There are times when I think I live in the most perfect place on earth. Brooklyn, with its parks, museums, brownstones, even the hipsters and the superfund site, can feel idyllic. I sometimes forget that this is a city. I don’t mean that in the epic Roman, center of the universe sense, but in the gritty, scary, cause of urban flight sense. When I watched the video of a local Brooklyn woman sitting on a bench in Prospect Park randomly attacked by a group of adolescents, I was shaken out of my complacent bubble. In the tonier parts of Brooklyn, in the Brooklyn now famous around the world, it is easy to forget that we, as residents of a large city, are more at risk for violent crimes, just by virtue of our numbers. Crime happens everywhere, just ask Ed Gein. But in cities there are just more of us to turn to our baser instincts, to desperation and anger and fear, and more of us to be victims.
My husband often jokes that our neighborhood is so safe you could run down the street a three in the morning, naked with stacks of cash taped to your body and still make it home unscathed. But, as with the serial sexual assaults that happened in Park Slope three years ago, or the string of assaults that happened a few years before that, where teens where beating up mommies with strollers as part of a gang initiation, this event reminds me that no neighborhood is perfectly safe. We can’t lose our street smarts. We cannot become complacent. Paranoia is not the answer either. Inspiring fear is not the goal of this post. Instead, I want to remind myself (and therefore you, my captive audience) to embrace both sides of Brooklyn, the heart of this great empire is never going to be Stars Hollow. We still have to pay attention to our surroundings, to make smart choices, to walk with purpose, to not take the back alley shortcut even though it’s faster. But most of all, we need to listen to our instincts to do our best to stay safe, and we need to be brave and stand up for anyone we see being victimized. We’re New Yorkers, people expect us to butt in.