Toughest New York Neighborhood

Like so many people my age, I have been regaled through movies and literature with stories about the storied neighborhoods of New York City such as Brooklyn, the Bronx, Canarsie, Little Italy, the Bowery, and Flatbush (others?). I know that some of our Board members prbably grew up in one of these famous or infamous neighborhoods.

So, which would you say was the toughest?

That's like asking who makes the best pizza. Only a non-New Yorker would ask that question. There are too many good pizza joints and too many tough neighborhoods . But I don't think the neighborhoods are as tough as they were a generation or two ago. That's probably true for the entire country, not just New York. The city has become Yuppified, so it's become softer. I think that's true of most big cities today.

I like Rodney Dangerfield's answer the best:

"The football team at my high school, they were tough. After they sacked the quarterback, they went after his family."

I don't know about today, but some parts of Queens was not a barrel of laughs 20-something years ago.

But in general, it's not the area, but how you present yourself in the area, that matters more. Walk strong.

They used to beat up New York wannabes there.

If I had to pick only ONE neighborhood as the toughest I'd go with either East New York OR Brownsville, (Brooklyn). Both neighborhoods could argue for that title (of toughest) over a period of generations (Brownsville was Jewish in the '20s/'30s/'40s and home to Murder, Inc; later became black and home to street toughs like Floyd Paterson and Mike Tyson) ~ (East New York was heavily Italian in the early periods listed above - remember the early parts of "Goodfellas" took place there - and later Hispanic and black when city housing was built in the '50s).

I had a guy from New York come into my work today and after talking for a while, he was actually going on about how 'soft' New York had become now etc. He was a Latino fellow from Bushwick.

Funny you guys mention it being "yuppified", that applies to Major Cities worldwide now. Get your wrinkle cream, guys.

Hey, whisper!

Off topic, but interesting...

Camden, NJ, is notorious for being one of the toughest places in America. Last year it was #2, the year before #1. You don't stop at red lights in Camden!

Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities in America

1. St. Louis, MO
2. Camden, NJ
3. Detroit, MI
4. Flint, MI
5. Oakland, CA
6. Richmond, CA
7. Cleveland, OH
8. Compton, CA
9. Gary, IN
10. Birmingham, AL

The worst place in the state of New York? Buffalo (#17). Next is Rochester (#61) and Syracuse (#74). New York City in general? Pfft, a lowly #269, below the national average.

(Top 400)

Oh stop it, you New York wannabe. We eat Camden for breakfast.

Well that proves you've never been there...

What about Amboy? Remember the Dukes?

I grew up in Brownsville and East New York. I actually worked in the candy store that was HQ for Murder Inc. (17 years earlier). Got into plenty of fights in both neighborhoods. But, as Geoff said, it's how you walk...

The Amboy Dukes were from Brownsville, Brooklyn. They took their name from Amboy Street.

Where were the Rosado brothers from? They did murder in their grandmother's neighborhood!

Hey I know the Amboy Dukes. Never knew Amboy was a place though.

Not being a NYer (but admittedly a "wannabe") I often heard of Hell's Kitchen. I think there is even a tv show by that name. I had to look it up and found it is an area around/in Midtown that was a one time bad area but has cleaned up in recent years. You natives know all about these areas, but for us outsiders we are learning.

TIS

A long time ago, I read the novel titled The Amboy Dukes. It was an interesting read about ganglife.

The real-life Rosados (the Gallo Brothers) were from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (the same general Italian neighborhood in which parts of "Moonstruck" was filmed).

That's right. Now that yo mention it, I do remember the novel although I didn't read it. I am more familiar with the group. What can I say?



TIS

Remember the old Lark cigarettes commercial: “Show us your Larks.” Well, George Carlin used to say “They ought to try that Lark thing in the Bowery. Those guys will show you their Larks.”

It was a famous book about teen gangs and was very loosely based on the real life Dukes.

I figured you'd know the group, TIS.

The novel was made into a movie "City Across the River" and had Tony Curtis as one of the gang members in his first movie role.

Hell's Kitchen is a TV show, but it's a cooking competition. As for the neighborhood, that's where Mario Puzo grew up...

They call Hell's Kitchen "Clinton" now. A one bedroom will set you back about $2500 a month minimum. It's artsy fartsy and coffee shops have taken the place of all the old Irish bars. It's the personification of the word gentrified, or as I like to put it, yuppified. The "toughest" kids to come out of that neighborhood today have to go to Brown because they can't get into Harvard .

But years ago, yeah, that was one storied and tough neighborhood .

I'll go along will TB and SC about Brownsville/East New York. That area brought up a lot of tough guys. Even as recently as the 60s, Mike Tyson came out of that general area. But I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Lower East Side of the early 20th century. That area was legendary for being hardscrabble. There were loads of Italians and both Russian and Eastern European Jews that had to claw there way out of that neighborhood. Lansky, Siegel, Luciano and Costello grew up together down there, and loads of others like them (albeit not as well known). Also, you had a plethora of boxers come out of the area. Most notably Rocky Graziano.

Where was Five Points?

The Lower East Side, below Canal Street. The area is mostly government offices today (City Hall, police headquarters, various courts, board of health, etc.).

Novel was by Irving Shulman. Fictitious gang (based on real gangs). Big seller in the late '40's.

When I was 13, I had a girlfriend who lived on Amboy Street. Made sure never to visit her home after dark.

When my brother graduated college in 1969, the Vietnam draft was still on. If he agreed to work in an underprivileged area, he would be draft-exempt. He took a job teaching in the South Bronx, directly across the street from the infamous "Fort Apache" precinct house. I daresay that was one of the scariest neighborhoods in NY. However, most of it burned a few years later.

Jersey.

No, rrA, the topic is not "the toughest to live in".

?

Should've have typed 1969. (I've heard SB's story before).

Damn, that was a much longer war than I thought. I wasn't that high. Thanks for the correction. And here I thought I was losing it.......again.



TIS

Yes, that's right. He graduated in 1969 and went to work that September in the Bronx. He figured it would be temporary, but then the 1970s and the teacher surplus hit, and he ended up working in the Bronx for over 30 years.

The worst day was when he came to school early one morning and found a dead kid, obviously the victim of a gang. He said the saddest part was that during the night, someone had stolen his shoes.

In Billy Joel's song he sings;

"I've been stranded in the combat zone
I walked through Bedford Stuy alone
Even rode my motorcycle in the rain
And you told me not to drive
But I made it home alive
So you said that only proves that I'm insane"

So, I take it that Bedford Stuy is a bad neighborhood?

Um, ya think?

It's a shame, really. That neighborhood is made up of some of the most beautiful, walk-up brownstone apartments you've ever seen. But the urban blight that began in the '60s turned it into one of the highest crime rate areas in the five boroughs.

Man, I can't wait till I'm allowed to go to New York.

Number one thing on my list is to walk through all these "notorious neighbourhoods". So much history on so many different levels and cultures. You New Yorkers seriously are some lucky buggers.

It WAS bad when Billy Joel was growing up in the '50s through the '70s but now it is not NEARLY as bad as it used to be. It's become somewhat gentrified and yuppified and it is on the way back to being a desired neighborhood.

Okay, so some of the bad old neighborhoods of NY have become gentrified. Which ones are still bad?

The city is a lot safer than it was twenty years ago. In my opinion the Dinkins era was the all time low as far as crime went. But any big city is going to have its bad areas. These areas (I've chosen one from each borough) still haven't lived up to their potential, as far as becoming upwardly mobile.

Bronx: Southwest Bronx

Manhattan: East Harlem

Staten Island: Stapleton

Queens: Hollis

Brooklyn: East New York

NYC is part of general crime trends in the US. The pits were the late '70's and'80's. The nationwide crime rate started to decline. Some broad-gauged explanations included: ageing population (smaller percentage of the most dangerous-aged kids); substitution of heroin for the more violence-inducing crack cocaine; better economy (in the 90's). But there's no denying that NY improved first and most dramatically thanks to mayor Giuliani and police chief Bratton. They aggressively pursued a policy of having the cops go after "quality of life" crimes that had been ignored earlier: turnstile-jumping, 3-card monte street games, low-level drug sales, littering, loud radios, etc. Sure enough: a huge number of those QWL offenders turned out to have outstanding warrants, or were suspects in major felonies. Giuliani also demanded that the Sanitation Dept. start moving aggressively on littering. Result: cleaner, safer streets.

the toughness of a neighborhood can be judged by the nickname it has


Do or die= Bed Stuy

I'm from Jersey...grew up in the largest city there...crack hit around the summer between 8-9th grade and things were never the same.

But Camden is easily the toughest hardest place I've ever been to

I'm guessing Newark? Besides the airport, I don't find myself there that much, so don't know: how're things these days? Jersey City seems to be cleaning up. New Brunswick did years ago. Was in Trenton tonight and didn't see much progress at all. But Camden, well, that's still a disaster...

I will go borough by borough. Some of these may not be the toughest now, but overall toughest reputation over the years :

Manahattan : Hell's Kitchen

Queens : Hollis

Da Bronx : Fordham & Fort Apache Section

Staten Island : Stapleton

Brooklyn : East New York

As for Avenue J in Brooklyn...." I eat Avenue J."

Avenue J on a Saturday night reminds me of the scene in "Blade Runner" when Deckard is stalking Zhora.

I think Don Cardi was referring to "The Lords of Flatbush". There's a funny scene with Sylvester Stallone confronting a guy in a pool hall. The character Stallone is confronting is named Moose Mambo, a member of the gang called the "J's", but in real life he was Bruce Reed, my brother's best friend.

Hell's Kitchen is also where "The Fortunate Pilgrim" takes place. Somewhat his semi-autobiography type of novel, and the one he considered his finest.

Speaking of Avenue J - it was not hostile from what I recall 15 years ago, but I do have a little "subway tale" from two stops ahead from there, at Newkirk Plaza, just after Avenue H: when the subway car stopped, we heard gunshots. Everyone panicked. Nobody got off the car, and a mother standing next to me told her kids to stand behind her. I remember everyone saying "jesus" and "oh my god". Then the car went on and everyone relaxed. Next time I got down there I kinda looked around more carefully

"Lords of Flatbush" was a very entertaining movie.
Avenue J was never a really tough neighborhood. But, further down on Coney Island Avenue, you could get into some scary situations.

I made nostalgic visits to my old neighborhoods in Brownsville and East New York in '97, '98 and 2000. Some of the areas looked like East Berlin after WWII.

Back to Jersey: Springsteen's ol' stomping grounds -- Asbury Park -- looked like that for decades thanks mostly to political corruption, and is finally coming around the past few years due to gentrification. You can still see it though, just a block from the boardwalk. Amazing how far it's come in just a few years, though. My dad's ol' neighborhood there, tho, is still pretty bad. (It's not Italian any more).

The same is true of parts of Larimer Ave. area in Pittsburgh where I grew up. I was back there in August and there's whole blocks that look like that.

I used to run the boardwalk from Belmar to Elberon and back. As recently as 2003, I had to run in the street of Asbury Park because the boardwalk was so decrepit I was afraid I'd fall through. And, a big condo building, just across from the boardwalk, was abandoned before it was finished. Only the Stone Pony was open at that time.

It's still there -- and still the way it looked then. Depressing. But the Pony is still there, too. And many (old and new) Boardwalk stands are, too. And shops and very decent restaurants. Boardwalk itself seems fairly new as well. So at least within the 1-2 blocks west, it's been starting to thrive again the past few years... thankfully.

Was just there a couple weeks ago, and said, hell, this is just fine and dandy. Was also there about 5 years ago and was a bit afraid to be there, but video taped it anyway. You'd be VERY surprised if you saw then-vs-now!

Turnbull is slipping .... he just admitted to his life in crime.

On one of my runs, I saw a guy hosing down the sidewalk in front of that condo. I stopped and asked him if the building was occupied. No, he said, but there was an operating gay bar inside (I didn't visit it).