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What joke? Many people live in Uniondale. FYI, the gangs are ALL over Nassau County. Remove your blinders and get out a bit more instead of just reading Newsday. Maybe then your posts will be more intelligent than being racist & ignorant. After reading your post, I am assuming you are 5 cans short of a six pack
For the uninformed from Wikipedia:
The racial makeup Uniondale is 26.97% White, 55.53% African American, 0.35% Native American, 2.10% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 9.95% from other races, and 5.01% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 22.86% of the population. Non-Hispanic whites were 17.63% of the population.
My non-recommendation has nothing to do with the division of races in Uniondale.
I live in a diverse community and am proud to be there.
Read "Gangs in Garden City" and then recommend Uniondale to anyone. It is now an official hometown of MS-13.
Dear I love LI but, thank you for your posts. For some reasons some people can't grasp the concept of a "safe" town to raise your kids in.
If Uniondale is safe then why the stigma? Same goes for East New York, universally recognized as being a dangerous place to live in, no matter the color of your skin.
I love this board, but I'm beginning to worry about people's perception of places.
Just as many people have said here, if the same money can buy you in a better and safer place, who is the dumb person that will pick the worse place?
Accusing someone of being racist because he is pointing out a higher incidence of crime is absurd.
You know what they say "it is what it is" and no matter how much you try to defend a town with an obvious problem, it's not going to change the fact that it has a problem.
I'll be crossing off Uniondale of my list. Thanks anyway.
Thank you very much, Elisa!
I try and be straight with people and think of their best interests, not MY ego or my idea of myself as "PC," etc., like some others do on here. I live in a diverse community myself and enjoy living there. Funny thing though is the people pointing the racist finger at ME generally don't live in a diverse community and probably would not if their lives depended on it.
You can see the crap I get sometimes though, and sadly, it's generally all about someone getting their "feathers ruffled" because I disagreed with them, NOT because they really care about making a good recommendation to a family seeking to make probably the most important financial decision and the biggest investment of their lives, buying a home. Some people will put their own EGOS ahead of giving good advice and act like big babies if they are disagreed with when they are clearly giving a bad recommedation.
I thought Freeport was the MS 13 hometown. I haven't been in Uniondale in many years but I do remember some nice blocks as well as the most decrepit arena in the NHL. I guess it's changed a bit?? Like I always say, anyone can live wherever they'd like to. After reading a couple of reviews of "Gangs in Garden City", I'm glad we live where we are even though sometimes we miss the diversity. Crowded suburbs, road rage, drive-by shootings, schools flooded with heroin. Sad to see but hopefully it gets better. It sucks to pay all those taxes and have to deal with that crap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but
My non-recommendation has nothing to do with the division of races in Uniondale.
I live in a diverse community and am proud to be there.
Read "Gangs in Garden City" and then recommend Uniondale to anyone. It is now an official hometown of MS-13.
Read "Gangs in Garden City" and tell me what you think.
The author has tons of footnotes of her numerous sources.
However, I did find a few errors in her book, so who knows.
I am not going to do extended hang outs in Hempstead or Uniondale to find out.
You?
Uniondale also has had some seriously, seriously NASTY crimes befitting of a war zone.
Remember the college girl who was snatched off the street and repeatedly raped outside in broad daylight in between houses in Uniondale and nobody would come to her aid? That one was courtesy of a lovely lifetime Uniondale resident with a seriously long record.
Also, the recent noticeable decline in school performance you mention is because of the same demographic that invaded Hempstead and took their schools to a new low. Unfortunately, the world of the majority of their high school age kids is more focused on guns than books and on continuing vendettas about things that happened in the old country forever.
And what is that book going to convince me of? That Uniondale isn't the greatest place to live? Cuz I thought I was already pretty clear on my opinion of the place...
Quote:
Originally Posted by sean sean sean sean
I totally, 100% agree that Uniondale is an awful choice when you can get a similar house in a much better area nearby on the exact same budget. It has more crime and crappier schools than 90% of Nassau County.
See?
What it's not going to convince me of is that the majority of people living there (or the majority of Hispanics living there, or whatever) are all ruthless, cold blooded killers with direct ties to international organized crime who moved from Central America specifically to terrorize innocent bystanders and engage in guerrilla warfare out in the streets on a daily basis.
You're trying to make it seem like you're "tellin' it like it is" - without all the standard PC nonsense - but you're being just as dishonest as anyone who claims Uniondale is some great, middle class area....although I'm kinda confused, cuz I didn't catch anyone claiming that on here.
I feel like I had something else to say too, but I'm in a rush and can't remember it right now.
Anyway, bottom line - honesty over hyperbole. No need to make stuff up to prove a point.
It doesn't matter that the majority of people living there are not "criminals," etc. I never tried to convince you or anyone that they were. What did I make up? Just the fact that it is a major MS-13 headquarters should be enough to give it a non-recommendation, no matter how few or how many MS-13 presently live there.
Even 10% or less of the population being criminals makes it an unsafe neighborhood for everyone. That's enough to spoil the place. ICE certainly isn't going to fix it considering the lousy reception they got and the crappy attitude they got the last time they tried to do their job in Nassau County. I still wouldn't want to live there if only 2% were gangbangers and would recommend spending their life savings on a house there to NOBODY AT ALL, no matter what race or ethnicity they are. I don't recommend it to illegal aliens who are just here to work and mind their own business because they could be victimized or harassed too.
I know you don't recommend the place.
If you are confused, I found just the act of recommending it to someone to waste their money on a house there was that the person who recommended it considered it a decent middle class area. Otherwise, why recommend it unless you are being cruel or sarcastic? Anyway, that person has taken back their recommendation and admitted they haven't been there in a very long time.
Actually, I think you would like the book because you would learn a lot about the actual people involved (undocumented immigrants). It is definitely sympathetic to illegal aliens and gangbangers so you won't be offended like you are by some of what I write. I really don't mean to offend you or anyone and I admit sometimes I make "sweeping statements." However, we all have our favorite subjects on here and once we are warmed up we may say more than others think is necessary or proper. Some people get carried away about police and teachers and unions and taxes. Crooks gets carried away beating the drum for Rocky Point. Some people get carried away about strangers' cars being parked in front of their house. I admit this is one of my subjects I get carried away on and write too much sometimes. As you know, I have others too.
The title of the book is a lot of hype as we all know, and the author barely mentions GC except to paint it as a lily-white, elitist rich town that has a racist goon squad (aka their own private police force) who terrorize the downtrodden illegal aliens so much that most of them NEVER even dare to cross the border of the nearest residential area of GC, even if just to go past and get to the mall or any shopping. The title of the book was a lie; a cheap tabloid shot to get attention.
The author is at her best when she is giving profiles of actual people she has met who have illegally immigrated to the LI area. Their stories are interesting and I would be a liar if I would say I was totally unsympathetic to these individuals, ESPECIALLY the young teenage girls she profiled. They are caught in a very tough world to navigate.
The author also impressed me by traveling all the way to Central America to do some research for the book and meet people there.
However, the author did not impress me with her attitude towards LI and Long Islanders. She has the typical "transplant to NYC from the depths of nowhere" (in her case, Kentucky) attitude towards LI as a place to sneer at. By some of what she writes about LI, including misrepresenting common names (for example, I think I remember she got Roosevelt Field wrong ... I read the book several months ago), it is apparent she did not spend much time in Nassau or Suffolk, even though she lives right on LI in one of the wealthiest and most exclusive sections of Brooklyn with real estate prices rivaling that of Manhattan's fanciest neighborhoods.
Although her book was meticulously footnoted, as I got into the parts where she discusses LI, I noticed incorrect statements and errors that might have been downright lies. For example, she discusses the Patchogue teens who killed the immigrant (and whose ringleader is now on trial) and several times in the book she denounces the "gang of all white teenagers." She footnotes that stuff too, but we all know they were not all white. She even mentions the one teenager who had also been involved in a home invasion murder, who is black, so she definitely knew about him, yet she still writes in her book several times about the "all white gang" of racist killer teens. In her credits and thank yous, she mentions a fact checker and editors, so either they missed it too, or like the title of the book, it suits her purposes better to rail against the supposedly all white squad of killers rather than tell the truth, that there was a black kid and a hispanic kid involved too.
She is so sympathetic to gangbangers that she even rails against the deportation of them because "their life will be too hard" back in Central America.
To confuse even more, at the very end of her book she hails Steve Levy as a hero as important as Barack Obama and Joe Biden ...
Even though I found footnoted/source cited inaccuracies, so therefore I cannot believe 100% of the book and cannot even be really sure of what I can believe in it, it was an interesting and informative read and I would recommend reading it, but take it out of the library, don't put a penny into her pocket.
I also sincerely doubt she would be so sympathetic to the illegal aliens and gangbangers if a slumlord happened to buy one of the brownstone mansions in her and her husband's neighborhood ... or perhaps a home next door to her mother in an upper middle class neighborhood of Kentucky ... and they had to put up with the QOL issues and crime issues up close and personal. Judging by how she ruthlessly twists the facts to suit her own purposes in this book, I bet the limousine liberal author would be heading the NIMBY brigade in her exclusive corner of Brooklyn and would be even more vicious than I could be when denouncing illegal immigration.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sean sean sean sean
And what is that book going to convince me of? That Uniondale isn't the greatest place to live? Cuz I thought I was already pretty clear on my opinion of the place...
See?
What it's not going to convince me of is that the majority of people living there (or the majority of Hispanics living there, or whatever) are all ruthless, cold blooded killers with direct ties to international organized crime who moved from Central America specifically to terrorize innocent bystanders and engage in guerrilla warfare out in the streets on a daily basis.
You're trying to make it seem like you're "tellin' it like it is" - without all the standard PC nonsense - but you're being just as dishonest as anyone who claims Uniondale is some great, middle class area....although I'm kinda confused, cuz I didn't catch anyone claiming that on here.
I feel like I had something else to say too, but I'm in a rush and can't remember it right now.
Anyway, bottom line - honesty over hyperbole. No need to make stuff up to prove a point.
It doesn't matter that the majority of people living there are not "criminals," etc. I never tried to convince you or anyone that they were. What did I make up?
So was the following quote (and subsequent replies referencing it) not intended to draw some kind of parallel between your fictional Bay Ridge mafia scenario and what you perceive to be the Hispanic gangs in Uniondale?? I can't think of any other possible explanation for it...
Quote:
Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but
Yeah I see what you mean, but what if the MAJORITY of Italians in Bay Ridge WERE connected to the Mafia and actually moved from the home country, Italy, to Bay Ridge to BE WITH THEIR GANG AFFILIATES AND TO FURTHER THE ACTIVITIES AND REACH OF THEIR GANG and actively terrorized the few non-gang member countrymen/women in Bay Ridge would that necessarily be "racist" to comment on it? Sometimes it is what it is and you cannot put the lipstick on the pig and make it look pretty and PC.
For the slower members of our forum here, who are probably having a hard time following.....the bolded part, when applied to our discussion here, translates to I_Love_LI_but telling us that:
The MAJORITY of Hispanics in Uniondale ARE connected to the most prominent Central American gangs and actually moved from their home countries to Uniondale to BE WITH THEIR GANG AFFILIATES AND TO FURTHER THE ACTIVITIES AND REACH OF THEIR GANG and actively terrorize the few non-gang member countrymen/women in Uniondale.
That's the only reason I replied, cuz I thought that statement was totally ludicrous... and I bet now that you're thinking about it, you probably realize it is too. Can't put lipstick on that pig. Is Uniondale a great place to live? No. Are the majority of it's Hispanic residents (the number of whom have greatly increased since the 2000 Census) gang members who came into town guns-a-blazin', straight outta El Salvador, solely with the intention of mindlessly terrorizing the neighborhood? Come on now....
I'll reply to the other stuff you brought up too - but keep in mind, it's all separate and just for the sake of discussion. I wouldn't even be posting in this thread if it weren't for the above quote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but
Just the fact that it is a major MS-13 headquarters should be enough to give it a non-recommendation, no matter how few or how many MS-13 presently live there.
Did you know that Hempstead is the regional headquarters of the Hell's Angels? Maybe I shouldn't even say it, but they've got a big sign up on their house on Henry Street anyway LOL. Aside from everything else you wouldn't recommend Hempstead because of, would you not recommend it solely because it's the HQ of a notorious, white biker gang?
Where are you even getting this from, that book? I'm not even sure what "major MS-13 headquarters" means....do they have something similar to like a Knights of Columbus or VFW hall there?
Quote:
Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but
If you are confused, I found just the act of recommending it to someone to waste their money on a house there was that the person who recommended it considered it a decent middle class area. Otherwise, why recommend it unless you are being cruel or sarcastic? Anyway, that person has taken back their recommendation and admitted they haven't been there in a very long time.
I wouldn't recommend it because you can do so much better in any other area nearby. My "non-recommendation" is based more on getting a much better value elsewhere as opposed to Uniondale actually being some terrible, crime ridden, illegal immigrant infested dump. It's got more crime than other parts of Nassau, but only marginally. Hempstead has a lot to do with that. The schools are also not too hot, but not the worst....I've seen districts in Suffolk that perform similar academically recommended on here from time to time. They have big problems with the administration and money disappearing. I know you don't wanna risk your life hanging out there (as you said in another post), but if you got lost or something and asked around, you would find that it's mostly middle class families and that it looks pretty much the same as East Meadow or Levittown.
The book is probably pretty interesting, I'll pick it up if I see it anywhere. I just listened to a radio interview with the author about it and got pretty much the same impression you did. I had a few other comments I wanted to make about it, but once again I'm being called away from the computer by real life LOL....I'm sure this thread will still be going when I come back to it later though!
So was the following quote (and subsequent replies referencing it) not intended to draw some kind of parallel between your fictional Bay Ridge mafia scenario and what you perceive to be the Hispanic gangs in Uniondale?? I can't think of any other possible explanation for it...
For the slower members of our forum here, who are probably having a hard time following.....the bolded part, when applied to our discussion here, translates to I_Love_LI_but telling us that:
The MAJORITY of Hispanics in Uniondale ARE connected to the most prominent Central American gangs and actually moved from their home countries to Uniondale to BE WITH THEIR GANG AFFILIATES AND TO FURTHER THE ACTIVITIES AND REACH OF THEIR GANG and actively terrorize the few non-gang member countrymen/women in Uniondale.
That's the only reason I replied, cuz I thought that statement was totally ludicrous... and I bet now that you're thinking about it, you probably realize it is too. Can't put lipstick on that pig. Is Uniondale a great place to live? No. Are the majority of it's Hispanic residents (the number of whom have greatly increased since the 2000 Census) gang members who came into town guns-a-blazin', straight outta El Salvador, solely with the intention of mindlessly terrorizing the neighborhood? Come on now....
The book certainly makes it seem that way, although of course the author "softpedals" it to give all kinds of excuses as to WHY the "poor unfortunates" brought the Salvadoran Civil War with them and why they have added their own major gang war with Salvadorans With Pride. Perhaps this is another part of the book I should not have taken so literally, but when we get down to it, Uniondale is STILL a solid non-recommend for me no matter how few Salvadoran residents are actually involved in MS-13.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sean sean sean sean
Did you know that Hempstead is the regional headquarters of the Hell's Angels? Maybe I shouldn't even say it, but they've got a big sign up on their house on Henry Street anyway LOL. Aside from everything else you wouldn't recommend Hempstead because of, would you not recommend it solely because it's the HQ of a notorious, white biker gang?
The Hell's Angels Regional HQ for this area has always been in the East Village of Manhattan and they do not have much of a presence on LI at all, because LI is mostly Pagans territory and the Pagans have kept them at bay. If this were true, and Hempstead was an HQ for them, first of all I would consider the Hell's Angels to have seriously become wussies to let the other gangs run wild in Hempstead! Say Hempstead just had the notorious white Hell's Angels HQ and that was it; no other gangs: YES, I would definitely give it a non-recommend just for that because it is organized crime.
AS FOR THIS PART BELOW, ANSWERS TO BE CONTINUED ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by sean sean sean sean
Where are you even getting this from, that book? I'm not even sure what "major MS-13 headquarters" means....do they have something similar to like a Knights of Columbus or VFW hall there?
I wouldn't recommend it because you can do so much better in any other area nearby. My "non-recommendation" is based more on getting a much better value elsewhere as opposed to Uniondale actually being some terrible, crime ridden, illegal immigrant infested dump. It's got more crime than other parts of Nassau, but only marginally. Hempstead has a lot to do with that. The schools are also not too hot, but not the worst....I've seen districts in Suffolk that perform similar academically recommended on here from time to time. They have big problems with the administration and money disappearing. I know you don't wanna risk your life hanging out there (as you said in another post), but if you got lost or something and asked around, you would find that it's mostly middle class families and that it looks pretty much the same as East Meadow or Levittown.
The book is probably pretty interesting, I'll pick it up if I see it anywhere. I just listened to a radio interview with the author about it and got pretty much the same impression you did. I had a few other comments I wanted to make about it, but once again I'm being called away from the computer by real life LOL....I'm sure this thread will still be going when I come back to it later though!
Don't worry ... the OP understands. (See her post #37.)
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Many people live in Uniondale. FYI, the gangs are ALL over Nassau County. Remove your blinders and get out a bit more instead of just reading Newsday. Maybe then your posts will be more intelligent than being racist & ignorant. After reading your post, I am assuming you are 5 cans short of a six pack
