I'm sure the article is right about current events. But what is this guy talking about in the 1970s? In Coney Island?
“He’s a f---ing idiot,” said Steven Feinstein, 66, owner of Wilensky Hardware in Coney Island — one of the neighborhoods that LaPierre claimed Wednesday became a “hellish world” of apocalyptic violence. “He makes it sound like it was the 1970s around here. That’s nonsense.”
Back in the 70's, the area around Coney was much worse than it is now. Those were the Kitty Genovese years, and when Billy Joel sang about walking through Bedford-Sty alone as 'crazy.'
So the dude quoted is indirectly and perhaps unwittingly suggesting that 1970's Brooklyn was worse than post-Sandy Brooklyn.
1970s in general in America (and in Big City America a little more specifically) had a spike in violence. This is where some of the very-deep-seated ideas about violence being on the rise in America come from. And of course Canadians see a lot of American media so a fair amount of Canadians caught the meme too.
It was true - through the 70s, violent crime went up. It was not very nice for a while. Then it went down, and stayed down, and I believe is now below 1950s levels - it's definitely continuing to decline so if it's not below 50s levels, it's going to cross them soon.
Unfortunately people are a little stupid, and the media discovered pretty early that scaring people makes better ratings, so most people haven't got the message that this was a spike, not a trend. New Yorkers, on the other hand, are acutely aware that the trend reversed itself - they had it ground into their faces about how violent their city was at the time, but part of making it safer was the heavy public relations campaign to get people to come out of their fortified apartments and get involved in their communities again. Active streets are safer streets - and it's hard to miss the fact that you don't get mugged walking down the street in New York if you have to walk everywhere every day when living in New York, which is another fact of New York Life.
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Date: 2013-02-18 04:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-18 09:38 am (UTC)“He’s a f---ing idiot,” said Steven Feinstein, 66, owner of Wilensky Hardware in Coney Island — one of the neighborhoods that LaPierre claimed Wednesday became a “hellish world” of apocalyptic violence. “He makes it sound like it was the 1970s around here. That’s nonsense.”
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-18 04:53 pm (UTC)So the dude quoted is indirectly and perhaps unwittingly suggesting that 1970's Brooklyn was worse than post-Sandy Brooklyn.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-19 05:00 pm (UTC)It was true - through the 70s, violent crime went up. It was not very nice for a while. Then it went down, and stayed down, and I believe is now below 1950s levels - it's definitely continuing to decline so if it's not below 50s levels, it's going to cross them soon.
Unfortunately people are a little stupid, and the media discovered pretty early that scaring people makes better ratings, so most people haven't got the message that this was a spike, not a trend. New Yorkers, on the other hand, are acutely aware that the trend reversed itself - they had it ground into their faces about how violent their city was at the time, but part of making it safer was the heavy public relations campaign to get people to come out of their fortified apartments and get involved in their communities again. Active streets are safer streets - and it's hard to miss the fact that you don't get mugged walking down the street in New York if you have to walk everywhere every day when living in New York, which is another fact of New York Life.