Samir
Hailed in: Hell’s Kitchen
Hails from: Pakistan
I was mugged once, and it wasn’t really that bad. It was pretty much the best time I could’ve gotten mugged, because I’d just left my apartment to buy some cigarettes, and since I was coming right back, all I had on me was a $20. I didn’t bother with my wallet or phone, anything they might’ve wanted, luckily. The guy took the money, but you could tell he was pissed by how little I had on me. [What did you do?] Nothing. He ran into the subway and I figured the cops wouldn’t do anything, especially for $20. So I just went home, got more money, and got my cigarettes.
Louie
Hailed in: West Village
Hails from: Queens
Not unless you count kids taking my lunch money in school. I got beat up a lot when I was in maybe third or fourth grade. Queens used to be pretty rough in places, but I never heard of anything too bad happening to adults. It was really just a couple of punk kids who were a year older than me. Maybe my parents had something worse happen, but if so, they never talked about it. But everyone I know is pretty paranoid about getting robbed, so we don’t have our wallets out or keep a lot of cash on us.
Richard
Hailed in: Park Slope
Hails from: Virginia
No, and I guess that means I’m pretty lucky. When I first moved here I thought everyone got robbed every week in New York, but I’ve been here almost 15 years and I’ve never had any trouble. One time my wife dropped her wallet on a train, and someone found it and returned it with all the money still in. I guess things used to be pretty bad in New York, in the 70s and 80s, but it isn’t that way anymore.
Shellyanne
Hailed in: Lower East Side
Hails from: East Elmherst
Just last week someone broke into this car, smashing two windows. They took half a can of Pringles, and an old iPhone I was using for music. That was hard; my grandmother died not too long ago and I had some voicemails and photos of her on it as well. I would rather they break all windows, eat all my Pringles, if it means they leave that. [What did you do?] Well I took it to a glass place near my apartment. It was very frustrating, because it cost me almost $1,000. I paid out of pocket because it would really make my premiums go up otherwise, so now I’m working a lot of extra shifts to try and make that back.