Comments on: Offensive NYC Veg Restaurant Guide

By: lex

lex — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:14:30 +0000

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.

By: VP11

VP11 — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:42:14 +0000

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.

By: jeanneoe

jeanneoe — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:04:22 +0000

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.

By: RH

RH — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:09:15 +0000

Wasn’t sure if I was just being cranky, but I feel validated now.

By: Montrose Morris

Montrose Morris — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:43:20 +0000

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.

By: Deb12

Deb12 — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:31:53 +0000

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.