The Brownsville Community

Brownsville is among some of the most dangerous communities in Brooklyn, along with Red Hook, Bed Stuy and Crown Heights. Hearing this, I now understood why my mother encouraged me not to step foot in these areas.

My curiosity got the best of me so I sought to quench it. I spent the weekend with my friend who in fact resides right in the middle of Brownsville on Osborn Street and has been there for 10 years.

My experience wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. This having everything to do with my friend’s mother being the Tenant Patrol Supervisor of four out of the eighteen NYCHA developments located in Brownsville.

“It’s not the neighborhood that dangerous, it’s the residents, says Laura Morgan. I’ve patrolled the entire region which I am assigned every night at 6 p.m for three years and nothing’s changed. The parents are destructive and so are their children.”

My night didn’t consist of a quiet dream like state, rather the throbbing of my ear drum kept me awake majority of the night. Apparently the neighbors believe it’s courteous to blast music all night long. According to my friend this is a typical night in Brownsville.

I awoke the next morning not to the sound of my alarm clock but instead to the screams of a woman yelling and cursing out the window at a bunch of her friends sitting on the benches outside.

I spent that day walking around the community, visiting the other buildings and observing the behavior of the residents.

According to the Census Bureau in 2008 there was said to be a total of 28,928 housing units in Brownsville. Of course I didn’t visit all these units but I did visit five buildings which I estimated to be around 2,066 housing units in total.

Every building practically summoned me to take the stairs for the elevators were filled with urine flowing about leaving its stench to roam the space. I couldn’t even make it to the third floor without viewing obscenities written across the walls and the doors. I walked the hallways of all five buildings in the vicinity and out of the five there were three that forced me to inhale the aroma of marijuana bouncing off the walls permeating through the hallways and violating both my nostrils.

I stopped to speak with a police officer who is affiliated with the 73rd precinct. He informed me that this precinct is responsible for patrolling the Brownsville properties and he also revealed to me that he and a few fellow officers are stationed there round the clock. "We anticipate violence in this neighborhood, said Officer Carol. We are being proactive."

According to NY1 violent crimes continue to be a serious problem in this community. Apparently I came on a good weekend, relayed to me by one of the residents.