you do have to be aware of your surroundings. i (20-something, very short, white girl) lived at the morgan stop for 2 yrs. never had a problem.

#42 is totally right. I don't know if any of you have searched for apartments lately, but the city's gotten incredibly expensive. I have a 9-5, "professional" job working with computers for a major publisher and the only affordable apartments I've been finding are in Bed-Stuy and Bushwick. I think the increase in muggings is because young professionals (and hipsters) are being increasingly pushed into lower-income neighborhoods. Many people aren't living there for the "street cred" but just because they're aren't many options.

The New York magazine article below offers some more information:

http://nymag.com/realestate/realestatecolumn/35523/

I guess Jersey is always an option, but it's not always that cheap (or crime-free) either.

I used to live in Bed-Stuy (I went to Pratt and didn't want to have to take the subway to class every day) - all the locals treated me like shit for no particular reason. I got attacked by groups of highschool kids just for walking to school. Soon as I graduated I moved to Queens and I don't have that problem anymore. Know your neighborhood, if you don't feel safe, either move or quit your bitchin.

#52 - people moving to neighborhoods to gain street cred? what? are you a total idiot or just some of the time? street cred? ahahahaha.

oh man, i was mugged at gunpoint this june at broadway and lorimer. it was on a sunday, at around 7pm as I was just about to enter the lorimer m, z stop. it was freaking daylight out with a station attendant approximately 10 feet away. a friend of mine was mugged a couple of weeks earlier at the morgan stop. she was choked and held at gunpoint for an hour and a half. she is now traumatized.

anyways, i have since moved out of the area. detectives from that area think it is absolutely absurd that there are so many young girls and hipsters living around there, making themselves easy targets. stupid hipsters try to gain street cred by living in these shitty locations and then cower in fear when they get mugged.

the cops also busted heads in the east village, they didn't care if you were scum or the new transplant.

the east village used to be a death trap during the 70's but shit loads of hipsters still moved there. eh punk music anyone?

.........sooooooooooo dont think this is going to make anyone leave.

Bravo. (stands and claps)

Mr. number 48

I'm taking a toke in your honor, that's how you make friends.

The whole attitude of, "Punish the people committing the crime!" shows that you are closeted hippies, or something, moving here from Charlottesville, and you used to listen to DMB but then realized it wasn't cool any more.

GET OVER IT.

You don't make the rules here. The rules were written before you or I were born. Right, crime is terrible, and you're right, the offenders should be punished. BUT THAT DOESN'T HELP PEOPLE BE MORE AWARE OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS.

You moved to Morgan Ave. Did NOTHING about that neighborhood, and the fact that aside from the loft buildings, it's essentially deserted at night, while RIGHT on the border of Bushwick, tell you that it MIGHT not be the safest place to live? No, seriously. You're right - you did exercise some common sense, but YOU MOVED TO A NON-GENTRIFIED NEIGHBORHOOD AS A GENTRIFIER. Your presence in the neighborhood is going to make you a target.

You can be blind to that or not.

Awesome! as long as no one gets killed, I fully support this trend.

I used to live right around that area, in what is DEFINITELY Bushwick, about 3 blocks off the Morgan Ave stop. And I got mugged walking home from work at 9pm on a Wednesday in July. Not drunk, not high, and not a hipster. When I moved there I even changed my style of dress, being careful to not wear skirts or high heels if I knew I was going to be walking home. I was even with a tall male friend. But what good are any of those precautions when someone's waving a gun in your face and demanding you hand over your purse?

Yeah, it helps if you're not being stupid, but shit happens, and to blame it on the victim is not a helpful attitude. Getting mugged was not my fault. It doesn't matter what kind of target someone presents. Walking down the street after being out with your friends is not a crime. Beating someone over the head and stealing their wallet is.

drunk fools with no common sense have been getting mugged in williamsburg for over 10 years now. but i dont think the muggers weren't getting much back then. now that only rich fools can live in williamsburg, mugging must be more lucrative. certainly no one deserves to be mugged. however, drunks with no common sense who seem to think that expensive rent equals safe certainly deserve some kind of reality check.

There's more than one way to tackle the Billyburg hipster problem:

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/spoofs_satire/do_you_have_hipsters.php

Admit it, Rules, you got scared from all the muggings and have closeted your skinny jeans, and now you feel a little guilty about abandoning your Hipster brethren. Speaking of "piss ants-", maybe you pissed your skinny jeans as a non responsive bystander watching someone getting mugged.

Maybe you saw the "Hipsters Olympics" spoof and felt offended? (I, for one, found it very funny and I think it explains in detail this "Vitriol" you speak of.)

You go way out of your way to defend a group of people that would turn up their nose at you based on your home address, your dress, your choice of music, or any number of things. They've earned their derision, have you?

Let's forget the hipster moniker for a minute. Let's, instead, call the first 3 victims, unfortunate and the next 20 victims, dumbasses. Better?

Williamsburg has not been an affordable artist neighborhood for over five years...most of the people moving in the neighborhood are young professionals. Also, much of the crowds visiting Williamsburg's nightclubs and bars are from outside the neighborhood. Plus, do not assume that the muggers are from Williamsburg, even muggers know not to rob people in their own hood.

this is not spring break, lay off the alcohol unless you know you'll be somewhere safe.

alone in the streets of NYC and drunk off your ass at night is not safe.

the person was lucky a mugging was all that happened. I've heard of people falling down a flight of stairs in the subway.

Wow, attacking my stupid screen name. That really hits me where it hurts.

Yes, of course you have to be careful. Stumbling down the street in a shady neighborhood late at night with $1,000 worth of electronics hanging out is idiotic. Answer me this though, you vitriolic piss ants- why are you so positive that's what happened? Oh. because it happened in Williamsburg. Oh. You just read "Billyburg" and then your minds stared racing...Williamsburg, Hipsters. Spoiled. iPods. And then you proudly got to typing.

I don't live in WB, and as my wardrobe will attest, I'm no "hipster", although that term gets bandied about way too much here. To paraphrase Chris Rock, there are trendy people, and then there are hipsters. The latter are rarer than you think.

I was mugged once. I was 16 years old and was surrounded by a gang of skinheads and other assorted meatheads who beat me up and took my jacket (and the Bad Brains tickets that were inside, of course). I was stone-cold sober. Thinking back on it now, I should have been with a bunch of other guys instead of two girls, I should have notice them earlier and gotten to a safer place, I should have... I could go on and on, but I don't think I deserved to get mugged. I'm agree that too many people behave as if New York is an extension of a college town. They deserve a talking to, not a mugging. As much as "hipsters" are a blight on all that is New York, career criminals are even more of a blight, and will still be with us long after these latest fashion disasters are forgotten.

I never released so many bitter squares read gothamist.

It's pretty lame to delight in someone getting hurt in a neighborhood where most people have a better fashion sense than you.

Thanks for the facile analogy, #34. And can you believe these kids? Moving into the only neighborhoods they can afford and having the nerve to call the cops when they get mugged? Idiots!

These "hipster" types should all get jobs on wall st. and stick to white neighborhoods. Like the LES!