Rushkoff Update: The Original Deleted Blog Posts
The victimization of writer Douglas Rushkoff by a mugger in Park Slope on Christmas Eve and the subsequent declarations of intent by he and his wife to leave Brooklyn is one of those things that reverberates. We're even guessing that there' might even be a person here and there that doesn't know much about Mr. Rushkoff's body of work that now knows about what happened and the subequent local furor. Mr. Rushkoff expounded more as a guest on the Brian Lehrer show on Monday, telling BL that "Park Slope is dark; it has residential streets that nobody walks on" and that when he lived in the East Village "I knew which drug dealers are on which corner, and I actually had a relationship with them. In Park Slope, there's a tension in our relationship … I don't think they consider me part of the same neighborhood."Interestingly, both of the original posts by Mr. Rushkoff and his wife Barbara, the latter on her blog, A Girl Grows in Brooklyn, have been pulled. We found them with the help of Google's cache and reproduce them below in their entirety in case any of you that are curious never got the chance to read them:
First, Mr. Rushkoff's, from December 25, originally posted on his blog, called "Merry Christmas, Give Me Your Money":
I got mugged at knifepoint while taking out the garbage Christmas Eve at 9pm.And, now, Barbara Rushkoff's, also from December 25, which was called "I May Have to Renname This Blog," which was originally on her blog A Girl Grows in Brooklyn:
I negotiated with him for my health insurance card - not only because it has my Social Security number and was really hard to get, but because I knew that such a request would humanize me in the mind of my attacker, and make it harder for him to stab me. Such are the benefits of studying human behavior. All I lost was my phone, cards, and money.
Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it makes me question working two extra gigs (I won't divulge which ones they are) in order to pay the exorbitant rent this part of Brooklyn - when the streets are less safe than they were in the supposedly bad parts of Manhattan where I used to live.
It may just be the humiliation of not fighting back that's getting me down, but I fear that Brooklyn may be a crock. And with a two-year-old daughter, I feel a strong urge to spend my effort elsewhere.
Merry solstice to all. Things should get brighter, soon.
Picture it. Christmas Eve in picturesque Park Slope, Brooklyn. Our street is a row of brownstones. You can have one too if you have 2 million bucks laying around (we rent.) Gorgeous decorations, old world charm, the works. Have that picture in mind?
Ok, now picture this. My husband goes outside at 9:00pm Christmas Eve to throw out the trash. It has been an exhaustive weekend as Mamie got sick smack dab in the middle of her birthday party on Saturday. She has a terrible cold and a fever. We have not slept well. Neither has she. The cold air feels good to Doug. He ponders the idyllic scene outside.
Then he gets mugged.
Right on our stoop.
At gun point.
I am in bed, attempting to sleep before Mamie wakes up and cries because she can't breathe. I bolt up, and the migraine starts. Calmly he cancels all his credit cards, stops his phone service (the guy took his cell phone) and looks at me to say "what else?" I couldn't say much except that what if he had been shot? I fast forward to me taking care of a child by myself. Without a husband.
"I want out of here," I said.
Brooklyn, Schmooklyn. Yeah, it's pretty here, but we are surrounded by crime. Kings County (Brooklyn's county) is one of the highest crime areas in the country. Insurance is more here than almost any other place. It costs $2000 a year to insure my wedding ring. Most other cities it would cost $150. The other day we saw a coke deal go down in front of the post office while Bugaboos passed. The diner up the street (the one next to the hospital) was robbed on Friday night. Nah, I am not liking it here much now.
As a kid I couldn't wait to move to New York. I dreamt of having a family here and raising a city kid. I spent 20 years of my life living in Manhattan and didn't get mugged once. I felt safer there than here. Why is that? Oh right, because we live in a ridiculously overpriced neighborhood surrounded by people being forced out. That's what the cops today said anyway. The deep dark secret about Park Slope is that there's tons of crime here. According to the detectives from today, Manhattan is safe, but Brooklyn is decidedly not.
We called in the mugging the next morning. One cop was really defensive, acting as if Doug was in the wrong for not calling immediately last night when it happened. I tried to explain that we had a sick kid, that we were freaked out, but he was like, "you're making my job harder."
"I want to move out of here," I said again. Hello, we're the victims here. Hello?
Then I yelled at the cops, asking what was the problem. This guy was taking the whole bad cop thing a little too far for me. I held Mamie in my arms tight. She was still hot from her fever. They grilled Doug some more and made him come down to the precinct to look at mugshots. I stewed at home, watching way too much Noggin with Mamie. It was the Oswald episode where Katrina sees snow for the first time that finally broke me down.
When Doug got home a few hours later we talked about moving out. We have this talk every so often: when we realize how ludicrous getting Mamie into school here is, when we try to find a place to buy and only see crap (for a million bucks to boot), and when shit like this happens. am a city girl, I want a city kid, but lately it doesn't seem worth it.
It's not cowardly to leave a place you love because you have a family now. I say it's brave. It's hard to leave what you know, who you know, the city you once loved, for a calmness, a stability, a not so fast pace that might be a little boring. But we are a family now, and it's not about being close to Manhattan. Mamie doesn't know from Manhattan. She wants to be outside and not in a park where rats roam as soon as the sun goes down. She wants to be a kid. And I want to give that to her as safely as I can. Is it worth staying here knowing that she will most likely see muggings, and most likely get mugged herself? Do I want her seeing dope deals go down right around the corner? Will I have to buy her pepper spray for her bookbag? I don't want to think about things like this, but if we stay I will have to.
Yes, I'm upset, and yes, I may be overreacting. But man, I am too old and tired for this.
We outta here.
posted by rsguskind at 7:30 AM
10 Comments:
oh no. park slope will now have one less whiney uber-mom. i'm heartbroken....
Could these posts have been pulled because one says "knifepoint" and the other says "gunpoint"? Seems like a pretty substantial point to mis-remember, no?
I think most of the outrage comes from a combination of not calling the police when there is an armed robber in the neighborhood until the next day; bloggging on his/her blogs with inconsistent stories and bitching about the cop's response; not to mention the overall whining tone and self-involved attitude that comes through each time they spin that larger social issues rhetoric.
Spin-offs have been "the Rushkoff effect on Harlem" and being "rushkoffed out of a neighborhood".
I think it's pretty low to repost blog posts they deleted. In fact, I'm pretty disgusted by it.
I don't understand the outrage. I lived on the West Coast for a little while, and one night, I came home and realized someone was trying to break into my bedroom window. I, too, lived in a "nice" building in a "nice" neighborhood, it was 6pm, everyone was coming home, no one noticed. I had been thinking about moving, but was too lazy to actually make it happen (my apartment was gorgeous - I loved the area - etc.) but that night, I did.
When I found out from the police that this was the second burglary in my building in less than a week (they hit the apartment directly across the courtyard from me), and the building across the street from us had been hit twice the week before. and that they had told our building managers this.
I was irked that we didn't know any of this. this was 1995, so i wasn't going to go update my home page, for the six people who were reading it), so i made a flyer and hung it up above the mailboxes in my building. i indicated that i had experienced a burglary attempt, and what the police told me, and urged everyone to be more circumspect about closing doors and gates and looking at who was coming in and out of the building.
the next day, i told everyone i know that i was moving out of my neighborhood and started looking for another place to live that weekend. yes, most of it was economic (i ended up paying $520 less a month - $95 of that was parking, which was free at the new building), but - damn, I understand the emotional reaction.
what I don't udnerstand is what ANYONE cares about what these people post or if they move. I don't understand why they felt the need to go on the radio but given that people are going resurrect deleted blog posts for some behind-the-keyboard viciousness against people who have, effectively, not DONE anything, except get freaked out about their kid and their neighborhood and decide to write about it... and then change their mind.
this inability to allow another human on this planet the grace to change their mind is so - republican.
jukeboxgraduate:
The backlash may have to do with the tone of the very smug blogs wherein they waited till the next day to report a person armed in the neighborhood but did think to cancel some credit cards. I think perhaps the community he so desperately wants to live in, is pretty tired of his antics.
you know what? i had one experience with the NYPD this summer and I have to tell you, i too would think twice before calling them about ANYTHING.
are we all so perfect? i know i'm not.
listen, i don't know that i "like" them, and they're quite honestly the kind of people i despise, rolling down the street with no regard for anything in the world but their precious child. but i could give a rat's butt if they stay in brooklyn or if they go. i'm staying here.
I always think that when people get all pissy because someone says they are leaving NY the pissy person is for some reason feeling threatened. It is the dirty little thought that we all suppress at one time or another--the what the hell am I doing here thought? I can't believe that anyone with children hasn't wondered if staying here is the best thing for a kid? I mean would a kid rather run around and explore outdoors or be sitting in some Music Together class clapping their hands. I love it here but it doesn't mean I don't wonder about leaving.
who has their wallet and cell phone on them when they go to take out the trash?
They are smart to leave Brooklyn and are saying what others don't want to hear. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn, I couldn't wait to get out. It's dangerous and boring at the same time. I moved to Manhattan twenty years ago and would never, ever go back...even to the new, "cool" Brooklyn. What a crock that is.
maybe this is off topic but what about the people who get mugged and can't afford to move?
that's what makes the rushkoff's reaction to being crime victims unique-- they have the wherewithal and option to move to another hopefully safer neighborhood.
what about others who live on those dark threatening streets of park slope who can't?
we are all guilty of taking social issuse seriously only when they impact our lives directly.
maybe we should cut the rushkoffs some slack and look at the small, large ways to change the disparities that exist in nyc.
Post a Comment
<< Home