Disneyfied — Page 2

It's funny - I came here from a very small, backwoods town on Florida's west coast - very redneck and VERY unsophisticated - but I was NEVER frightened by anything that happened to me in all the years I've lived here - I never witnessed anything any stranger than being approached by prostitutes on my block (I always lived in the Hell's Kitchen area) and hearing gunshots late at night in the early '90s - but I took it all in stride - I just figured "thats how life in NYC is!" I loved it- have loved every moment of it. My mother was frightened for me, but it never bothered me that I lived on blocks where drug deals were going down and prostitution ran rampant...I just took it all in, and thought it added to the character of the city!

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The crimes rates have dropped NATIONALLY -- in all 50 states and in every major city the crime rates have dropped steadily since the 80's. Dramatically. The rates for violent crimes are now roughly half what they were in the 80's in most places. The country as a whole -- not just New York -- is far LESS dangerous than it's been at any time since the 60's.

I am not a native New Yorker and I didn't grow up around drug dealers. I grew up in a small town in rural Maryland where they roll up the sidewalks at sundown. My parents began taking me to Broadway shows when I was 4 years old and since I liked them so much (as did they), we used to make the 4 hour drive up here three or four times a year and see several shows each trip (in addition to seeing all of the road stuff that came to DC and Baltimore). NYC never felt dangerous to me or to them -- I remember them discreetly laughing at the outfits some of the hookers had on. It was just what you walked past on your way to a show, and if you had a bit of common sense and savvy, there was nothing to be scared of. My parents had been coming to New York for years before I was even born -- my mother's first show was "South Pacific" w/ Pinza and Martin -- so I must have picked up my "lack of worry" from them. I guess I learned from them from a very young age that if you knew how to carry yourself and didn't wander around like a gawking tourist (even if you actually were) or Gomer Pyle on leave, the city is yours and there's nothing to fear.

I didn't move to New York until 1990 when I was in my early 20's(a few years before Disneyfication). I lived in the East Village and Lower East Side -- the time and setting of "Rent" -- mostly for the cheap rents. THAT's when I lived near crack houses -- they were everywhere at the time, along with syringes on the street, homeless people in Tompkins, heroin central down by Houston & B -- but beyond all that, a crazy, wild and exciting neighborhood, alive with artists and performers and AIDS activists and drag queens.

A few years later, the crack houses were closed down, the homeless were driven away or relocated (to Jersey, so the rumor goes), the rents skyocketed forcing most of the artists and performers out of the neighborhood to be replaced by investment bankers, and the former crackdens are now luxury co-op studios that go for $2200/month. Ain't progress grand?

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