads and homeless people are going to leave because you asked them real nice?
"I'm glad upwardly-mobile people with children live in Brooklyn rather than the city. This means I will see less yahoos sipping their Starbucks frappuccinos walking around with those stupid front-pouch-baby-holdster things. Yuppie kangaroos, that's what they are."
Ten bucks says "urban defender" is nineteen and grew up in the burbs.
ny is increasingly white, bland and sterile. Park Slope is a worst offender in this regard.
"Unfortunately, you can't. In New York City, law abiding people can't "take back their neighborhoods." You think crackheads and homeless people are going to leave because you asked them real nice?"
No, we can posture real loud on blogs to make our opinions known in the hope of our elected officials being afraid we will back it up with votes. Those votes can lead to higher new recruit salaries for the NYPD, a larger force, and policies from the top directing officers to intervene when a homeless person has clearly violated MTA rules - those same rules you are talking about being enforced against Critical Mass. Sure they can continue to enforce the rules against Critical Mass, but they've also been documented as going well being just "keeping the peace" when it comes to NYPD treatment of cyclists. I'll try to avoid getting sidetracked on that one though. Going back to what we can do, we can also remember how important self-defense is. My own personal experience is one of making myself a threat to anyone who attempts being threatening to me. It has worked so far, but all it takes is one time for it to go horribly wrong. That's the risk I personally choose to take instead of expecting asking nicely to do a damn.
Again, if we are looking for a permanent elimination of crime then it's just not going to happen without suicide or mass extermination. So it's not going to happen. And that's not what anyone serious here is talking about. Crime can be reduced more than it has been. It takes a comprehensive effort. One big part of that is not accepting the current job the NYPD is doing as good enough, not accepting the current pay structure as good enough, and not accepting the current force size as good enough. Another big part of that is not acting like weak pushovers to violent criminals. Crime is not random like raindrops or daffodils. We can and must take responsibility for our own actions every day and can and must confront those who act in ways that a viciously harmful to us.
"Unfortunately, you can't. In New York City, law abiding people can't "take back their neighborhoods." "
Sure you can. Put your time where your mouth is and join the NYPD Auxiliary Police Unit. 4-5 months of training and you can help the police, instead of just complaining or worrying about their lack of reach.
Most people on the APU have full-time jobs or go to school, but volunteer at night. The whole idea is to increase police visibility/presence. It works to discourage exactly these kinds of crimes, and allows the regular officers to devote their time to larger issues.
It's a small step, but it allows regular citizens to have some degree of ownership and control over their neighborhood's safety.
Wrong.
Twenty bucks says "ha" is thirty-nine, slightly balding, is white, and typed his comment while his wife called him at work, reminding him to stop by Whole Foods to buy pomegranate juice and organic baby food prior to his commute back to the Slope.
maybe i missed something, but what part of park slope was this, exactly? it's fuzzy where it starts and ends these days.
As someone who was mugged and assaulted in P/S last year and called the cops immediately, I can say that the first response was adequate, but the followup was absurd to the point of being derelict. A patrol car was on the scene within 2 minutes and we did an unproductive canvas. After being told to wait for a followup call from detectives and never receiving one, I went in person to the local precinct to find out what was going on. No one there knew what I was talking about. I restated my detailed description and was told I'd be called but wasn't.
A few weeks later, I actually recognized the guy who'd mugged me drunk in a local bar. I asked around and found out his name and where he lived. Again to the precinct house, figuring an arrest would be imminent. Again, nothing. Frequent calls for updates or any progress by detectives were fruitless.
Finally I happened to see the guy on the street when officers were attending to a fender bender. I went over and said "That guy over there mugged me on this date and at that time. I can give you the name of every responding officer and detective I've talked to over the past six months. I can tell you the guy's name and tell you what street he lives in."
The response I got was "Six months? You shoulda reported it back then." The officer was either deaf or extremely stupid. I'm generally a fan of the NYPD, but my experience with the 78th Precinct leads me to believe that it is a dumping ground for the laziest and/or most incompetent detecives on the force. I could name names, but won't embarrass them.
No, we can posture real loud on blogs
hahaha, ok.
Not to nitpick, but there is one MAJOR discrepancy in their blogs --- he says he was mugged by knifepoint and she says it was by gun point.
I'm sensing a future Law & Order episode here.
"A few weeks later, I actually recognized the guy who'd mugged me drunk in a local bar. I asked around and found out his name and where he lived. Again to the precinct house..."
Your mistake. You know the guys name and address, right?.
You should round up some friends, follow that jerk around and then pounce him and beat him within an inch of his life. Burn the word "mugger" into his forehead with a lit cigarette. Snap all the fingers on his right hand. I dunno, get creative.
It works to discourage exactly these kinds of crimes, and allows the regular officers to devote their time to larger issues.
Sorry, not going out on the street without a gun. The bad guys have them.
if you have unemployment and you have drug addicts you will have crime.
but plenty of places that are not NYC are also for shit as far as crime. i grew up in Rochester NY, which was supposed to be "a nice place to raise kids". it's also the crime capital of New York State now! they got the unemployment and they got drug problems, and now they got the murders and the crime to go with it.
crime is the reverse on the curve of economic opportunity. Guliani's "miracle" of cleaning up NYC was basically coinciding with the economic resurgence of NYC.
the good side? all the people bitching about how boring NYC is and how it was better when it was dangerous and dirty in the '70s and '80s are getting their wish. the down side? getting mugged or assaulted sucks horribly - it really fucks with your perception of the world and your sense of safety in it. it's enough to give you some serious PTSD, and yes, enough of a factor to make you want to leave an otherwise pretty amazing place like Brooklyn.
but there are plenty of other dangerous places in the world, and you can't always tell a "safe" place from a "dangerous" place just by looking at it.
p.s. the Red Hook drug bust was not about the projects being turned into a meth lab, it was as massive dealing infrastructure of crack, cocaine, heroin and pot. god forbid if people start producing meth in any serious quantities in our city.
"Okay, J. you are missing the point. I'm saying that this is getting blown out of proportion because people like to pretend that crime doesn't exist and then are surprised when it happens to them. Sure, I'd like crime in certain areas to be reduced, but I've also read about gangs turning much of the projects in Red Hook into a meth lab. It was broken up and the bad guys were put in jail, but that is some serious shit.That is a LOT bigger than a mugging. Sure, the police should patrol more, leave the cyclists alone, etc, but no matter what you do there still going to be a measurable percentage of that 8 million who are desperate, addicted, or just downright bad. To act surprised by this or to complain about brooklyn when you are confronted by those realities is naive and a wee bit absurd."
I missed that post before. I'm not missing that point. I actually agree with it. I'm making a separate point, which I think is complimentary to it. I don't want the NYPD to take officers away from the serious work they do every day, and I think do very well. I want a larger force size so they can do the rest of the jobs they should be doing but currently aren't because of the "more with less" mantra Bloomberg entered office with. It's time to ditch that approach, continue doing the very important work of cracking down on meth gangs in Red Hook, but also bring back significant presence in high visibility places. They don't have to go all out back into full blown broken windows mode, but at least some of it would be good. I've lost count of how many times I've said this now, but again we aren't going to eliminate crime... but we CAN do more than we currently are.
Volunteering for for the Auxiliary is one small thing many of us could do. Not being surprised that we don't live in Pleasantville is another. Not shrugging in response to crimes we can do more about is one more thing. And taking responsibility for improving our experience of our city through a combination of political will, police tactics, civic buy-in, and neighborhood and essential services improvement is what I think is most important of them all.
"No, unforutnately they can't. You want the police out enforcing the city's laws and ordinances, you can't just pick and choose the ones you want them to enforce. You have a high profile event that clogs traffic with people who are making a general nuisance out of themselves once a month. The cops can't let that go. Sorry. Out of curiousity, if all the gang members in the city decided that, on the first Thursday of every month, they were going to parade through the streets, would you still be cool with it?"
What law is broken? They are not a parade and they are traffic. Don't buy into the myths. If individuals break the law, the police can arrest them. Ultimately, the city is not served by a bloated, vindictive, and violent police response to critical mass.
And if the cops can pick and choose which laws they enforce (cars parked in bike lane hmm?) then certainly we as citizens should have some say.
I see the laws bent everyday so this city can flow better, and i'm cool with that. as an example cars turning just after the light changes is totally permissible to me. same goes for cyclists running a red through a clear intersection. and hello, jaywalking?
Italian Guy, that's a very good example of "civic buy-in" right there. Thank you.
on the ParkSlopeParents yahoo group, Doug wrote that some people emailed him off list that he shouldn't have mentioned the location because it would affect property values!
This is the dark reality of post-Guliani era..
Anyway, wait until 2009 and the new Al Sharpton clone to be the next crime-friendly mayor. Crime rates will resemble those that we had during the liberal paradise in 1980's.
Get rid of the housing projects, Al Sharpton and illegals and this will be safe city again.
Don't buy into the myths. If individuals break the law, the police can arrest them. Ultimately, the city is not served by a bloated, vindictive, and violent police response to critical mass.
I'm not buying into any myth, I can sit there and watch Critcal Mass once a month while I'm walking home from work. They create a dangerous situation for themselves, walkers, and drivers. Surprisingly enough, every single person riding doesn't ride along peacefully and obey every traffic law. I've nearly been hit by them both here and in Boston... it's not always "orderly". And, frankly, if a cop arrested someone making a general douchebag out of himself by running traffic lights or whatever, NO ONE would ask 'what was he doing to get arrested.'
Just because you agree with the message doesn't make it safer.
"getting mugged or assaulted sucks horribly - it really fucks with your perception of the world and your sense of safety in it. it's enough to give you some serious PTSD, and yes, enough of a factor to make you want to leave an otherwise pretty amazing place like Brooklyn."
Well put, lovelyday. I love the posters here who have a "So, you got mugged. Get the hell over it!" attitude. I got pushed down the stairs at a subway station (granted, it was Jay Street in Brooklyn) for no good reason by some enormous, crazy guy (I'm a petite female). My first thought was that I could never live long-term in or raise my children in a city where there are so many people walking around with absolutely nothing to lose. Regardless of the reason they got that way - poverty, drugs, homelessness, etc. - you're not somehow white bread or racist for not wanting to be subjected to that shit.
Say what you wish about the dangers of the suburbs - car accidents, robbery, random violence - but at least in the suburbs you're not treated as though random theft/violence is par for the course.
I do tend to agree with you, Samantha. I don't want to raise my kid here but for other reasons. So, to each their own.
I guess I was just annoyed with how whiney they sounded in their posts. Then again, I whine all the time on my site, so I'm just as guilty.
Like I said, to each their own. Gotta tell ya, tho, if everyone who was ever mugged left this wonderful city, the real estate would be helluva lot cheaper. ;]
sheesh, why is it that so many of youse blame drugs, housing projects, homelessness, n*****s, s***s, gangs, etc for crime???
listen to italian guy! wasn't that a big enough hint for ya, huh?
plenty of white folks commit crimes - violent and non-violent. don't forget the organized variety - mob and white collar.
so lay of my homies, yo!
While I do sympathize with the writer's being mugged at either knife or gunpoint, depending on which blog you read, I question the community spirit of someone who goes to bed knowing that there is an armed criminal running through the neighborhood. While I can't imagine the fear you felt, I can't abide not calling the police immediately to report it and hopefully save the next victim. You missed the point with your self centered whining and then defensively blamed the police when they questioned you. Please do move, Brooklyn does not really need your self centered indulgent attitude. It is not always about YOU!!!!!
if people are serious about crime. they shouldn't tolerate pan handlers and need more cops on the beat.
Why does anyone care if some blogger wants to leave Park Slope? There are many people in Brooklyn who actually worked hard to remain in their communities when crime was really bad and many others were leaving the city. How about if those people who are not committed to Brooklyn leave, so that rent will decrease and those who really love it and understand it can afford to stay.
I love sweeping, idealistic, declarative statements that ignore the fact that humanity will never, ever adhere to any ideal, or that humanity is inherently flawed.
There's a lot of people on here making those statements. I'll write one now off the top of my head:
"Criminals should just stop committing crimes, then all crime will stop."
Aren't I a political genius?
Quite frankly, if I paid $2000+ rent or paid half-a-mil on some apartment in Park Slope, I'd be pissed as hell that I got mugged in my backyard. I'd wanna move out too.
You folks crack me up! "Oh the crime . . . it's dreadful!" "I can't deal with this place"
After I graduated from college, I lived for a brief time in that mecca of hipsterdom, Cleveland, Ohio.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I've been here in the City for awhile now, and I will gladly put up with a little filth, an occassional mugging and subway flashterbators. Why? Because New York is New York! The greatest city in the world.
How does that old saying go?
When New York is bad, it's bad. But when it's good, it's really, really good. Which is why we put up with the bad.
Cleveland was a bo