Suspected Murder On Joralemon Street

I am concerned about the changes in Brooklyn Heights since I moved here in 1998, but my concerns center around the inescapable fact that, while the neighborhood has always been wealthy, it’s now pretty much an enclave of the 1% and getting more so, given the increases in luxury developments. I mourn the loss of independent retailers and the influx of chains and higher-end restaurants, replacing the divey joints & affordable shops that I liked when I moved here. I like that the Park and other elements of the neighborhood mean that this is a gathering place for people from all over the borough, the city, and the world, but I don’t love that realtors now consider it an extension of lower Manhattan, as I was told last night is the case. I think that’s a shame.
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Teresa, someone just got murdered. There have been brawls and another shooting. There are real issues of safety, here. Although I agree this was a domestic violence occurrence that probably could have happened anywhere, I think that for you to bring up your “mourning” of independent retailers and shops is absolutely ridiculous. RIDICULOUS!!! If I am the only one to call you out on it, so be it. But I somebody needs to.
And StudioBrooklyn, it’s rare I challenge an “up vote”, but you should take a look at that post again, see what context it’s being put forth in, and reevaluate. Because that’s some weird stuff, right there.

Apparently she was shot while waiting for the bus. not exactly in the park and kind of a well lit area. Cops are not a deterrent in such matters.
Truth is, if the poor girl got killed near her home most here wouldn’t notice or really care.

This seems to be not an opportunistic crime gone wrong but non the less understandably disconcerting and a very sad loss for a family.

Joraleman Street is certainly getting big foot traffic and is the closest egress to the more social oriented parts of the park. It probably is a good idea to shut the basketball section of the Park down at 7:00 P.M. during the summer. This would free up patrolmen to work other vulnerable areas including Joraleman Street at night, and discourage mischief.

I’ve railed numerous times on this blog about this City’s lack of planning and the power of real estate money to buy favor. You can discourage mischief in the Park, but just wait for that monstrosity of a hotel to open and construction at the other end of the Park to begin. The noise will dull the senses, be sure of that. Old Fulton Street will be like the center of Mumbai with traffic and taxi horns at full decibel. Also, someone is going to to get injured or worse crossing at the BQE underpass light because traffic agents are only there weekday evenings at rush hour. Furman Street traffic will up the pollution levels which are trapped by the BQE.

This whole mess will get worse, I am sure of that. It’s in our backyard and we are forced to get used to it. However, if the Park, with its thousands of weekly visitors, ratchets up criminal activity in Brooklyn Heights, the negative publicity elicited will go national. Everyone will be embarrassed by it, except the Governor: he is basically a shameless character.

With the exception of your first paragraph, I think you might have found the wrong thread for this post. This crime did not occur on Joralemon, and was not connected in any meaningful way to the problems many BH residents associate with the park. These are not opinions but facts that have been established. Now, you said:

“It probably is a good idea to shut the basketball section of the Park…This would free up patrolmen to work other vulnerable areas”

Unless you’re talking about using a Star Trek-style forcefield to keep people out of the courts, I’m pretty sure what you meant is that shutting “the basketball section of the Park” would require more “patrolmen” to enforce its closure, perhaps linked arm in arm across the two pier entrances like paper dolls or an anti-riot task force. And as I’m sure you’re aware, the function of police officers has never been, or at least should never be, to keep people from playing basketball on public basketball courts but rather, to ensure their safety while they do play.

actually teresa, the neighborhood has not always been wealthy and i know quite a few non 1% people who live here. let’s not generalize without concrete evidence. if you mourn the loss of independent retailers, talk to the landlords on montague and henry who have owned those buildings forever and jack up rents to ridiculous amounts. also talk to your fellow residents who do not patronize these stores enough to keep them in business. this neighborhood has always been a gathering place because of the promenade. my issue with it being even more of a gathering place is when people don’t gather in peace. that is what makes this neighborhood an extension of many others where safety and consideration for the comfort of others as well as your own needs is not a high priority.

Yep, just read your response, and I think you’re right too. As I said to you in that long back-and-forth we had last week, I think it’s very easy to agree on what afflicts the neighborhood, but a bit trickier to agree on how to put the extremeness of those afflictions in order, or address the root causes of or solutions to those afflictions. And I’m okay with that. Teresa and I share many of these more nuanced attitudes about the park, but I also think we all (including you) agree about which problems exist and which problems don’t exist.

Among the people who seem to regard the park as a major source of anxiety, you’ve been one of the first I’ve seen to acknowledge that the problems associated with the park are echoes of larger problems affecting the city and the way it cultivates poverty, economic divides, etc. and I wanted to mention how much I respect you for that.

Roberto, I think you must have wanted to post this in Open Thread Wednesday. It’s a good comment, but completely unrelated to the topic of this thread.

not exactly, it said Joralemon and Atlantic! Not in this universe.

It is rare. However, your lack of an up vote simply made me salty. Whereas StudioBrooklyn’s up vote of Teresa’s post was egregious.
For Teresa to say she “mourns” Brooklyn Heights’ demographics, when an innocent young woman just was shot and killed by a deranged boyfriend, is, was and forever will be a ridiculous statement in this context. Forever. Ridiculous.

SB,
I just saw this and had to respond. You are really telling Chase to take a comment on community safety to a different thread!?! When you supported Teresa “mourning” the 1% on THIS thread? You’re losing credibility, buddy.

Are you all honestly suggesting that the murder is somehow less worrisome to the Heights because it “could have happened anywhere?” With all respect to the woman and her family, the larger point for this neighborhood is that the violence of the Crown Heights housing projects has now come to Brooklyn Heights, and it isn’t going back. And it came here because the Park is here. THAT is a spill-over effect just as surely as the vandalism and muggings and fights and noise are. And before anyone says that domestic violence knows no color or class barrier, I agree. But gun violence most certainly does, and that barrier just got a bit narrower.

The difference in this case is, the only connection with the park is the victim worked there. She could have worked at Key Food and been shot on Montague St, or anywhere else. Thus a different cause than the parks draw of people from outside the neighbourhood, to play ball etc, some of whom also commit crimes here.

Maybe compare to the rest of NYC for perspective…

i don’t live in the rest of NYC. i Live here. My metric of comparison is before and after this car. 65 year old men getting sucker punched may be ok for you, but it is not for me.