the crazies on state street

legoflambchop

anyone out there have any scary, interesting or downright troubling tales about the many crazies that are found hanging out on or around state/nevins/bond?

i'll start:
- an older (but plucky) neighbor reported being flashed by a lone gentleman about two weeks ago.

- how about the weekend partying on the steps of the COY L. COX school? bring your babies in strollers - heck, they love staying up late! the booze is a-flowin', and all residents are treated to crappy loud music AND and a contact high from the cloud of skunky herb. where do these folks come from and why don't they party in front of their own house? and why do the cops drive right past them?

- got any strung-out bums sleeping on your front steps like the one who wanted to call the cops on ME for harassment when i politely asked him to move?
we want to hear about it!

forget about being PC (but keep it clean) - this can be a space for you to vent your frustrations and possibly get some residents together to clean up our otherwise lovely street.

dailyheights

LLC, thanks for the post. I think these are all part of city life... I know it's tough to accept, but there are ways to deal with this. They may seem like "crazies" and "strung-out bums" but we still need to give them some respect, and maybe pick up the phone and call 311, which is supposed to be our connection to city services to help them (or help us, for example, if there is a crowd of people partying loudly on public property late at night). It's very hit and miss, but it can't hurt to try.

Another approach is to call attention to specific problems on message boards like this. We've had numerous "incidents" in Prospect Heights that everyone is at least warned about, thanks to posts on the message board and on the Dailyheights.com blog.

legoflambchop

as a NY native i have come full-circle in my feelings about what is/isn't acceptable in city life. drug use/sales, public lewdness and pistol whipping are against the law. it is not acceptable to be flashed while out walking your dog. it is not acceptable for dealers to be hiding drugs in the flowerpots residents lovingly tend. and it sure as heck is not acceptable to have a gun pulled on you. all these things have happened on this block. we call 311 on a daily basis and yet these problems are never resolved, and troublemakers keep coming back.

believe me - my heart goes out to the downtrodden. it is never far from my mind that mental illness, bad decisions or plain bad luck could have me picking through garbage cans at any time.

however, my concerns are for the safety and quality of life for the hard-working, law-abiding folks who live in our area.

like i said before, i'm not looking to be PC here.
i want to encourage others to speak up and figure out what we can do to make positive changes.

dailyheights

as a NY native i have come full-circle in my feelings about what is/isn't acceptable in city life. drug use/sales, public lewdness and pistol whipping are against the law. it is not acceptable to be flashed while out walking your dog. it is not acceptable for dealers to be hiding drugs in the flowerpots residents lovingly tend. and it sure as heck is not acceptable to have a gun pulled on you.

Great point. Thanks. Every once in a while on the Prospect Heights board, someone comes along and says something like "crime is just a part of life... you live in the hood... deal with it!" Nobody should tolerate crime, from lifetime NY natives like yourself to recent college grads seeking cheap rent in bleeding edge neighborhoods.

we call 311 on a daily basis and yet these problems are never resolved, and troublemakers keep coming back.

Sadly, that pretty much mirrors my experience with 311 too, which is why I think forums like this are a good start. The more people that know about a problem, the more likely it is that you'll find a solution.

jack

I was born and raised in Brooklyn (Brighton Beach) and have sympathy for many of these people, but I'm also not stupid. If they break the law, they break the law. It's as simple as that.

The ultimate and larger problem is the fact that back in the 1970s when this city was truly on the skids, the buildings that comprise the Muhlenberg Residence (Atlantic Avenue Near 3rd Avenue) and that one on Nevins (between State and Livingston) were bought up and turned into 'temporary housing'. I think anyone who lives in the neighborhood knows it's a sad joke at best. They're basically shelters. And there's not much that can be done about them. Accoridng to what I have heard, the cost to house people in these buildings comes to between $1,500 and $2,000 per room per month. That's insane! Why can't the city build a real shelter, and sell off the property. It's tax dollars down the drain. And I'm not usually the kind of person who talks about tax dollars and plumbing!

NYC is a weird place, but Downtown Brooklyn is even weirder. Where else can you take a short walk from brownstones on State Street to the grittiness of Livinston Street which reminds me of NYC in the 1970s?

I think that the sad fact is that something truly bad has to happen for stuff like that to change. But how bad is baffling. A few years ago, down the street from me at the Muhlenberg Residence was a guy in a wheelchair who would verbally harass ANY woman walking down the street and would even at night play chicken with his wheelchair in Atlantic Avenue traffic. The last time I saw him the guy was slumped--but still alive--in his wheelchair with a 40 ouncer spilling on the street and two cops standing nearby waiting for an ambulance.

I'm positive the cops know what's up, but what can practically be done?