Back in New Haven, I had a boyfriend from a very well-to-do family who’d take me to New York to the opera. He wasn’t that into opera but for me he got season tickets.
Once we were driving back to New Haven at night, and his car stalled. The fellow freaked out something major.
“This is South Bronx!” he said, shaking. “If the car doesn’t start right now, we’ll be murdered within 10 minutes. Because that’s the kind of neighborhood this is!”
Given that a week earlier I refused to enter the Central Park on a Sunday afternoon because many episodes of Law & Order had convinced me I’d be raped and murdered immediately, I believed the boyfriend. Luckily, the car started and we survived.
And yesterday I discovered that at that very moment N was actually living in South Bronx. And he has no idea what there was to be scared of. He doesn’t understand the boyfriend story at all.
So here is the question: was N oblivious or was the boyfriend racist? I honestly have no idea whatsoever. And I still feel terrified of the Central Park.
Clarissa's Blog 
“was N oblivious or was the boyfriend racist? I honestly have no idea whatsoever”
I think probably both. They’re not mutually exclusive and fit the data….
“I still feel terrified of the Central Park.”
Being from a small town but having grown up with a steady diet of tv shows that portrayed large cities as filthy cauldrons of crime where people were mugged daily I was a little freaked out the first time I stayed in a motel that was actually in the downtown area of a large city…. Denver (ooooooh scary).
I had driven through or been in airports in other large places but had never actually been on foot in a very urban area. I kept looking for the muggers to be jumping out behind corners.
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I still feel like that in NYC. But I’m completely comfortable in Chicago and Detroit. Because Law and order wasn’t set there.
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Central Park is actually quite beautiful and very safe–by any standard. For the most part, Central Park is visited by wealthy locals who jog or picnic there and tourists.
I have never been to the South Bronx but I have spent time in other neighborhoods typically defined as dangerous (I taught school in one such neighborhood a long time ago.) And overall it’s fine. There is, without a doubt, an unacceptable level of violence in these neighborhoods but there are two things to remember:
1) The violence is largely connected to gang violence. And, while gang violence is sad and problematic, it’s not exactly “senseless.” Gang violence is planned and has specific targets.
2) It’s important to remember that people live in these neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are generally densely populated and the vast majority of people are just going about their day: going to the grocery store, going to work, planning a party, getting their hair done etc etc. So even with a murder rate that’s far from acceptable in a developed country, people live in these neighborhoods far far more than they die in them. For some reason, this fact never clicked with me until I worked in the supposedly dangerous neighborhood. Once I realized this, my perspective changed completely and I grew to love parts of the neighborhood where I worked.
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I had a boyfriend from a very well-to-do family who’d take me to New York to the opera. He wasn’t that into opera but for me he got season tickets.
Once we were driving back to New Haven at night, and his car stalled. The fellow freaked out something major.
“This is South Bronx!” he said, shaking. “If the car doesn’t start right now, we’ll be murdered within 10 minutes.
Was your boyfriend secretly Bruce Wayne?
Both, I think. Crime in NYC is different now and in the 1990s than it was in the 1970s-1980s. I can’t comment on the individual neighborhoods though. If N hadn’t come across anyone who warned him about the area or reacted when he said where he lived at the time, the area must’ve changed.
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N never comes across people, period. 😃 He’s very reserved. He still doesn’t know the names of the people he works in the same room with.
And who’s Bruce Wayne?
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N never comes across people, period. 😃 He’s very reserved. He still doesn’t know the names of the people he works in the same room with.
N doesn’t have people make small talk with him, still? I thought he changed from that one story in which you got him to greet you when he came home and make conversation at supper.
And who’s Bruce Wayne?
Bruce Wayne is the rich [millionaire/billionaire depending on iteration, year, etc] alter ego of Batman. The origin stories all state that as a kid, he and his parents went to the opera or a movie in Gotham (which is almost always fictionalized NYC), and then took a side street. In a dark alley, both of his parents were mugged and murdered.
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His coworkers are programmers. They are not into talking. 😀😀😀
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I went to school at UChicago, at a time when Hyde Park was the most dangerous police district in the country. What I learned is that common sense can be quite adequate protection even in a place like that. Most of the people who live in those areas are good-hearted. However, poverty drives behavior, and economic segregation in housing means that poverty clusters in specific areas of a city. The old Woodlawn area adjacent to the University was one of these clusters.
In any area, there are pockets of crime as well as good neighborhoods. If you seek out crack houses in the South Bronx or Denver, you’re putting yourself at risk. Other blocks are fine. You don’t walk down dark alleys at night. You practice being aware of who is near you. No road rage. As I said, common sense.
I love Central Park and have taken friends, including kids, to the Central Park Zoo. I’ve played softball there. No, I’m not going for stroll there after dark, but in daylight with other people around, I don’t have concerns with it. It’s a really beautiful place.
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When I first went to NYC my sister told me to call her on the phone every half hour to let her know I was still alive. 😊
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Oh, if you expect accurate depictions of anything on TV, I have a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge that I could sell you.
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I was an immigrant in an unfamiliar world. Of course, I drew on the sources I had on hand to provide me with information.
It’s very hard to explain to people who didn’t come from my part of the world how entirely unfamiliar one is with everything once one arrives. Today it might be somewhat easier to know about the world but I grew up behind the iron curtain.
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The boyfriend may have had only slightly more real life experience with the city than you did. I’ve met college students from the suburbs who hardly ever went to the city when they were growing up. Their perceptions of cities are based largely on shows like Law & Order and on the local news.
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Yes, he was very small-town.
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