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The city was similar to what it is now. 5th ave has always been 5th ave, and Broadway has always been Broadway..but I think the major difference of comparing then from now is that the worst neighborhoods back then were much worse than they are now.
Walking around ENY, Brownsville Sutter Ave, Saratoga, etc was unholy if you were not from those neighborhoods.
But that goes without saying, most major American cities had terrible crime rates that make today's crime rates look like Disney Land. Walking around the worst hoods in NYC, south side Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Camden, Newark South Central LA etc was simply a no-go and unthinkable. The homicide rates in all of the cities were about double what they are today
Washington DC was bad, as well. I think it was the murder capital back then.
Funny... summer of 1990 was the most significant time in my life for much different reasons. I was 11 years old and admitted into the children's psych ward at St. Vincent's for severe depression and separation anxiety. I was there for 10 weeks and during the course of it my family moved from Dyker Heights (the only home I'd ever known) to Roosevelt Island.
What's most interesting about this article from 1990, is that besides the difference in crime in 2011, the same story is being told today: rent is too high, middle class is leaving, the city is doomed, major cuts in services, bad public schools, and on and on.
Seems like people love telling the same doom and gloom story over and over again....and yet the city keeps getting better...strange ay?
Some notable areas Uptown and the Bronx that caused a bulk of the homicides, w/ reason:
W 147th & Amsterdam ave area - La Compania drug gang
W 160th - W 168th btwn Amsterdam and Broadway in Washington Heights (Especially W 163rd st). - Jherri Curls Drug gang
E 137th - E 143rd / Beekman, Cypress area in Mott Haven. - Wild Cowboys drug gang.
E 150's in Melrose (Courtland ave area) - Boy George and his Heroin organization.
W 175th in the Andrews, Davidson area- El Feo ran his drug organization from Andrews.
E 180th - E 184th, specifically the E 183rd corridor from Jerome to Webster. All accounts point to Jamaican drug cartels totally dominating the area.
Watson ave in Soundview, a heavy drug strip, sorrounded by projects and held hostage by Franky Cuevas drug organization, as well as Pistol Pete and his Sex Money Murder BLOODS gang.
In Washington Heights, there were millionares on every other block. The whole area was affected, even the blocks that had low drug trafficking. Dealers would hang out all over the place. Lets say that Juan Alvarez was put on by Yayo (the founder of crack) operating out of W 175th street & Audobon ave. Juan would pocket some of the profit himself and decide to set up shop on 168th and Amsterdam. Juan's crew is doing pretty well, raking in thousands of dollars daily. Yayo feels that his buissness is being affected by Juan's new spot. Yayo's men are hired to kill Juan and as a result destroy his buisness. They find Juan hanging out on W 177th and Broadway. They proceed to perform a drive-by shooting, killing Juan and an innocent by-stander in the process.
You have 2 homicides.
Juan made some associates on W 183rd st. The drug crew operating on W 183rd st benefitted from Juan. They find out Juan was killed and immediately suspect Yayo's gang. They are incensed because their buisness is directly affected. They decide to set up Yayo's men. They come to an agreement with Yayo's friend Pablo, to buy a kilo from him. They go into an empty apartment on W 177th street. In the room are 4 men from the W 183rd crew and Pablo with his 2 muscle men. As the transaction starts, one guy from the 183rd crew pulls out a gun and shoots Pablo in the heart. Immediately, Pablo's security pulls out a gun and shoots the shooter of Pablo, killing him instantly. The remaining W 183rd crew shoots the 2 remaining men from Yayo's crew and to add insult to injury, steal their supply.
You have 4 homicides.
So you have 6 men killed, most who had nothing to with the other, in the span of a week. Best believe that Yayo is angry and is going to want payback. It is an ongoing cycle. Most deaths where caused by
1.) A rival dealer ripping off another (selling him fake supply).
2.) Robbing drug dealers and their supplies.
3.) Eliminating the competition. (affecting your buissness)
4.) Payback for the above. (other reasons as well).
That's how Washington Heights worked.
Mott Haven in the South Bronx was especially volitile because you had different crews on every block!
If SuperWario spent as much time studying technology as he does crime, he probably would have discovered the cure for every disease, ensure that we never die, and shred the space-time continuum.
Aw, thanks - much better now, 20+ years later, haha!
I do remember a lot about the city from that time - it was new for me to be smack in the middle of Greenwich Village and I remember going to a lot of the local neighborhood places on day outings with the other kids in the hospital. Our favorite was an old fashioned soda shop called "Papa's Place" - on the corner of 14th and 6th, and it's now an Urban Outfitters, but back in the day they made a MEAN egg cream. We also went to Benny's Burritos, which I think is still there... and a shop that sold nothing but parrots, called something like "Bird Island".
It was a hot summer, too, and those rooms weren't air-conditioned so we spent a lot of time in local parks with sprinklers.
I also remember a lot of panic about some new incarnation of the "zodiac killer" that summer.
Strange, strange times.
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