Sackett Street Blunts and Stoop Drama
After our post last week about kids tossing things at people and about "detritus" being flung in Boerum Hill, we got a compelling email from a resident about a different problem. This one is on Sackett Street between Clinton and Henry. They've even got a blog about it, which offers a fascinating chronicle of watching the block from the window. Here's the email:Though we haven't been stoned, the block we live on, namely Sackett Street between Clinton and Henry, is the site of a continual problem we residents deal with on an almost daily basis: namely, local hoods who sit on other people's stoops and smoke blunts and drink and, sometimes, antagonize/menace the neighbors. This summer alone, a friend had food thrown at her - granted, not a class-A felony, but nothing you want to happen to you in front of your home - after asking some thuggish type girls, who do live on the block, to sit on their own stoop. Every now and then there, when shipments are in (this weekend, probably, since it's early month), there are numerous cars always pulling up, being met, and driving off. There have been other incidents, as well - including these stoopers going off on mothers, yelling and screaming and menacing - and since we moved in almost eight years ago, it has definitely gotten better.So, does blunt smoking on the stoop increase or decrease property values?
Related Post:
Boerum Hill Stoners & People Heaving "Detritus"
Labels: Boerum Hill
posted by rsguskind at 8:10 AM
28 Comments:
For what it is worth, Sackett between Clinton and Henry is in Cobble Hill, not Boerum Hill.
I wouldn't call Sackett between Henry and Clinton Boerum Hill. One block north, Degraw St. is the border between Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill. I'd call this block Carroll Gardens.
Sounds like a fun block... can I join the party? Which block is this anyway???
Wait, wait, you mean to tell me that here, in the big city, there are people who smoke dope, drink 40s, and play cards on the sidewalk? I'm aghast!
It's kinda funny. All the talk about how quickly Brooklyn is changing, and then - when actual, old-school urban life presents itself - the frightened neighbors furtively shoot blurry pictures from a darkened window and type away at their blog.
Apparently, gentrification is indeed a problem for some folks. It's just that it's happening too slowly.
What’s interesting is that the police precinct is one block away. But anyway, most of these kids have cousins working there that’s why they are so bold. Did anyone notice the ruckus at the corner of Sackett and Court on Monday?
It was like this when they moved in.
What are they complaining about?
Welcome to Brooklyn. It ain't Wisconsin.
yeah, the ruckus was a funeral. everybody had those airbrushed RIP shirts on and where drinking out on the street. I heard a girl on her cell phone saying "Why'd we hafta come from East New York to this cracker ass hood?"
What happened at Sackett and Court on Monday?
I haven't noticed Sackett and Clinton being all that rough, but it certainly is weird to see strangers at your doorstep. I have encountered the odd drunk on my stoop, but they usually apologize and leave when I approach the stairs (I credit my menacing stare).
As far as throwing things, I was almost hit by teens chucking a battery into my subway car at Smith/9th. I managed to duck when I saw the thrower wind up for the pitch. But still...hurling a battery? Throwing food? What is going on here?
Thats sounds like a great area to live in..sounds like real down to earth people living a true New york lifestyle.Welcome to New york scum bags.
At least THIS hasn't happened on that block....
I have to say, I don't agree with those "this is urban Brooklyn, deal with it" comments. I live in Bed Stuy, and can't tell you how sick I am of people making excuses for rude, harrassing, unruly teenagers. I am guessing there may be a racial component in the case with the original blogger, so I will comment under those assumptions; everyone, I apologize if my guess is not true.
If the blogger and his ladyfriend are white, it's territorial intimidation the teens are employing, which need not be accepted, anymore than African-Americans should accept intimidation or harrassment from whites. If the roles were reversed, you'd have Al Sharpton staging a media protest about white teens throwing shit at black adults. In the year 2007, why is anyone throwing shit at anybody? Why are people who don't live in a building sitting on a stranger's stoop when their own is a few houses away? And why can't people expect others to adhere to at least very basic levels of common courtesy?
Ye ole' "white guilt," and the somewhat warranted fear of retaliation, is what makes white people keep their mouths shut and "deal with" situations as is. The truth is, no one "owns" any neighborhood in this city, and if people move into a neighborhood that suits their financial means or cultural preferences, those who feel threatened need to wake the hell up and focus on the ebb and flow of the economic situation in NYC, not the color of people's skin.
Interestingly enough, the Afro-American older people on my block are just as irritated, and fed up with, the thuggish behavior of some of the teens who live on the block. It is these old relics from the Civil Rights era who have run certain "undesirable" families/people off the block with petitions and social pressure. My advice: join your block association and start sniffing out what your neighbors think of the situation, and see what can be done from there. You might be pleasantly surprised, and you will feel more part of your community.
Um... I don't recall any mention of the race of these thugs. Why does it have to be racial intimidation? It's an Italian neighborhood. Maybe they are little blunt smoking Italian drug dealers. There sure as hell are enough of them.
Right on 1:25!!!! couldn't have said it better!
Well, at the end of the day I think race is irrelevant. If people are squatting on your stoop at all hours, and being loud around the clock, and selling drugs, then hell yes anyone who lives there has a right to be angry and do something about it.
What I find most lame about all of this is that the cops either dont care, or when they do respond, they just roll a car down the block, which is a USELESS LAZYASS TACTIC, since they are relying on their mere presence to solve the problem, as opposed to taking any proactive measures. As soon as the cop turns the corner, the party resumes.
Get a beat cop to stroll the street.
And no, this is NOT one of those "hey you live in NYC so deal with it things." Screw that fatalist BS. This is your street. Dont let thugs and punks take it over if you dont like it.
Funny . . . I moved from Madison, Wisconsin into the neighborhood, and you’re right “it ain’t Wisconsin fo sure!” I see the little riff-raffs (a strange mixture of Italian and Puerto Rican), but they never bother me, probably because I am Black. True, had it been Bensonhurst, I’d probably be dead my now, but this is lily-ass Cobble Hill! Even Boreum Hill is rougher!
BTW, I nearly got an ass stomping on Monday when I stopped to inquire about the ruckus on Sackett and Court. Who was the dead riff-raff? Anybody knows?
Yo! Those kids are mad cool! If you start buying from them, they will leave you alone.
what happened on sackett court, anyone know?
wow 1:25!!!!
What made you assume the kids were not white? I really hope you are a little embarrassed right now. You should be.
OK - Ill bite - what happened on Sackett and Court on Monday?
Yes, I agree so easy to blame the cops. Why don't you damn callers stop being anonymous. If a resident has friends from elsewhere on the stoop then they have a right to be there.
I think you out of towners expect too much from police officers. Deal with it. They are doing a great job overall compared to how this city was back in the 70's, 80's an dearly 90's.
Cops can't win. The public wants cops to enforce things by the book like the original poster says and the minute the tables are turned, and the OP gets a ticket for drinking an alcoholic beverage they will curse the cops.
You can't have it both ways. One minute you want the cops to enforce and the next minute ( for you, family and friends) you don't
2:42. It is just so easy to blame the cops for everything. People have personal problems blame the cops without knowing the facts so easy to do. Blame the parents. Blame the landlords who don't prosecute for trespass and most importantly blame the caller who wishes to remain anonymous.
Are you there each time a cop is called? No. Maybe each person sitting on the stoop does not live there, but maybe one person in the group does live in the building. And if one does then all they have to say is that the other people are guests. It is not illegal to sit on a stoop in NYC.
They do drugs? Well in nyc a cop cannot search for only drugs....BLAME you damn liberals for that. You say you want the cops to stop the drugs but the minute a cop would try to, you liberals would be marching in union sqaure or something saying the cops violated the drug users rights.
I'm not a cop, but I do have cops who i am close to. I am not biased because I know that some are good and some are bad. But geez, cops are people too. The public just has unrealistic expectations. They want cops to rectify every possible problem. Sure, you want the cops to do that, then give them the power.
To the original poster.....If you were sitting on your steps with friends from another building and a neighbor called the cops on you, would you have a right to stay on your steps? yes. The cops can make you quiet down and do you really believe that these kids are doing the drugs when the cops come? no. Additionally, as another poster stated cops cannot search for drugs. SO DEAL WITH IT crybaby.
I moved from that block to Astoria over the summer and i'd take weed-smoking teens any day in my old nabe. I miss it terribly.
the problem is that they sit on other stoops and smoke pot and repeatedly menace and harass and threaten the people who live in those buildings, not that they sit on their own stoops smoking pot.
This is true; I have walked down this block on numerous occassions for the past few years, and there is indeed a problem and I have seen dealing and drugging and drinking in the open, during the day but more so at night, and while I'm Brooklyn, born and bred, that is not what Brooklyn's about.
Some of you watch too many movies about tough old Brooklyn. A lifelong NYer, this was once a good neighborhood. The drug dealing on Sackett is protected by social club types - last year there was a shooting on the corner of Henry & Sackett, cars are regularly vandalized (52 break-ins just this week), graffiti and fights on the street all night. All by a small group of adults - not teenagers. These are 35 year old men who hang on the corner harassing the "yuppies" who are ruining their hood. Gotti-style fireworks blow the block up each summer. Cops do not respond to complaints. We all know when there is a shipment of drugs, not just pot. Like when the heroin comes in at the funeral parlor and Union Deli and the whole block is full of frozen junkies. These are not "down to earth cool people" They are the same thugs you can find in bum-f**k Wisconsin and any other derelict neighborhood where residents and authorities just don't care. One of the problems has been all you guys buying dope from them.
Umm I believe sitting on a stoop in New York on someone else's steps IS ILLEGAL it's called trespassing..and I am SICK of it. And by the way I am FROM here. Next time I am coming out with a bat...I am pissed and sick of this shit.
Tell them to get the hell off your stoop. The only reason you ever have to worry about kicking people off your stoop is fear of retribution, especially when you don't know where they live...they are your neighbors.
I live in Boerum Hill with a ton of drug dealers on my block, but not on my stoop.
Post a Comment
<< Home