Pointless But It Does My Head In
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Please don't make me kill again, Josef....
In May 1867, Stephane Mallarmé wrote to Eugène Lefébure: “I have created my works entirely by elimination, and every truth I have gained was born from the loss of an impression which, having flashed a moment, consumed itself and allowed me, thanks to the shadows which it released, to proceed deeply into the feeling of Absolute Darkness. Destruction was my Beatrice.”
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
"i only kill to know i'm alive" - so what, ministry
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Typically, men catch less shit and have less to worry about anywhere than women do. I mean, there were at least three women suing NYC last year because they were raped on the subway platform while MTA workers stood by and did nothing. In a couple of cases the workers went and told the guy behind the window to press the button (apparently slowly) but by the time the cops get there it's usually much too late to prevent anything.
Edit: Park Slope is very nice. Sunset Park is maybe my favorite neighborhood in Brooklyn but it's not that nice. Bushwick (the western parts where you're probably thinking of) is ok in the whitest parts, but past Maria Hernandez Park is not nice at all. Brownville and Crown Heights and Bed Stuy are bad.
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
oi Nomad!
i'll have you know i got mugged in Manhattan once!
i admit i was pissed, it was about 3 or 4 in the morning, down a side alley in a dodgy part of east Harlem, mind you, and bearing in mind i've been taxed about a million times in broad daylight in my native Manchester (where i allegedly know where i'm going).
(dunno why i called out N on this; she knows i wuv her)
What year was this, may I ask?
I have to say, I think Manchester being a former industrial city that's sort of collapsed is the model for the really bad cities in the U.S. For example, the cities in upstate NY are far far scarier than NYC in a lot of ways. There are 0 rich people up here, and only poor people, living in former industrial centers.
Rochester > Manhattan in scariness.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
well of course. didn't mean to suggest otherwise. thought I mentioned that as matter of fact but maybe I didn't.
my point was more that I think the "scariness" or whatever you want to call it of American inner cities is well overrated, that a lot of it is just hype/fear of The Other/etc. that is not to say that poverty & shite conditions & the attendant suffering is conversely underrated. just that it's not really as dangerous as all that. of course being white/male/straight makes it considerably easier for me, personally, to be outgoing, but I'm not talking about my own safety so much as general observations from 7-8 years of living in "bad" neighborhoods (& not ones on the edge of gentrification in either) in Philly, Oakland, Chicago, etc.
It's not really about muggings or lack thereof.
yeah I love Sunset Park. it reminds of Mexico City (albeit some of the nicer, tho certainly not the poshest, parts). definitely where I'd want to live if I ever lived in NYC. I dunno where in Bushwick, I dunno tho where you're getting the assumption that I'd be hanging about the posher, white parts of town? I mean, whatever. *EDIT* not to get into some absurd contest about who's middle-class kid who hangs out in/knows more about harder neighborhoods, it just seems like a weird thing to assume
Anyway, I should probably just shut up about Brooklyn, where I've spent a grand total of maybe 10 days.
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padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
nah that's not quite true. well I mean almost anywhere is scarier than Manhattan, alright.
but I have been to Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, etc. and yeah there's tons of abandoned, rundown stuff but none of them are particularly frightening. Albany especially is pretty nice. I mean all of them have downtown commercial districts and (esp. the ones w/colleges) hipster neighborhoods & even solid working class neighborhoods and bad parts, like any city. and suburbs, where the rich people live. I've also spent a lot of time in Pittsburgh, which is pretty vibrant despite being a half-deserted Rust Belt city. the Rust Belt feeling I get is more of despair, melancholy, bitterness, etc. than simmering anger. tho I'm sure that's an undercurrent as well.
tho I've never been to Rochester, so I guess it could be utterly terrifying for all I know.
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
syracuse NY is the set of a zombie film and it is inhabited by real life living dead
i did note they have been working on the largest mall in the world for the past 15 years----replete with 1984-type slogans on flags posted every 10 feet; i suppose they are anticipating a real-life dawn of the dead
i did note they have been working on the largest mall in the world for the past 15 years----replete with 1984-type slogans on flags posted every 10 feet; i suppose they are anticipating a real-life dawn of the dead
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
you're joking of course but I mean have you ever been to Syracuse?
my aunt lives there w/her 10 yr old son, in a condo. it's not Paris or whatever but it's definitely not a ghost town.
my aunt lives there w/her 10 yr old son, in a condo. it's not Paris or whatever but it's definitely not a ghost town.
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
ah, i mean it is certainly populated... but i didn't sense a pulse.
i spent a total of two weeks there (maybe), each week separated by 10 or so years
it seemed more vibrant the first time around
for a town with a university, it certainly does not have much going on
a hollowed-out city center
and yeah i saw a lot of walking dead
i spent a total of two weeks there (maybe), each week separated by 10 or so years
it seemed more vibrant the first time around
for a town with a university, it certainly does not have much going on
a hollowed-out city center
and yeah i saw a lot of walking dead
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Padraig, I live in Syracuse now. And I grew up in the area. So I've spent a total of about 20 years in central NY.
This is where I point out that visiting a place does not mean you know the feel of it exactly. Rochester, if I remember correctly, was once a murder capital of the nation. Utica is a terribly rundown, awful city with tons of violent crime per capita and a simply astounding mafia presence. Buffalo is awful. These cities are generally considered to have a very low standard of living and their economies are fucking non-existent.
My brother lives in Albany. Being a college town and the capitol of NY, it's slightly nicer than some of the other cities in central NY.
Perhaps you have ridiculously high standards for what constitutes a crime-ridden area, I don't know. But I'm not comparing U.S. cities with the slums of central America right now, I'm comparing them to each other.
There are plenty of really fucking horrible mid-western and southern cities as well. St. Louis for one has a high crime rate from what I've heard, as does New Orleans.
Edit: Here's an article about Rochester's homicide rate http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/archives/2006/4/Rochester:+made+for+murder+
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
I disagree. I think in certain ways, the problems in American ghettos are vastly underestimated and misunderstood. The picture many white people who grew up in affluent neighborhoods have of the ghetto may be a media-distortion, but that doesn't mean the reality isn't utterly desperate and terrible. But then I've lived in "Puerto Rican heaven" for several years so I may have a different perspective on things than you do.
The point is not that all minorities are raving lunatics who are going to attack white people--race has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm talking about being "scary"--the point is that the poverty levels make for extremely dire social conditions which breed violent crime. Whether I personally need to fear for myself or whether I am particularly targeted in these places (I'm not, it's much worse for people who grow up in these conditions) is not the issue.
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
My apartment that I am subletting now is in Bushwick. This one is in the whiter area, where most young artists live, and they happen to be white most of them. My last one was on St. Nicholas Avenue in a much worse area where there were very very few naturalized citizens let alone white people. My assumption is based on years of experience living there. No offense intended.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
actually really thinking about it it seems to me the problems are both over & underestimated in different ways. both of which are forms of misunderstanding. that is, the urban poor can be & are demonized & also (sometimes simultaneously) viewed as lazy/complaining/the authors of their own problems etc
I feel like you have this weird need to push your greater credibility in plumbing the depths of the oppressed but maybe I'm just misreading you. I probably do have "higher" (tho that seems the wrong word) standards regarding what's a "bad" neighborhood than most people. or, a neighborhood can be "bad" but also vibrant (also not the right word, but I can't think of it) at the same time.
perhaps I'm not expressing myself clearly - it's not about seeing things thru rose-tinted glasses, or marginalizing the crushing realities of poverty & everything that trails in its wake or some bullshit about the nobility of poverty. I'm not saying things aren't grim. just that that isn't the whole picture. that there are good things, moments of happiness & community, mixed in with all the shitty stuff. even when the shitty stuff is overwhelming.
really I just feel like a lot of people - mainly foreigners & of those mainly Europeans (tho also some Mexicans I've know) as well as many affluent Americans - have this crazy, disorted view of inner city America as one vast war zone. if that's not the view you have - which clearly it isn't - then I'm not really speaking to you.
*EDIT* re: Central NY - I shall have to bow to your superior expertise. perhaps my view of the Rust Belt has been colored (in fact I'm sure you'd say it has been) by having spent a lot of time in Pittsburgh. tho I wasn't saying any of those places are idyllic wonderlands, just that they're also not -entirely, at least - desolate wastelands.
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Who said anywhere was a "wasteland"? I didn't. Empty Mirrors sort of did, I suppose.
Either way, how do you get from someone saying that there are lots of former industrial centers in upstate NY that have very high crime rates per capita and very desolate economies (comparing them to Manchester) to "credibility" in any sense of the word? I'm white with 8 years of higher education and worked for a stupidly high salary by the time I was 24. I do not think myself at all "oppressed", but I do know that economic oppression in mid-sized cities need not be measured against war in Nigeria to be truly problematic.
In a country with the amount of money and resources that the U.S. has at its disposal, ghettos shouldn't exist, period. That was my larger point, a pretty obvious one.
Either way, how do you get from someone saying that there are lots of former industrial centers in upstate NY that have very high crime rates per capita and very desolate economies (comparing them to Manchester) to "credibility" in any sense of the word? I'm white with 8 years of higher education and worked for a stupidly high salary by the time I was 24. I do not think myself at all "oppressed", but I do know that economic oppression in mid-sized cities need not be measured against war in Nigeria to be truly problematic.
In a country with the amount of money and resources that the U.S. has at its disposal, ghettos shouldn't exist, period. That was my larger point, a pretty obvious one.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Looking into this stuff last night to see if maybe things have changed since I was younger, I saw some pretty dire statistics that matched up with my impressions of upstate NY pretty well.
Utica: rape rate per capita 200% of the national average. Buffalo: homicide rate per capita 200% + New York City's.
NYC's homicide rate is relatively low, especially compared to other cities in the state, which doesn't surprise me at all. There are many, many more economic opportunities there than there are up here. The only rich guys in Syracuse are the bankruptcy and disability attorneys.
Utica: rape rate per capita 200% of the national average. Buffalo: homicide rate per capita 200% + New York City's.
NYC's homicide rate is relatively low, especially compared to other cities in the state, which doesn't surprise me at all. There are many, many more economic opportunities there than there are up here. The only rich guys in Syracuse are the bankruptcy and disability attorneys.
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
hmmn. the best thrift store i ever set foot in was in syracuse...
silver lining
silver lining