Bed-Stuy and Bushwick booming despite high crime
The Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick real-estate market is exploding with million-dollar townhouses and apartments renting for as high as $20,000 a month.
But right around the corner from the ornamental plaster and restored wainscoting has been a fresh wave of shootings and other bloodshed that doesn’t make it into the listings.
There has also been an uptick in burglaries and muggings targeting the gentrifiers who move in.
“All I can say is there should be a sign that reads, ‘Buyer beware,’ ” said a police source who works in the area.
Another police source said, “A lot of the white folks moving into these areas are from out of state.”
“They walk around as if they own the place . . . then they get robbed.”
“The problem is they’re moving into their beautiful home with all these housing projects around them. That’s where the crime comes from.”
Overall, crime citywide has fallen nearly 4 percent this year. But there’s been a 10 percent rise in shootings — which NYPD criminologists blame on gang activity in neighborhoods that include Bed-Stuy and Bushwick.
There has also been a 9.5 percent jump in the number of shooting victims, and an 11.7 percent decline citywide in gun charges, blamed by many on tighter stop-and-frisk policies.
Meanwhile, the Bed-Stuy real-estate listings are crowded with dozens of million-dollar-plus renovated brownstones and brick townhouses.
500 Quincy StreetPhoto: Byron Smith
Even in Bushwick, where aluminum siding and boarded-up windows are at least as common as the refurbished brick, million-dollar row houses being marketed as “investment” properties.
Rents there have spiked 29.76 percent in the past month, with the average one-bedroom rental currently $2,647 a month.
On Sunday, would-be Bed-Stuy buyers browsed no fewer than six open houses for million-dollar-plus homes.
Web designer Paulina Jamet, 29, checked out 500 Quincy St., a two-family townhouse with a garden and fireplace going for $1.3 million.
She said it was a nice street with a lot of mom-and-pop stores, although the price was steep.
“I’ve seen how fast the new neighbors are moving in,” she said. “More people like me are moving in and changing the neighborhood. So that’s comforting.”
She was shocked to hear that on Aug. 20, a 35-year-old man was gunned down on 456 Quincy St. — less than one block west of the townhouse she was checking out.
Or that a 25-year-old man was gunned down on a MacDonough Street stoop, nine blocks away, on July 6.
Other crimes in the neighborhood include the death of Tamecca Haskins, 32, who was shot in the chest at a party on Lefferts Place, near Franklin Avenue.
The Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick real-estate market is exploding with million-dollar townhouses and apartments renting for as high as $20,000 a month.
But right around the corner from the ornamental plaster and restored wainscoting has been a fresh wave of shootings and other bloodshed that doesn’t make it into the listings.
There has also been an uptick in burglaries and muggings targeting the gentrifiers who move in.
“All I can say is there should be a sign that reads, ‘Buyer beware,’ ” said a police source who works in the area.
Another police source said, “A lot of the white folks moving into these areas are from out of state.”
“They walk around as if they own the place . . . then they get robbed.”
“The problem is they’re moving into their beautiful home with all these housing projects around them. That’s where the crime comes from.”
Overall, crime citywide has fallen nearly 4 percent this year. But there’s been a 10 percent rise in shootings — which NYPD criminologists blame on gang activity in neighborhoods that include Bed-Stuy and Bushwick.
There has also been a 9.5 percent jump in the number of shooting victims, and an 11.7 percent decline citywide in gun charges, blamed by many on tighter stop-and-frisk policies.
Meanwhile, the Bed-Stuy real-estate listings are crowded with dozens of million-dollar-plus renovated brownstones and brick townhouses.
500 Quincy StreetPhoto: Byron Smith
Even in Bushwick, where aluminum siding and boarded-up windows are at least as common as the refurbished brick, million-dollar row houses being marketed as “investment” properties.
Rents there have spiked 29.76 percent in the past month, with the average one-bedroom rental currently $2,647 a month.
On Sunday, would-be Bed-Stuy buyers browsed no fewer than six open houses for million-dollar-plus homes.
Web designer Paulina Jamet, 29, checked out 500 Quincy St., a two-family townhouse with a garden and fireplace going for $1.3 million.
She said it was a nice street with a lot of mom-and-pop stores, although the price was steep.
“I’ve seen how fast the new neighbors are moving in,” she said. “More people like me are moving in and changing the neighborhood. So that’s comforting.”
She was shocked to hear that on Aug. 20, a 35-year-old man was gunned down on 456 Quincy St. — less than one block west of the townhouse she was checking out.
Or that a 25-year-old man was gunned down on a MacDonough Street stoop, nine blocks away, on July 6.
Other crimes in the neighborhood include the death of Tamecca Haskins, 32, who was shot in the chest at a party on Lefferts Place, near Franklin Avenue.
