I’ve been following “The Amber Show” for the past week now. Gal moves to NYC. Someone is shot and killed outside her apartment within the first week of living there. Gal stays holed up in apartment.
Well, she finally got out! Good for Amber! But she’s still terrified of the neighborhood (Bed Stuy) and needed to be transported by car to another area. Now she’s thinking of packing it in and moving elsewhere.
I don’t know what to say about this. Part of me just wants to shake her and say “Snap out of it! You can’t hide in your house!” but I don’t want to sound like a stereotypical cold hearted New Yorker. Fact of the matter is, I don’t know what it’s like to have grown up in a place where crime and violence don’t exist. NYC was never the wild west, but it does tend to harden people.
The shooting was most likely drug related. Nothing actually happened to her, except that she had to witness it. If I was Amber, I would stick it out a few more months and see if I felt more secure. Running and hiding isn’t always the best way to solve problems.
Granted, this part of Bed Stuy can be sketchy even though it’s only about 8 blocks from my house. But as we all know, crime can happen anywhere. I knew two people murdered separately in upstate’s Sullivan County. Brooklyn: zero. 1 shootout, a rape, a drug dealer next door, some break-ins, 2 wife beaters and squatting pitbull fighters: Park Slope circa 1994-2004. Flashers wanking off: Several, every single neighborhood! They love me. The night we moved into Bed Stuy, my husband ran out and broke up a fight between 2 brothers, one of them mentally disturbed. I thought he was going to get himself killed. He didn’t, and the brother is now on his meds and says hello to us every morning. That’s about the worst thing we’ve witnessed in Bed Stuy.
So far.
7 Comments
I’ll be driving to the subway for a while, which is a huge bummer. But I think we’re going to stay. I really do love my neighbors, and the apartment is stellar.
Good for you!
The old timers really do keep their eyes open around there. When you’re ready, you should check out the dog run on Marcy and Greene.
I think I’ve mentioned before but when I first moved to that “ghetto” Jersey City c. 12 years ago, people looked at me like I was batsh*t crazy. Now Trump’s setting up shop there {Hrmph.} so I reckon it’s only a matter of time before that Dunkin Donuts on the Bed Stuy corner becomes a Starbucks.
I think it sucks for anyone to live in fear…But I guess I just choose not to. Life too short to spend it locked away (physically or emotionally) because of fear. Then again, my people are from Flatbush. I’m tough stock. 🙂
I wish amber well…
I think it is perfectly understandable and I also think that Amber should do whatever she wants. She has to digest the whole experience and nobody can ever completely understand another person’s reaction unless they really know the person. I also think that it is not worth getting a bravery award to stay there if she doesn’t feel good about the neighborhood. Hey, sometimes I think I live in a daze of denial. Stuff happens all around me and I am utterly convinced that nothing will ever happen to me. A couple of months ago around the corner from me on Fulton and Vanderbilt (in front of the fish place) someone was shot and killed at 5 PM. Then there were two people who were shot and killed at the Putnam/Fulton drug dealing corner, also right near by. I lay in bed at night on Clermont and have heard shots coming from the apartment complex over on Carlton and Fulton. Somebody was killed on Clifton PL this year too. I really don’t spend any real time thinking about this and am convinced that because I know all my neighbors and we like one another and look out for one another that I will never be victimized. Cranes will never fall on me; I will never be on the derailed Amtrak, I will never be the pedestrian who gets hit by the insane drunken person with the suspended license….
We all live with this wonderful aura of invulnerability, but sometimes it is shattered. Having someone shot right where you live could do it. I really wish Amber well too. I really do. Blogging about it is a good idea….
It seems like crime is on the rise again in NYC in every neighborhood. From car break-ins to muggings to murders. I wonder if this has to do with the economy or the fact that people have let their guards down in the new safe NY or if there is a new drug on the street or if it was just a long time coming in an over gentrified city. In any case, you have to live your life.
But I AM scared of cranes.
Yep, thank God, really I guess stuff registers enough for me to think these things but I really am pretty oblivious to danger. I read that the number of police have gone down – reducing the force by attrition. Notice the panhandling back on the subway? Well, anyway, hang in there Amber.
Okay, it’s all too f**cking positive.
It’s got to be a joke.
Hey Amber, move back to your nice safe suburban midle class home.
You ain’t cut out for the big city or the little city for that matter.