To those who live in Fort Greene

Shame on you for believing what you read on a blog site.

Year to date violent crime is DOWN 23%. Stats don't lie, people's imagination (especially given the opportunity to spread an agenda) does.

For a firsthand and truehand experience as to the precinct conditions and any violent crime trends, you should go to the 88 pct community council, held on the third Tuesday each month, usually at the pct station house. Asking about facts from another anonymous website is not the best way to get an accurate reflection of your question.

"Year to date violent crime is DOWN 23%."

That's all well and good, but violent crime in that neighborhood is already disproportionately high to begin with.

NYCMatt, you're really an idiot, and you exemplify what is wrong with basing your source of knowledge, opinions and 'news' by what's posted on discussion boards, blogs, etc.

You say the neighborhood has a disproportionately high rate of violent crime, but that statement and opinion have no basis on fact or statistics at all.

Compared to other MANHATTAN neighborhoods with similar numbers of residents:

Violent Crime Statistics (2009 YTD)
88 Pct 13 Pct 6 Pct
Murder 2 1 0
Rape 2 5 6
Robbery 133 127 103
Felony Assault 84 116 74

By all accounts, you could say that the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill area is comparable to the violent crim in Greenwich Village/West Village and Gramercy Park/Murray Hill.

Arlo just ask the people who have been packing up and moving what has been happening in that area. I know a couple who just broke the lease after the Pratt student was beaten into a coma with a crobar. That incident made them look and they found stuff at the same price in much safer and nicer hoods. Look in Carroll Gardens

King this area is far from being a Manhattan neighborhood. This is Brooklyn and not even the nice part of Brooklyn. This is the ghetto of Brooklyn where BIG use to swing rock

Brownstoner.com

Part of the problem is how neighborhoods get defined. when a neighborhood gets popular (RE wise) all of a sudden it's boundaries expand so RE which never used to be in that neighborhood all of a sudden is. We've seen it here with discussions re: park Slope a decent amount. how much of Fort Greene / Clinton Hill (which not too long ago people didn't even really talk about as a neighborhood separate from Fort Greene) USED to be BedySty or whatever.

Well, as these boundaries expand into ares which are somewhat "worse" guess what else happens?

Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are degentrifying now. last man out is the rotten egg

Really? CH is degentrifying? Real, prime CH? This is the first I have heard of this.

Advice to buyers: if this is true, whenever you personally think the market has hit bottom, buy one of those big houses on Clinton Ave. i guarantee a HUGE appreciation in the next market upswing. A piece of RE advice i heard from a very well known holder of Coop unsold shares and Sponsor: "You buy crap, you own crap; you buy quality, you own quality". Those big houses along Clinton Ave were largely built as the "country houses' for some of Manhattan's upper middle class/lower upper class (or so I've been told). Of the houses I've seen outside of Manhattan, as a group, it's those and the one's on Prospect Park South I find myself coveting. Did that huge 200ft block thru mansion that was on the market a few years ago ever sell?

30 it does not matter what they were Clinton Hill is the GHETTO. Total fringe of Brooklyn. The only people who dont think it is fringe are the people who were priced out of prime Brooklyn and are in denial that they moved the wife and kids into a total ghetto! Its just not safe for a women to walk around there. The renters are moving to prime Brooklyn and the idiots who purchased home in that area are bagholders that will most likely get mugged. Have fun.....................

Well, I appreciate reading the point-counterpoint here but the original concern was about crime, not so much about whether it's "gentrified" or not. It seems just based on the stats that Fort Greene proper is about on par with other so-called prime Brooklyn areas, save for a few recent exclamation points of violence. Rhetorically speaking, it is still possible to get mugged even in Manhattan, don't you think?

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

30yrs, when prices come down enough, you can buy one big ol house on Clinton Ave and I'll buy the one next door, and together we'll anchor a little mini-gentrification on the block.

This thread is the just the latest installment of a converation that I first heard when I moved to New York from the South 20 years ago. And it's been going on ever since!

Sometimes it's hard to generalize about what happens to a neighborhood. The hood will have bad spots and good spots as it goes along.

When I first landed here I was in Cobble Hill. At that time the Cobble Hill people thought Boerum Hill was a ghetto, which in truth it was in many spots.

The main issue was the projects in BH. As time went on, streets farther away from the projects got better and slowly the improvements began to creep toward the projects.

Nowadays, after the bubble, most of BH is pretty gentified, although there are still certain blocks near the projects where I would not buy or rent (esp the little blocks that have projects on both ends, like Warren between Bond and Nevins).

But I say all this to point out that Fort Green and Clinton Hill are just different chapters of the same story. 30yrs made 2 excellent points: one, that Clinton Hill was carved out of Bed-Stuy, and two, that there is some magnificent housing stock in CH.

But nobody wants to live in a great house if you are effectively a prisoner there, and can't feel safe leaving it to go to the subway. There is great housing stock in Bed-Stuy proper and many folks would not feel comfortable there. Ditto for parts of Bushwick.

My guess is that parts of Fort Green and Clinton Hill are still ghetto, even after the bubble, and prospective buyers have to be very careful about understanding the neighborhood.

But also, prices have to go way down before rational people will take that risk. It may be that 20 or 30 years from now, Fort Green and Clinton Hill are just as desirable as Park Slope, but we're not buying 20 or 30 years from now, and we're taking a huge risk that this might NOT be the case as well.

Fort Green and Clinton Hill have to be priced CONSIDERABLY below prime Brooklyn areas in order to make sense. Like half off or more. This was something that the developers overlooked in many cases. They were naive in this regard. They did not have those 20 year conversations about how neighborhoods develop, they were rash and they overbuilt and they got stuck with a lot of turkeys.

How many of you have ever been to Fort Greene? Many of the blocks that run from DeKalb down towards Atlantic are beautiful and 'safe' (under anyone's reasonable definition). Even many blocks around Myrtle (the former "Murder Avenue") between the two sets of projects are quite decent and quite safe. (30 Yrs is so right about the Clinton Av mansions; if you were blindfolded and dropped on the block you would be hard pressed to guess where you were.)

The main 'problem' for Fort Greene RE values is poorly rated public schools. For those people for whom that is not so important, there are significant parts of Fort Greene that have better transportation options, nearly as many good restaurant choices, and many more cultural offerings (BAM!) than significant parts of (e.g.,) Boerum Hill. Many rational people rate FG very well (pubic schools aside, which is admittedly a big "aside" for some), at a not-very-significant discount to the not-quite-prime parts of so-called 'prime' Brooklyn.

We know the young woman who was a park block mugging victim prominently featured in Brownstowner (6 mos ago?) so we know there is violent crime BUT the stats and what we are told by local people with long memories is that crime is DOWN in Fort Greene. Arlodog: feel free to email me off-line Sandy [at] ManhattanLoftGuy.com if you'd like some first-hand info.

I've been to FG many times, in my search for architectural salvage items and I've done the house tour a couple of times. For those who want to get better acquainted with bstone/Victorian Bklyn, go on a spring house tour. Agree with Mattingly and 30yrs - archictecture is outstanding. Makes some of the brownstones on UWS (even with intact woodwork) look schlocky (a lot of the woodwork was ordered by catalog).

The PS in FG is up and coming. It's not easy to reconcile stats with exactly how safe one will be in the neighborhood. All I can say is that I feel scared in the Classon subway station, but how much of that is due to my prejudices and how much is fact-based?

It will be interesting to see what happens in this RE market. Non-superprime renovated FG THs were going for as much as 2m, and now you can pick up a PS321-zoned 18-footer in good condition (PS) for the same. Will there be distressed sales in FG, and blood in the water? Undoubtedly.

Just to add to this, I am about to move to the Fort Greene/Downtown Brooklyn border and have been following crime statistics closely. Even though there certainly is crime in that area of Brooklyn (especially the mugging for iPods incidents a while back), at the moment, there is more crime in my Yorkville neighborhood, where there have been at least 3 muggings at reasonable hours in the past couple months. I don't think anywhere in the city is immune.

Peple dont get beaten into coma's in the middle of the street with crobars in Yorkville like they do in Fort Greene. Have fun!

neuro- where is Yorkville were the muggings? Do you know the time of day?

Most recent article I could find (I was shocked there wasn't more publicity about this in the neighborhood) - http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/cops_looking_for_upper_east_side_40hPirKbgjPjQZ0rGLHsPJ.

Other muggings earlier this year (this guy did hit people in the back of the head) - http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6697542

Oh, interesting. Thanks. I may have purposely avoided paying attention to this. I guess we all know that no location is free of all crime.

"Peple dont get beaten into coma's in the middle of the street with crobars in Yorkville"

No, not necessarily with crowbars, just with other blunt objects. And let's not forget being stuck up at knife point. If one needed more evidence that samadams speaks crap...

"How many of you have ever been to Fort Greene? "

Me. Several times while I lived in Brooklyn. Yes, there's nice architecture. But as was mentioned before, there's plenty of nice architecture in part of Bed-Stuy and East Harlem -- that doesn't make it a "good" neighborhood.

Aside from the obvious crime factor, there's the public transportation factor, which sucks. Depending on where you live, you could be 10-15 blocks away from the nearest subway. And the subway choices aren't even good: B-M-Q-R-G ... none of which will get you anywhere quickly.

Enjoy Fort Greene
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/08/10/2009-08-10_student_still_in_coma_vic_lies_in_hosp_a_week_after_beating_near_pratt_as_cops_h.html#ixzz0NvtZ43Rs

"Yes, there's nice architecture. But as was mentioned before, there's plenty of nice architecture in part of Bed-Stuy and East Harlem -- that doesn't make it a "good" neighborhood."

I don't want to get in over my head here, because I am FAR from an expert on Brooklyn, BUT....... I have owned a number of units in Clinton Hill. When you talk about 'plenty of nice architecture in part of Bed-Stuy and East Harlem', I think I see brownstones which were built in the mid to late 1800's which are "brownstoned", similarly fenestrated, have some more decorative lintels, etc. But I really don't see ( or haven't, Id be glad to be educated) the type of stuff you see on Clinton Avenue anywhere else: we're not talking about about rows of extremely similar looking brownstones (although those exist also) we're talking about free standing mansions on 200 foot block thru lots which come with carriage houses across the street from the rear of the houses on Vanderbilt Avenue

Seems like despite many participants there's two voices in this discussion... there's a "Fort Greene is a place where you take your life in your hands walking down the street" faction, and then there's a more measured "it's a neighborhood with handsome housing stock and requires more of a long term hold." IMHO, it's often the less intensely emphatic opinions that are closer to the mark but I'll take it all under advisement. Feeling "safe" is a subjective experience!

" But I really don't see ( or haven't, Id be glad to be educated) the type of stuff you see on Clinton Avenue anywhere else: we're not talking about about rows of extremely similar looking brownstones (although those exist also) we're talking about free standing mansions on 200 foot block thru lots which come with carriage houses across the street from the rear of the houses on Vanderbilt Avenue"

I have to admit that I haven't been to where you speak of. I found this and see some pretty jaw dropping places. Who's living in the mansions now? Are they cut up in multi-units?

http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/brooklyn/clintonhill/clintonave/index.htm

> And the subway choices aren't even good: B-M-Q-R-G ... none of which will get you anywhere quickly.

The Q train stops exactly once between DeKalb & Flatbush and Union Square. It's probably one of the fastest routes in the entire subway system.

There are some strong and unequivocal Fort Greene supporters on this site, and anything one says against the area would automatically be attacked. They're convinced that Fort Greene is THE BEST neighborhood in the entire area.

Say, you point out that one of the biggest NYC housing projects is located in Fort Greene, which is an absolute fact one can verify with the city. They'd then just deny it altogether--saying that those aren't projects--and accuse you of being a liar...

So, I'd recommend that you just take a walk in the area and find out for yourself, OP. See for youself how the area feels, particularly at night. Don't forget to pay a visit to Fort Greene Park, which they speak so highly of, after dark.

I lived at 171 Clermont ave from around 2001 to 2005 with my partner(who still lives there). This building is close to Myrtle ave which meant a 15 minute walk to the C at Greene street or the bus down Myrtle to Borough hall station. I liked living there and while I was there the neighborhood made steady improvement, for all the bad there was far more good in my opinion. A solid community committed to their neighborhood despite some adverse conditions.

The park is great during the day(Tennis!) and has a small green market on Saturdays. There are some great A restaurants as well, A'table, great African food and Ice. Great proximity to BAM/Mark Morris for amazing film, theater, Opera and dance...a real treasure! The neighborhood and architecture are also wonderful with some amazing tree-lined streets to rival any in NYC.

All that said it's certainly not for everyone, at night especially late in winter I would meet my partner at the train, was it necessary? You have to be more on your toes and aware of your surroundings after dark, avoid certain areas as well. If you are unwilling to live like this, well it's not for you. But as I said we felt the positives far out weighed the negatives and we had a terrific group of friends whom we met after moving in.

I have been in NYC since 1982 I moved here because I loved the diversity, the seediness,the sparkle,various cultures from Park ave to the Bowery...I love this City! Many newbies want(or only know)of a suburban level of security and homogeneity; to each his own I guess you can live in BPC?

"Feeling "safe" is a subjective experience!"

How "subjective" was it for the Pratt student who was beaten with a crowbar in the middle of the street?

The Fort Greene mugging is an awful story, and my heart goes out to that poor guy's mother, sitting by his hospital bed hoping against hope.

Neighborhood judgments aside, one thing worth remembering is that had Sanchez just handed his wallet over to the five thugs, most likely they wouldn't have physically attacked him. This from the Daily News:

>They demanded Sanchez's wallet, and when he initially refused,
>they attacked, pummeling him with their fists and feet, police said.
>
>Sanchez tried to fight back, and one of the teens bashed him in the head with a crowbar.

That link above to the series of muggings on the upper east side suggests the same thing. Some guy with a grand total of $6 in his wallet tried to fight a mugger to get his wallet back. Any high school kid in New York City should know that if a mugger demands your wallet, you stay calm, hand it over, and defuse the situation as best you can.

I'm not suggesting we blame any of these victims, but neighborhood crime would go way down if we all knew how to at least try to handle a mugging.

nobody would be able to walk around the Upper East side with a crobar the way they can in Fort Greene. Sure the mugger can conceal a knife but to walk around with a crobar? Fort Greene is the Ghetto

Also, thugs are more emboldened in their own environment. If they tried such a brazen attack on the UES, they know they'd be outnumbered and bystanders would come to the rescue. Not so in a neighborhood like Fort Greene, where the thugs outnumber the "regular" people.

Also, on the UES more people know how to spell crowbar correctly.

There are some very ignorant comments being made on this topic. NYCMatt and samadams are leading the pack.

The Upper East Side of Manhattan (19 Pct) has had 116 robberies YTD, compared to 140 in Fort Greene (88 Pct) YTD. No area of the 5 boroughs is immune from random acts of street violence. To label an entire community violent, unsafe, etc., based on 1 violent act is completely ignorant.

Maybe a gated community in a Connecticut suburb is more for you then.

samadams, I'm not sure what you have against the area, but you're either greatly exaggerating for comical effect, or are the type who jumps when leaves rustle. Fort Greene is not the "ghetto." There are definitely blocks that feel safer than others, but let's try to keep a little perspective here. And if you think someone couldn't conceal a crowbar, you may want to reconsider. For a founding father, you're lacking a bit in the cojones department, no? Didn't you guys deal with muskets instead of metal tools?

if you are thinking of moving to this ghetto here is my advice to you. Have the wife go to the area at night and walk down the block you are thinking by herself and see how she feels. I wish you the best of luck but this area is not safe

i moved into 171 clermont in 2001 and have been there ever since. (keith, wonder if we've met?) single woman, live alone (and have all these years). i love the neighborhood, have walked from the train station (agree with keithb, it's a far walk) at all hours and have never been harassed, attacked or made to feel unsafe with one exception.

about 2 or 3 months ago i was walking home, maybe around 7pm and two guys were sort of coming at me from different directions and i was fairly sure they were thinking about mugging me. luckily, i was right near my building and turned to the door and they basically turned around.

no one can tell you your comfort level.

again, i love the neighborhood and i feel comfortable there. i can't tell you you'll feel the same, nor can others tell you you won't.

"http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/brooklyn/clintonhill/clintonave/index.htm"

You see the very bottom row, left pic with the "Dentist Office" sign? that's 2 sister buildings, the one with the Dentist privately owned (left), the one on the right a Coop. You see the very top floor, above the one with the 3 windows with the arched tops on them? (4th floor). I owned that unit. Those are pretty much the first 2 buildings at the Myrtle Ave End of Clinton.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/nyregion/28murder.html

"if you are thinking of moving to this ghetto here is my advice to you. Have the wife go to the area at night and walk down the block you are thinking by herself and see how she feels. I wish you the best of luck but this area is not safe"

In the mid 80's i was sitting with the developer - and since it was such a small project - 6 units, also the salesperson at 115 Christopher Street, a 1 unit per floor loft conversion. A nice young couple who had obviously been there a couple of times before had finally decided to sign a contract on one of the units. It was a nice, sunny ?Saturday? afternoon and they were casually dressed, he in jeans and a T-shirt. But they were still a little hesitant about buying some ON Christopher Street. So she stayed and took measurements and he went for a walk - to the corner of Hudson and Christopher, where he hung out checking out the local scene. After about 20 minutes he cane back and announced "We can't live here, I just got cruised!!!!"

I had to bite my lip because it wasn't my deal, my fight, etc. but what I REALLY wanted to say was "Why don't you wait till tonite at around 1AM and drop your wife off on 38th Street and 11th Avenue (at the time probably the busiest stroll in NYC) wearing a leather mini skirt, fish net stockings and CFM pumps and act surprised when some guy drives up and solicits her.

"We can't live here, I just got cruised!!!!"

What the hell was he expecting on the GAYEST STREET IN THE WORLD????

That was somewhat my point, although there are some who would argue The Castro or others. But my real point wasn't that he got cruised on Christopher Street, because that would have been a somewhat legit thing seeing as how he was looking to move there. My bigger point was that he stood on the corner of Christopher and Hudson, hanging out for 20 minutes wearing jeans and a T-shirt and got cruised. All he needed was a colored hanky in one of his back pockets to complete the outfit (I wonder which color he would have chosen and which pocket?).

Sounds like he's definitely a blue-hankie-in-the-right-rear-pocket kind of guy.

Light blue or Navy?

Usually light blue.

It's hard to see navy in a jeans pocket.

look at this some guy was shot in the face randomlly last night in this "safe area". this area is the ghetto
http://hioji.notlong.com

bjw and king you two have anything else to say about how safe this area is?

samadams, it's a big city - there will obviously be violent incidents from time to time. There's no doubt these are troublesome occurrences, but you've cited what, two cases? You need a bit more than that to call Fort Greene the "ghetto." Take a look at the Villager's police blotter - these incidents happen in plenty of "good" neighborhoods here: http://www.thevillager.com/villager_331/policeblotter.html. Look, I'd never call Fort Greene the safest neighborhood in the world, but I'm not on some apparent crusade against it either - it would be nice if there were some balance on here.

What do I have to say about that crime?

Other than you're a complete idiot and just made yourself look like a fool?

That shooting took place at a bodega on the corner of Flushing Ave and the BQE, which is in East Williamsburg/Bed-Stuy border. It's in the 90th Precinct, not in Clinton Hill/Fort Greene/88 Pct at all. Sorry that the Daily News mislabeled the neighborhood and even sorrier that your knowledge of news and familiarity with NYC neighborhoods is completely lacking.

samadams, you're really an ignorant and agenda driven person. What happened, did your ex girlfrield (or boyfriend) that lives in Fort Greene dump you on now you hate everything associated with them?

You're really clueless.

Bjw some guy being beaten by a crobar 2 weeks ago and you were still telling people how safe this area is. Then the same day you were saying how safe it is some guy gets shot in the face 3 times in what looks random? You said I was exagerating when I called the area ghetto and then this happens? Maybe you should just admit that I am right and this area is the ghetto. Evidently you are the one who has been exaggerating how its not the ghetto

samadams, if you're grown up surrounded by such homogenous and picture perfect areas that you really believe Fort Greene to be ghetto, then you REALLY need to get out more.

Take the L train deep into Brooklyn. Take an unguided tour of Brownsville, Brooklyn. Then take the 3 train deeper into Brooklyn, and tour the crime plagued streets of East New York, Brooklyn. Your definition of what a ghetto is will definetly change.

From there, I suggest you take the B/D trains into the Bronx and get off at any stop. Venture into Morrisania, Mott Haven or Kingsbridge, the Bronx.

You obviously have lived a very sheltered life if you consider the presence of ethnic minorities and 2 half-empty housing projects 'ghetto'. BTW, neither of the 2 housing projects in Fort Greene are even close to being considered the largest project in the city. And both of them are slowly being emptied out to make way for more desirable tenants. That honor goes to the Breukelen Houses in Canarsie, Brooklyn followed by Red Hook I and Red Hook II.

king Flushing Deli is at Flatbush ave and Classon. Are you sure Classon is no longer Clintin Hill? Who is the complete idiot and lks like a fool now? YOU!

and also largest project in the city is in Queens you idiot

IDIOT!!!
Flatbush Ave and Classon??? They are parallel streets, you fool.

It is located at FLUSHING avenue and the BQE, not Classon Ave...the address is 345 Flushing Ave.

And Queensbridge is actually 2 separate housing projects, Queensbridge North Houses and Queensbridge South Houses. THE largest project is Breukelen Houses, fool.

Classon Avenue runs all the way down below Eastern Pkwy...is that Clinton Hill too?

It is the 90th Precinct, East Williamsburg. Not Clinton Hill. Get your facts straight. Why don't you call the 90th precinct if you don't believe me.

king do you know what Parallel means? As the newspaper and the deli itself states this is Clinton Hill. How dumb are you?

kingdeka, you took the words out of my mouth.

samadams, I'm pretty sure there is no intersection of Flatbush and Classon. You probably mean Flushing and Classon, which, as kingdeka says, is really that weird area on the border of South Williamsburg and the Navy Yard. Not exactly prime Fort Greene or Clinton Hill, and not an area where people are lining up to live, by any stretch of the imagination. Like I said, for a guy who signed the Declaration of Independence, you come off as a bit of a namby-pamby character, no?

Of course i meant Flushing being that is the name of the deli. As the deli states they are in Clinton Hill. But dont worry the area is real safe!