The Bwog
Mean Streets

Columbia security guards have been going all vigilante of late, patrolling the neighborhood (or at least Broadway and Amsterdam between 111th and 116th) on foot. Apparently, the new security protocol is a response to two recent muggings at 112th and Amsterdam. One tipster reports seeing ten police officers and security guards on a single walk on Broadway from 114th to 106th. If the plethora of patrollers isn't making you paranoid yet, Barnard is alerting its students to neighborhood crime through ubiquitous posters.

A search of the Spec's archives shows only one report of a mugging in the past five months, but a Public Safety account reveals a spate of crime in the new year. It's starting to feel a little early '80s here on the Upper West Side, don't you think?

Edited, 5:30pm: Apparently the Spec has quite a bit of coverage of recent crimes in the neighborhood. Sorry, Spec!


Posted by hmmm...: #1 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 2:49 PM (from campus)
police state?
Posted by meh: #2 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 3:09 PM (from campus)
"early '80s here on the Upper West Side"

Don't be alarmist or anything. I live on 112th right near Ams. my wife was mugged a year ago, and I know of only 2 muggings on the block since then. This is hardly the crack-driven crime experienced in the 80's.
Posted by hopefully: #3 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 3:25 PM (from campus)
it's more charlie bronson and less jodie foster
Posted by whoa: #4 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 3:32 PM (from campus)
Does anyone else think that looks like Bollinger?
Posted by Anyone: #5 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 4:14 PM (from campus)
know what was going on in Mudd at around 9:30 this morning? There were cops everywhere and an ominous guy with a walkie-talkie guarding the main entrance...
Posted by there was: #6 (in reply to #5) · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 4:28 PM (from campus)
a breach of the engineering-containment field due to an attempted SEAS-->CC student transfer. Fortunately the field was quickly reestablished. The student, however, was utterly disgraced in the process.
Posted by Ancient: #7 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 4:39 PM
I was around on campus in the early to late 1980s, back when it was sufficiently ordinary for students to be badly beaten by muggers that the Spec didn't bother to report on it routinely. (A good friend of mine ended up with a metal plate in his head from being beaten on the subway. No, that's not an urban legend -- I had dinner with the man a week ago.)

That was also the period where an NYU student died as a result of crime nearly every semester -- really.

No, it isn't at all like the 1980s out there, early, mid or late. The city is practically crime free.
Posted by the: #8 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 5:16 PM
charles bronson graphic is great. wasn't that scene filmed in morningside park, back when 120th was like murder row.
Posted by i was : #9 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 6:42 PM (from campus)
thinking the exact same thing!
Posted by Shit: #10 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 6:54 PM (from campus)
that's Prezbo in the picture!
Posted by excited: #11 · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 8:56 PM (from campus)
I heard sly stallone is planning a deathwise remake...I'm so excited I'm getting in line at the theater already.
Posted by hmm: #12 (in reply to #11) · reply · track
February 7, 2008 at 8:59 PM (from campus)
Wouldn't there have to be an original "deathwise" to make a remake of it?...dummy.
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