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Is the economic free fall already leading to higher crime and degentrifying neighborhoods, as previously speculated? Brooklyn's 88th precinct, which includes Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, is reporting that so far this year robberies have spiked 7.6 percent and burglaries are up 18.6 percent. And a cardboard box of bloody human remains discovered on fancy Washington Park isn't exactly putting residents at ease; one of them tells The Brooklyn Paper, “This hasn’t happened since the 1970s. Back then, I came out of my building one morning and found a body hanging from a lightpost."
Other residents believe crime stats are actually much higher because it takes hours to file a police report, which discourages some from registering an official complaint. So as a counterpoint to the NYPD stats, the Society for Clinton Hill has set up a map on its website for individuals to post details about local crimes. But the group also urges those who post incidents on the map to also fill out a police report.
And Councilwoman Letitia James appeared with Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes and local officers at a community meeting last night to discuss the crime wave. The Councilwoman says she's concerned about Pratt students in Clinton Hill being targeted by hoodlums, noting that "walking around with their iPods or computers and texting is not a good idea."
Photo of Fort Greene courtesy Joe Schumacher.
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hahaha, who would ever live in brooklyn?
awful.
Thoughts from the "I miss the grittier New York" crowd?
#2- So as long as it doesn't happen to them, then it's okay...
housing projecst are holding pens for the criminal element.
projects..sorry
Never understood the appeal of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. All those housing projects and the isolation.
I miss the New York City that one could afford to live in.
Does this mean my rent will go down?
broad-based economic tensions can mean tax breaks in the form lower rent / energy / food.
so not all bad.
but i'm worried for Pratt kids too, they look so fragile.
Since the 70's? Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill was pretty bad up until the mid-90's.
Also, cops fudge the numbers on assaults and petty crimes because the heat they receive for not bringing down the numbers. Trust me.
The Councilwoman says she's concerned about Pratt students in Clinton Hill being targeted by hoodlums, noting that "walking around with their iPods or computers and texting is not a good idea."
you know, i see so many fucking kids like this, blissfully ignorant of what position they're putting themselves in, that i almost wish they get mugged. almost.
it's brooklyn, not a gated community. sorry. it's really not that hard to keep your phone/ipod out of sight until you get indoors.
Think Twice- There are actually large swaths of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill that are quite lovely (brownstones, cafes, etc. ) and nowhere near a NYCHA building. I recommend checking out the neighborhood before the crime gets really bad.
99centmenu, you said it best.
Anyone walking around listening to his ipod deserves to get robbed.
Clinton Hill is one of the most gorgeous neighborhoods in the city, and the blocks around Pratt have some really outstanding architecturally significant homes as well. I think you have to be sort of dense to walk around with your ipod on, it's letting the mugger know they are getting hundred off of you.
BofA on Mytle Ave. was robbed 3x's in 2 days.
Gothamist, you may want to add a note about the shooting last night too. Refer to your crime map for info.
After living in the area (Myrtle Ave.) for several years, I decided to move to a different area of Brooklyn. Mind you the neighborhood did improve while living there, but it was only going to get so good due to the proximity of projects, which for better or worse bring the crime and will continue to do so. As the economy tanks it will only get worse.
...while keeping it out in plain sight. no one deserves to get robbed but in that instance, you're practically inviting it.
I agree that it's a bad idea to walk around with iPods/iPhones/PSPs out in the open. That doesn't excuse the fact that the people preying on them are total and complete savages. This is not about race, this is about knowing how to act versus not knowing how to act in a civilized society. Behave like an animal, get treated like an animal.
In response to the comment about an almost wish of these "fucking kids" being mugged.
Regardless of an obvious target, such as a cell phone or ipod my situation ran a different course.
These hoodlums have this perception that Pratt students all have money, damn, paying 40,000 + a year to attend, who wouldn't.
It has nothing to do with whether or not your cash is in your hand or in your pocket, the assumption is "these kids have money".
I stood there for 5 minutes while 2 hoodlums held a gun to my head searching every inch of me for cash. Instead they found nothing but chap stick my empty wallet with debit cards at a balance of 0$ and an ipod, as the one asked "wheres the cash rich boy?"
Let's be honest, flaunt your items, or keep them hidden, either way your a target.
All students are regularly reminded that they live in an URBAN ENVIRONMENT and need to watch their corners.
you know, i see so many fucking kids like this, blissfully ignorant of what position they're putting themselves in, that i almost wish they get mugged. almost.
it's brooklyn, not a gated community. sorry. it's really not that hard to keep your phone/ipod out of sight until you get indoors.>>>>
NEWS FLASH: BROOKLYN SUCKS AS IT ALWAYS HAS! LOL
The housing projects need to be imploded. All of them. Replace with market rate housing and eliminate rent stabilization. This problem will go away quickly.
I must agree with most of the sentiments of the previous posts, in that I've been living here several years, and see more and more of the text-walking, i-pod-wearing, 20/30-somethings that expect they do not need to be aware of their surroundings.
It definitely irks me to see this, and would never wish a mugging or otherwise violent act on anyone, regardless of their level of ignorance. Yet I feel there needs to be a change at some point in the level of awareness. Where that change comes from, and what prompts altered behavior, hopefully not coming from the result of violence for that lesson...
I agree with NannyState. The experiment has failed. The 70s are over. Scorched earth then rebuild so actual contributors to society can use the land.
Clinton Hill is a great neighborhood. I moved here after ten years in Manhattan. I'm never going back and I'm kicking myself for not doing this sooner. Manhattan just seems dirty, crowded and expensive now compared to what Brooklyn offers me.
Housing projects were supposed to be temporary situations, they have become holding pens for subsidizing criminality.
That experiment failed 50 YEARS AGO:
"During World War II, the Brooklyn Navy Yard employed more than 71,000 people. Due to the resulting demand for housing, the New York City Housing Authority built 35 brick buildings between 1941 and 1944 ranging in height from six to fifteen stories collectively called the Fort Greene Houses. In 1957-1958 the houses were renovated and divided into the Walt Whitman Houses and the Raymond V. Ingersoll Houses. One year later Newsweek profiled the housing project as "one of the starkest examples" of the failures of public housing. The article painted a picture of broken windows, cracked walls, flickering or inoperative lighting, and elevators being used as toilets."
This is one of the central conundrums of NYC. We can't imagine a time in the early 1900's where housing projects seemed absolutely necessary and humane. You had unimaginable slums, but now they are merely free rides for the antisocial and indigent. Nobody tells the truth about it and NYC remains stuck in this dilemma.
Perhaps it's time to put Rudy back in Gracie.
Maybe, or time for the PEOPLE to look at the matter honestly and candidly. The trend and spirit of the city in the last 30 years has been to make the city more agreeable, safe and liveable. Looking at NYC in the 60's and 70's what exists today is nothing short of miraculous. To many though the Latino and Black underclass are what keeps the city "real, ghetto, gritty and flava-full" we should subsidize their existence and do everything in our power so that they will save us from the hell of too much vanilla.
JRod5417,
There are actually large swaths of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill that are quite lovely (brownstones, cafes, etc.) and nowhere near a NYCHA building. I recommend checking out the neighborhood before the crime gets really bad.
I have.
Hung out at friends' places in FG and CH over the years and, your right, the local charms are just as you mentioned. However from the moment I first stepped out of the Clinton-Washington Station, I believed the neighborhood is overvalued and the hype around it was mostly froth. Boy did I get an earful when I first helped said friends pick out their places in FG and CH five or so years ago.
Sorry, but project dwellers are project dwellers and the G train is the G train. With that said, the situation is not hopeless. Property owners in FG and CH (especially bleeding-heart Pratt) need to lobby the city to turn the projects over to the market.
Hm, so should Pratt students change into the broke-and-dangerous look as they come and go from school? Or maybe people who want to keep their headphones on while walking home should carry an extra ipod with them to hand over just in case?
I dunno, it seems fairly simple. If people can't play nice, we just need to have more surveillance - laymen or otherwise. The have-nots will always want what they don't have. And if they are prone to violence, they will take what they don't have, right off of a person.
I don't think the people with more 'stuff' should throw their hands up and give up their freedom to carry around ipods and iphones. I mean, those things aren't meant to be 'showy' - like diamond or pearl earrings or rolex watches or louis vuitton handbags - they're functional! Listening to music on the way home can keep you sane after a crowded subway commute and long day of people at work telling you what to do. They're just expensive is all. But the people who can afford them shouldn't be deprived of them.
Pick up a stash of broken or deactivated cell phones and dummy wallets.
Ok i live in ft. green/clinton hill and I feel that people tend to think that just because the neighborhood is visually beautiful with all the townhouses and brownstones that it is safe. It's not and never will be completely safe no matter how many families or college kids live there. It's not a bad neighborhood by any means but I think people tend to forget that theres a huge array of people living there. You got co-ops that are up the block from projects and converted brownstones and townhouses next to some that have been passed through families for generations. I think that the "crime wave" in the neighborhood is a class/race thing because I live across the street from a NYCHA buildings and whenever I'm walking (even with my earphones in) nobody tends to notice me (I'm hispanic) but I do notice people eyeing the white people with their earphones in.
Also, I personally feel safer in Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill than in East Harlem or Central Harlem(135th/145th st on the 2/3). I've never had a problem coming home late night because its common sense that people lurk at night and if you look out of place or like your nervous/scared or like you're unaware of your surroundings youre likely to get followed or scoped out for a future incident. People watch and they're not stupid.
Yes, it's a shame that the reply seems to be 'well hide your valuables and smear feces on yourself before leaving the house so you appear to be one of them.' It's absurd to think that in a neighborhood where people pay millions of dollars for homes that they should have to live like that. Would that philosophy fly in Malibu?
They say that's the urban 'real world', but these people are living in the most expensive north American city solely on taxpayers money and crime profits. I wonder if the projects were filled with low class white criminals if they would have been torn down and the only reason they still currently exist is because it would be a 'race issue' to force all the low class black criminals out into the real, 'real world.'
They should be roped off and opened up as urban exhibits. Really. make back some money.
i think it's almost funny when stupid thugs go after younger white folk in borderline neighborhoods, thinking that they'll have money. newsflash, thugs: except for a handful of 'pioneer-minded' hipsters, most people live in these iffy nabes -because- they're broke.
no wonder thugs are thugs - they're either total morons or lazy or both. they should take a trip to tribeca, soho, the village, murray hill, even the upper east and west sides and mug someone if they want 'rich' people.
i mean, Pratt students? most of them have subjected themselves to decades of virtual indentured servitude by taking out exorbitant loans with oppressive interest rates just to go into art and design fields, which aren't known as lucrative fields for the most part.
what's also ironic is that a lot of the hoods are wearing more expensive clothes than the folks they mug, too.