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I'm glad they found the missing Hamilton Heights woman but it served to again show a blatant double standard in our society. For every widely covered missing White woman or girl there are a bunch of young Black, Asian, and Latino people (mostly young women) that go missing who barely register a blip on the news. It's wrong.
I have family in Ham. Heights and I'm regularly around there. There were posters for this woman all over the place. With all the news coverage, a lot of people seemed to stop around the posters, and people seemed genuinely concerned.
I'm glad they found the missing Hamilton Heights woman but it served to again show a blatant double standard in our society. For every widely covered missing White woman or girl there are a bunch of young Black, Asian, and Latino people (mostly young women) that go missing who barely register a blip on the news. It's wrong.
I have family in Ham. Heights and I'm regularly around there. There were posters for this woman all over the place. With all the news coverage, a lot of people seemed to stop around the posters, and people seemed genuinely concerned.
I was the poster that referred to the missing young woman. And until yesterday she was considered missing and in the Hamilton Hts area, where I frequent, there were many many posters of her around.
Secondly, this one incident isn't the only recent incident. Are we forgetting the young people who were shot on 125th street only weeks ago, and the young boy who was killed in Harlem last weekend. This isn't some random fluctuation of crime. Crime is a very real and present thing in Harlem. Please don't get it twisted. The pretty and new condos and buildings and stores aren't going to change that. If this weren't an issue, people wouldn't refer to Harlem as being okay on a block to block basis, or calling it sketchy.
Lastly, I just want to point out that most of us Manhattanites still think that the UWS stops at 96 St. The area between 96-110 St is Manhattan Valley, which has recently been included as a subsection of the UWS. (That includes 100th St and Amsterdam). Recently brokers and agents have blurred the lines of the UES and UWS to include sections of East and West Harlem.
I was the poster that referred to the missing young woman. And until yesterday she was considered missing and in the Hamilton Hts area, where I frequent, there were many many posters of her around.
Secondly, this one incident isn't the only recent incident. Are we forgetting the young people who were shot on 125th street only weeks ago, and the young boy who was killed in Harlem last weekend. This isn't some random fluctuation of crime. Crime is a very real and present thing in Harlem. Please don't get it twisted. The pretty and new condos and buildings and stores aren't going to change that. If this weren't an issue, people wouldn't refer to Harlem as being okay on a block to block basis, or calling it sketchy.
Lastly, I just want to point out that most of us Manhattanites still think that the UWS stops at 96 St. The area between 96-110 St is Manhattan Valley, which has recently been included as a subsection of the UWS. (That includes 100th St and Amsterdam). Recently brokers and agents have blurred the lines of the UES and UWS to include sections of East and West Harlem.
Well apparently the latest news is that the woman wasn't really "missing." So it shouldn't really be counted as an "incident," we'll at least not yet. Stay tuned.
Your point is the same point that's been made by various other posters already. Harlem is transitioning but it's improving. Is it the UWS Or UES? No its not, nor will it probably ever be those neighborhoods, but it's leaps and bounds better than it was in the 70's, 80's, 90's. It's gone from pretty much a bad neighborhood all around to now having a little of everything in between good and bad.
Last edited by NooYowkur81; 09-11-2008 at 07:56 PM..
I dont care who lives there, who says they love the neighborhood, blah blah...Harlem has high crime rates throughout and its still as much the hood now as it was in 1990. Widespread poverty, along with high crime (especially the huge uptick this year), graffiti, projects, boarded tenements, rehabbed buildings, drugs etc whatever you want to say but quality of life is a real issue in Harlem.
I dont want to hear anything about Condos either. Mott Haven, Melrose, Concourse and Hunts Point....the "dreaded" south Bronx has plenty of Condos. And yet nobody is moving into those places in droves. I think the fact that Harlem is in Manhattan has people lowering their guard. NooYowkur lives on a "quiet" block in Fordham but he correctly identifies is neighborhood as bad. Mott Haven has some quiet blocks too. Everywhere you go. But when you talk about the entire neighborhood, the bad blocks outnumber the good.
West Harlem around Columbia I dont even consider to be Harlem anymore. So I dont really include it when talking about Harlem. When I refer to west Harlem I mean 125th to 155th.
We all have opinions. Many of you live in Harlem. But I think its fair to say that Harlem is STILL among the WORST neighborhoods in the city. It is vastly improved and its better than it was but it sticks out like a sore needle for "the safest big city".
I dont care who lives there, who says they love the neighborhood, blah blah...Harlem has high crime rates throughout and its still as much the hood now as it was in 1990. Widespread poverty, along with high crime (especially the huge uptick this year), graffiti, projects, boarded tenements, rehabbed buildings, drugs etc whatever you want to say but quality of life is a real issue in Harlem.
I dont want to hear anything about Condos either. Mott Haven, Melrose, Concourse and Hunts Point....the "dreaded" south Bronx has plenty of Condos. And yet nobody is moving into those places in droves. I think the fact that Harlem is in Manhattan has people lowering their guard. NooYowkur lives on a "quiet" block in Fordham but he correctly identifies is neighborhood as bad. Mott Haven has some quiet blocks too. Everywhere you go. But when you talk about the entire neighborhood, the bad blocks outnumber the good.
West Harlem around Columbia I dont even consider to be Harlem anymore. So I dont really include it when talking about Harlem. When I refer to west Harlem I mean 125th to 155th.
We all have opinions. Many of you live in Harlem. But I think its fair to say that Harlem is STILL among the WORST neighborhoods in the city. It is vastly improved and its better than it was but it sticks out like a sore needle for "the safest big city".
I think you make a good point about "letting your guard down". I think people do tend to get brave/comfortable and stop paying attention, I know I find myself doing this.
Harlem is far from perfect, but it has some good things about it too. One being its a lot cheaper than a lot of other places in Manhattan.
And I'm reluctant to say the increase in crime is a pattern. When numbers are in the low teens it lacks statistical significance. It's alarming certainly.
Anyway, You have to watch your back. I do think Harlem willl one day be very safe. There's just nowhere else to go in Manhattan. Especially with all the development along 125th street.
You know, it's kind of uncanny how neighborhoods can change dramatically. How many aboard know that the UWS was once a feared area with a reputation for drugs, prostitutioin, crime, etc.? Today it's one of the most expensive, prized parts of the city.
The desire to live in NYC - all five boroughs - and the scarcity of housing has extended the frontiers of development to areas once considered taboo to developers and investors. True, it's still chancy and worrisome to move in to sketcy areas or areas in transition. That's why one recognizes that pioneers who move in with dollars to spend aren't all bad guys - many help create a metamorphosis which transforms run down, dilapidated communities into sparkling, vivacious, deirable areas.
Getting from Point A to Point C in that process is a tough one for all parties - the original residents, so-called hipsters, and finally the arriving yuppies when the transition is over.
Until the transition is completed though there's going to be a lot of uncertainty about which block is safe and sometimes even which building in which block is safe.
I think the fact that Harlem is in Manhattan has people lowering their guard.
I would tend to agree with you, especially the way you defined Harlem as being separate from the university area, which is also a big distinction. People think that once they head uptown that it's the same as if they are in the East 60s, but Harlem is just not there yet, as a whole.
I may have mentioned in another thread that I know people who had holdings in the Kingsbridge Heights/University Heights area of the Bronx. What was most interesting is that the woman who owned the buildings would sometimes have to go there for various reasons, driving a Mercedes, and could not understand just how deteriorated with crime the area had become, since she never encountered any harassment, and nothing ever happened to her car, not even a scratch (something that could not be said for the car's home environment). This was not a coincidence, since the people in the area knew exactly who she was and what she was doing there, but as you have pointed out it was a "hands off" situation in the code of the street.
It's not dissimilar to teachers I have known who taught for years in the South Bronx and Harlem, where they also had a "hands off" code applied to them and their vehicles, both for the fact that they met a certain profile, and that they were teachers and many were respected for coming into those areas on a daily basis. Even some parents who were involved in shady dealings did not want that for their children, so they respected that the path to leaving the life behind lay in education, and this is going back to some of the bad days in the 80s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMario
It is vastly improved and its better than it was but it sticks out like a sore needle for "the safest big city".
Harlem has improved, yes, but there are still some very troubling numbers as Harlem, hopefully, is poised to turn the corner on crime.
Agreed. As a young woman, I wouldn't walk at night with my headphones on or talking on a cell phone and probably would never walk around very late at night by myself (e.g., I would take cabs after 11 pm - this of course costs extra money so it's difficult for those who are out regularly that late)
I'd also learn the streets well and learn where to walk at night when you need to. But, the point is in many places it's not especially dangerous to live there if you exercise some degree of caution; the vast majority of murders are directed at people who know eachother, or had some type of altercation. This doesn't make it right or not a problem, and you're certainly MORE likely to be the victim of violent crime in Harlem than Greenwich village. But, I don't think you are taking your life into your own hands by deciding to live up there. You're increasing your risk a bit (but still probably are safer on the whole than the person who drives a lot) and needing to be more cautious.
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