From: bdboyle@erenj.com (Bryan D. Boyle)
Subject: Re: Moral Activity (was Re: Asylum)
Organization: Exxon Research and Engineering Co., NJ
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 00:24:35 GMT

In article <BzFCzI.n0v@csfb1.fir.fbc.com> uunet!csfb1!jhalat writes:
>In article <1992Dec15.231223.4531@erenj.com>, bdboyle@erenj.com (Bryan D. Boyle) writes:
>
>|> In some areas of New York city, murder and rape is considered an
>|> inconvenience that interrupts the open selling of drugs by armed
>|> children on street corners.  Prostitution is openly practiced
>|> 
>|> while the police look on.  The majority of people in those areas,
>|> if not supporting these vicious vices, at least by their silence, 
>|> implicitly allow this kind of thing to continue to go on.  So, does
>|> that mean that NYC should decriminalize murder, rape, and drug dealing
>|> (Even I don't think Dinkens would be that stupid, but, then, he
>|> has been known to surprise people)?  There are probably enough 
>|> people in the city that would not even blink an eye if it happened.
>|> 
>
>Wow.  That's the most narrow-minded, fundamentally ignorant statement about 
>New York City that I have ever, and I mean ever, come across.  Have 
>you spent any real time in the city?  If you live here, I'd be 
>fascinated on the specifics of your claims: what majority?  what areas?
>
I am glad you are intrigued.  Any real time in the city, huh?  Yeah.  
Moved there during Abe Beame's tenure in the 1970's, lived on Webster
Avenue in the Bronx (at the corner of Fordham Road, where I was
attending college.).  Watched the "fire line" move upward from the 175th
street area in the 70's to the Fordham road area in the 78-79 timeframe
(btw, that is the NYCFD designation, not mine) and thence up to the
Bedford Park Blvd. (200th st) by 1985.  I watched increasing numbers
of buildings catch on fire and burn to the ground, as well as watching 
more of my friends get mugged, first at 11PM while strolling back after
knocking back a couple to the first time it happened to me in 1979 at 
3pm on a saturday afternoon.

I watched DeWitt Clinton HS (Mosholu Pkwy & Jerome Ave) have to put 
bars on the windows in 1981, not to keep people from throwing things in,

but to prevent the students from ripping the lavatory fixtures out of
the
walls and throwing them out the windows at passers-by.

When I moved to NY in 1973, the subway cost 35 cents.  It ran regularly,
there was trash, but it was picked up.  When I moved in 1985, the fare
was $1.00, trash was never picked up, and I had witnessed 3 stabbings, 
innumerable junkies mainlining, and countless accidents, such as Renee
Katz, who was shoved off a platform because, as the scum that did it
said: "I wanted to see what would happen when she got runned over..."

YOu want more?  I have memories that would shock even the most jaded 
wall-street yuppie whose only view of the city is the street, the South
Street Seaport, and Broadway.  Being a cameraman on a remote truck
for a net gave me a kind of birds-eye view on how screwed up NY city,
its people, and its lifestyle is.  Haven't been back there since I
escaped, but from all the noise I hear, I pray for something to 
rescue the good people left there.


-- 
Bryan D. Boyle     |Exxon doesn't pay me to voice their opinions...
Senior Engineer    |Semper ubi sub ubi.
bdboyle@erenj.com  |On a clear day, you can see forever on the Net...
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