Car Alarm Incident Reveals Tensions in Fort Greene?
The Post did its best this weekend to drive a divisive wedge into the multi-culti image of Fort Greene by writing about a car alarm incident on Lafayette Avenue. In case you missed it, here’s the play-by-play: Man (who turns out to be black) has a car whose alarm frequently goes off in the middle…
The Post did its best this weekend to drive a divisive wedge into the multi-culti image of Fort Greene by writing about a car alarm incident on Lafayette Avenue. In case you missed it, here’s the play-by-play: Man (who turns out to be black) has a car whose alarm frequently goes off in the middle of the night; residents (plural) leave notes on car to ask him to fix his alarm; car owner does nothing to fix alarm; one of the residents, who turns out to be white, calls Council Member James to complain; James calls the car owner, who uses his anger over the changing demographics of the neighborhood and his Brooklyn cred to justify his inaction: “I don’t know what my fellow neighbors think goes on at night, but people come by and pillage vehicles! All of these little white people over here are not gonna dial 911 for a car alarm going off if it’s only once. The article goes on to quote a older African American woman irked by the new arrivals and their wide-load strollers (never mind that the sidewalk on that stretch of Lafayette is barely wide enough to accommodate a single pedestrian), though she attributes the differences more to class than race. The article’s attempt at pushing the race button feels like a stretch to us, but the one thing that does resonate is the attitude of people who’ve lived in any neighborhood for a long time—regardless of location or race—take towards newer arrivals who want to improve certain quality of life issues. “You haven’t lived here long enough to deserve an opinion” or “If you don’t like it then move” are familiar refrains. Last time we checked, though, we all pay taxes and there’s no reason anyone should put up with illegal or unneighborly behavior simply because it’s the status quo.
A Car Alarm, Gentrification and Fort Greene [NY Post]
Having been quoted in the article I just want to point out that the Post actually did a fair job of representing me and didn’t take things out of context. I think the general feeling in my building and in the neighborhood is that there is a bit of a class struggle to be overcome, but in general Ft Greene is a great example to communities all over the world that people of mixed race/culture/class can coexist not only peacefully but actually hang out and have a dialogue. Just check out Moe’s on any given night.
Clearly the person with the car alarm thing is just frustrated and acting out in an extremely immature fashion. Believe me, I wanted to put a brick through his windshield, but that would just cement his opinion of us (gentrifiers) being assholes.
How is this controversial?
It’s a car alarm. They serve no purpose. He doesnt have to activate it.
The fact that he does activate it and doesnt care about disturbing his neighbors means hes an asshole. they come in all colors.
I’m just not comfortable with posting reports of Lacey’s arrests. The issue at hand is how he and his neighbors did–or didn’t–interact over his car alarm. Going into unrelated things he may or may not have done is a creepy Giuliani-era tactic. Who cares? Complaining about the car alarm makes sense. Making it a point that he was probably arrested (not convicted?) for shoplifting or smoking weed–what’s that really all about?
Alas, gentrification does displace people. Young people are forced out of neighborhoods by rising rents and unreal housing prices. In many parts of Brooklyn, this means families are broken up. Old timers resent their kids being replaced by new people, many of whom make rude comments about “improving” the community. And many of these new people won’t stay and invest in the neighborhood long-term. They’ll have kids and (understandably) move to be close to their own parents or to gain yard space and suburban schools. Old timers can be unfriendly, but so can newcomers who self-segregate in their own ways.
“If this guy wants the new “little white people” to be more like the neighborhood they could start by “keying” the side of his car.”
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at December 14, 2009 9:52 AM
DIBS in France the neighbors will simply band together and burn his POS car…rightfully so if he thinks he can awaken everyone up at night and make it a race issue….the chrutzpa (sp?) and ignorance is simply ridiculous.
We live in FG and the diversity is really great but there are elements of profound jealousy and resentment in some quarters….we understand some of it to an extent but enough of this nonsense of displacing people. We live in a capitalist society and the free market system always prevails even in our heavily socialist New York.
Why sell if you care so much about the hood retaining it’s old residents?? NO ONE is forced to sell anything period!!
Our landlord is African American with 6 brownstones in prime FG…him and his family are not selling and will rent to any qualified tenant black, white, green or purple….NY Post! what a pathetic piece of garbage.
Bxgrl:
You wrote:
“exactly what is it you expect Leticia James to do with a car alarm? How about the person should have called the cops on this guy or 311? You’re talking about a personal problem you expect her to jump in and solve. How exactly would any pol be able to do that, exactly?”
This was not a personal problem, it is illegal. Well, anyway she seems to put her foot in her mouth every time a crime news event pops up—like blaming the restaurant that was selling cheap chicken wings for the melee and shootings that occurred some weeks back. Letting your car alarm go off for an extended period of time is illegal. So you are suggesting that it’s cool for her to pick and choose the illegal behavior she uses as a political soapbox? Maybe you just want her to say something if it is just you and your friends who are being affected by some wrong.
Some laws suck and are unfair, in my opinion like marijuana being illegal (even though I don’t smoke), but if you are going to play, you can’t whine when you pay. If Leticia James had any moral standing and wasn’t just a slick politician, she’d ride Mailk’s butt for being a nuisance to the neighborhood she represents—even though it wouldn’t be demographically politically correct at the moment.
Okay, the Post article actually wasn’t “that” bad once I got to page 2 online.
I think Carolyn and Joe were straightforward. Yes, there are issues, indeed, indeed and people like Joe can neatly and nicely scold (i.e. go off on) the kids who get out of hand or pull something. It appears the Great Fort Greene Car Alarm Incident of 2009 could have had us old-timers letting the young man “have a piece of our minds” had we only known when he’d be out there moving the car.
I’m glad the Post pointed out some of the positives of Fort Greene. I would never have expected a relatively positive and benign from them. I can relate to what Mr. George refers to. The schism in the American economy has been a rather bitter pill to swallow. It’s really too bad what has happened. And, the problem is, the young people like Mr. Lacey and the 30-somethings who are moving to Fort Greene don’t really know how things were. Okay…they weren’t “great” in many ways, but still, incomes weren’t skewed so wildly and young African-Americans employment rates were much, much, much higher. I won’t break it all down tonight…it’s too late!
And PPS
This is a poorly written article and, unless I’m completely dense and it’s there smack in front of me, there is no way to know HOW the Post got that quote or who Lacey spoke with? Was this off a message board? Hhh…
If the Lacey quote is legit what in heck did he mean?: “There’s nowhere to move the car to.”
If he really said that…
Well, I don’t want to say it, but honestly, even though parking is very tight on end of week/weekend days around dining hour, usually you can find a spot. If the quote is accurate, it sounds like he sought to be a jerk.
Again…Sweet youth…
Yikes, am just looking at the Post article. Considering the young man’s age, it appears he IS the same person arrested in Stamford a couple of times.
If anyone wants to research it, find out what the outcomes were and report back tomorrow on this thread. Inquiring Minds (kind of) Want to Know.
I’m back! [Hold the applause!] Hi to Wasder, Bxgirl and the nice people!
Look, you might call me a Fort Greene old-timer. I and the neighbors have always detested problem car alarms since cars started getting them. They used to be a much, much worse scourge in my opinion. They were giong off all night long everywhere all the time. Horrible.
Then, over the last years, the problem has pretty much abated for some reason. I’ve thought for the last years that maybe the car alarms have become more sophisticated. In the 80’s, kids used to jump on the fenders (remember real fenders?) or would push down on the hood just to make car alarms go off…and they would…AMPLY! The alarms were hyper sensitive. The in the 90’s I guess it was, they came out with those cycling, nightmare alarms that would play all those disturbing dissonant melodies over and over again. It got to the point I would come across mockingbirds doing the sounds…cute but disturbing!
I had to laugh at this article. We were personally subjected to this near-constant car alarm for over a week. The car was not a junk heap. It looked very standard…one of those pale, gold tone nothing GM smallish sedans. The car alarm went off just about every time the very frequent bus went by…not to mention roaring motorcycles, cars, trucks, ambulances, etc., etc.
The police came around a good number of times and people left notes under the wipers and someone used duct tape to put a well-formatted, politely worded 8 1/2×11 poster on the windshield. I never bothered to call it in. It seemed like everyone had it covered.
I had an idea that the owner may have come back to the car at some point days before he eventually moved it, but changed nothing and the car didn’t move…the alarm kept going off. It was never ticketed, but yes, people should understand tickets can be issued and the police can disconnect the battery to stop the alarm. Luckily, the alarm was not a “bad” one. It only had one tune and would turn off after only a short cycle. It wasn’t as loud as some, and it didn’t sequence through different, annoying tunes.
Still, it *was* annoying and would go off all night, even more during the busy times of day. It cut into my sleep. I was aware of it waking me up a number of times over the week.
Since we’ve switched to the one-day-“a”-week alternate parking scheme, the car stayed put for what seemed like ages. AND, although I’m not 100% sure of the parking schedule, I think the owner actually left the car in that spot despite the street cleaners needing to sweep that side…but I could be wrong…never saw ticket on the car.
David, I have to laugh at something you wrote. One of my more vivid memories of getting around Hong Kong on public transport was when I sat down on a lady who hadn’t been in the seat a millisecond beforehand! It was a though she slipped in under me as I backed toward the seat. It was rather remarkable…actually hysterical in hindsight.
BTW, reading the above about the arrests and charges, I have to point out that if this is the same person (who knows?!) then the car was parked just around the corner from his home so you’d think he might have heard it going off non-stop. If this is the same person, considering the dates in the above-referenced articles, I’d imagine there would be updates since both cases should be over. Sounds like the young man was very busy with his girlfriend in Stamford! Ah, sweet youth!…I guess…