Wednesday, March 2, 2011
News The Worst Block in Bay Ridge: Now Much Worse
Posted by Henry Stewart on Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 12:22 PM
It's almost a rite of passage: my first apartment was on 82nd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, an architecturally unique block on the eastern outskirts of Bay Ridge with almost-unbroken rows of six-family houses on either side of the street. After I moved in, and spoke to friends and friends-of-friends, I discovered many Bay Ridgers had passed through an apartment on this block at some point or another: because there are so many, and they tend to rent for relatively cheap, and they turn over often, these apartments housed briefly many of the neighborhood's young and unmoored. Our neighbors were classic ethnics, including stoop-crowding Greeks and sidewalk-barbecue Latinos, some of which could tend toward the shady; a few dealt drugs. This one city block, unlike any that surrounded it, was Bay Ridge's own ghetto, a microcosmic model of the real thing.
And it just got a lot more ghetto-y.
A man robbed and sexually assaulted two women on the street last Friday, the Brooklyn Paper reports—in less than an hour.
The first incident occurred between Fifth and Sixth avenues at around 11:15 pm. The perp approached a 44-year-old woman from behind and pointed a gun to her back. He pushed her into the building and yelled, “I’m going to kill you bitch” before jacking her cellphone and $6.
His victim fought him off before he could rape her (he had unzipped his pants); down the block, twenty minutes later, he pointed his gun at another woman, whom he then did rape. (Bay Ridge Journal reports the attack may have occurred up the block, possibly around the corner.) It's the first reported sexual assault in the Bay Ridge area in three years.
He is described as white, between 5'6" and 5'9" and between 150 and 170 pounds, and was wearing a dark windbreaker, blue hoodie and tan/grey pants.
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