One day last year while I was in the Brooklyn Museum bookshop, I picked up a copy of “Veg Out, Vegetarian Guide to New York City“. I forgot I had it until yesterday. Is it a good guide? Well, it’s not bad, although the second edition I bought is slightly outdated.
But the problem isn’t the restaurant listings. Author Justin Schwartz’s comments on certain neighborhoods made my jaw drop. He speaks of Crown Heights and Flatbush as if it’s 1980…and even back then those areas were not as bad as he makes them out to be.
From a paragraph on Street Smarts… “A word of caution: If you’re a vegetarian freshman college student just off the bus from a farm in rural PA or a tourist visiting from Kansas, please don’t hop on a the subway alone at night to get some great Caribbean food in Crown Heights or Flatbush. Seriously, don’t.”
Ok, maybe he’s more insulting to out-of-towners than the residents of Crown Heights or Flatbush. The book is probably geared towards tourists as it’s a guide book. But he doesn’t stop there…
“Street-smart Manhattanites and residents of trendy neighborhoods like Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights may think I’m exaggerating. Let’s put it this way: if Crown Heights is so safe, why is the chef at the Caribbean Delicacy working behind bulletproof Plexiglas?”
Hmm. Plexi is old school. Hello, there were still some plexi places in “trendy” Park Slope up until the early 2000’s! Maybe the Plexi was installed back when the neighborhood was rough and they just never got around to taking it out? Yes, there are plenty of places with Plexi still around, but as shops renovate and as new businesses come in, the Plexi is becoming a thing of the past.
And why would only street smart residents of trendy neighborhoods think it’s an exaggeration? How about us folks living in these untrendy neighborhoods? Exaggerating? Yes. Insulting? Uh, ya-ah!
I figured I’d cut the guy some slack. The guide was written in 2006. Maybe it was ever so slightly grittier back then. So, I visited his website. From a 2009 blog post: “Crown Heights isn’t for everybody. Frankly, if I was a young woman alone after dark, I wouldn’t even think about going there. in fact, I wouldn’t even think about going there alone after dark myself, being a 6-foot tall guy. You definitely have to know your way around — you don’t want to look lost in Crown Heights.”
Wow. Am I overreacting? I mean, can’t the guy warn people it ain’t the Upper East Side without magnifying the situation? He makes it sound like a friggin’ war zone. A word of caution is fine, but dude…people live in these neighborhoods and walk around after dark all-the-time.
FYI, Mr. Schwartz, even white people.
6 Comments
I live in Crown heights, am white, and have been out after dark many times. You aren’t overreacting. Sounds like the author never set foot here, or is still reading newspapers from 20 year ago. Isn’t it amazing how any idiot can get himself published? He must have broccoli for brains.
Ok, that sucks. First of all, as a Crown Heights resident for 11 years, it’s inaccurate. As you said, there are places with plexi shields from the bad old days. There are also plenty that never had any, and still don’t. The plexi is disappearing, but unfortunately, the snarking isn’t. If this neighborhood were so dangerous that it was worth life and limb to go out to get some food, no one would be living here.
What pisses me off is not so much the gentrifying mock horror that real Caribbean food has to be obtained from behind plexiglass walls, it’s that the rest of us, the people who have long called the neighborhood home, and I mean as is 40-50 years long, have survived unscathed, but we don’t count. Our safety is not the issue, only the feelings and the safety of some 20 somethings who moved here for a cheap rent, and nothing more. We’ve been working for years to get better policing, better retail, cleaner streets, not to make newcomers happy, but for the quality of life of us all. Let’s get some credit, or at least respect.
I hate that attitude that turns this neighborhood into a vacation in Jamaica. Stay in your posh gated resort, run out with a rented car and driver to get some “real” Jamaican food, cooked in a shack in the ghetto, and then run back to the safety of the resort. Then get back on the plane and go home, bragging about having seen the “real Jamaica”. Meanwhile you haven’t seen or experienced 98% of the country. You may as well stay home, and pop a frozen patty in the microwave, and put on Bob Marley. Ja, mon.
Wasn’t sure if I was just being cranky, but I feel validated now.
You are most definitely validated in your outrage. The comments this author makes are extremely personal and biased. And in doing that he is not doing the vegetarians of Brooklyn any service — the Caribbean veg places in CH serve the best vegetarian food I’ve ever had. (I’m a meat eater and a fan of flavor and texture). So whatever, it’s his own vegetarian community’s loss that he’s so paranoid.
As a non-imposing white man living in Bed Stuy for 5 years, I have never had any problems.
It’s all a matter of what you are used to and if a black neighbourhood is alien then maybe you will feel threatened. The author should stick to facts more and not scare people away from a neighbourhood that in reality is safe.
Several of my friends in Crown Heights and Prospect Heights have been mugged, one violently. The guidebook author is entitled to publish his opinion — maybe he is someone who has experienced violence in this neighborhood.