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Broadway, New York - Source: ONE News
Driving back into town last night, via the area above Columbia
University (that's the west side of Manhattan, around the 110s),
and my pals were recounting, like nostalgic tales from a gilded
bygone era, notable muggings. They weren't specific, but my sense
was that this was from the 70s, the time when the city was broke,
the cops were on the run, and decent people were being slaughtered
like sheep on Fifth Avenue.
Forgive me, I meant the last phrase purely metaphorically. I've
been reading military theorist Ardant Du Piq's classic Battle
Studies; Du Picq uses this phrase and similar ovine references to
describe armies in disarray. I was attempting to convey general
civic chaos.
We pulled up to a park by the Cathedral of St John the Divine. Kids
were milling around wearing white t-shirts and baggy shorts. Alan,
an artist, recounted how a friend had been walking a girl home
through that park one frozen January, and been importuned by thugs.
They liked his coat. He passed it over. A precedent thus
established, they proceeded to relieve him of almost all of his
clothing. Chivalrously, perhaps, they left his date unmolested.
Wearing just his underwear and shoes, he returned the girl to her
dorm. I imagine he ran home at a pretty fast clip. Alan was
uncertain whether another date followed, but it's doubtful.
Paul, who was driving then offered, as New Yorkers who've lived
here a long time will sometimes do, a matching anecdote. He said
that in Union Square - again, I'm assuming it was the 70s - black
men would simply run at white people who looked touristy. In fear,
they would drop their wallets, and flee.
Du Picq describes this effect. Caesar's troops used the charge to
devastating effect on Pompey's troops in the Battle of
Pharsalus.
'Of course,' added Paul, 'if they chose New Yorkers to do this to,
the New Yorkers would just tell them to f*%# off, and they
would.'
That attitude comes from a different time in the city's history, a
time when the streets were a battlefield, a storied moment that
some may think still exists in the city, but in fact does not.
Charles Augusto, the owner of a restaurant supply business on 125th
Street, and Amsterdam, might be one relic from that period. Robbers
hit Augusto's shop last week waving guns and pistol whipping his
staff. Augusto took out a shotgun and started blasting. Two robbers
were killed, two were injured.
Despite not having a permit for the weapon, Augusto hasn't been
charged. He also has no intention of being a pin-up for the gun
lobby, saying that if he were a true hero, he would have been able
to persuade the robbers, one of whom was 29, the other three being
21.
He speaks to the Associated Press below:
New Yorkers still tell one another crime stories. Earlier in the
day, I heard about a home invasion that went wrong (when, I'm
tempted to ask, do they go right?), and a robbery on a flower store
in which the owner was beaten with an iron bar, but didn't go to
hospital. He then collapsed later, and is now in a vegetative
state.
It's interesting that anecdotes like this are bandied around,
because crime, despite a flagging economy is decreasing. The
arguments as to why are canvassed
here.
What is notable is that a need exists to pass these tales on,
perhaps as a reflection of the toughness of life here, the
uncertainty of the economy, or just to remind one another, this
isn't like home.
I got dropped off shortly after my friends recalled their muggings.
Some kids were outside a bar, doing what kids do these days, taking
pictures for Facebook. Call it a sign of
New York's eroding street credibility if you like, but that's the
kind of shooting there's most of here at present.
That's real life now. Ardant Du Picq would not be surprised in the
slightest. His book begins, "Man does not enter battle to fight,
but for victory. He does everything that he can to obtain the
first, and avoid the second."
Read more of Tim Wilson's blogs here.
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