NYC's "Most Dangerous" Neighborhood : Walking Brownsville, Brooklyn (July 2021)

what's up everyone it's tuesday july 6 2021. it's a toasty 91 degrees fahrenheit 33 celsius and it's around 2 15 in the afternoon today i'm gonna walk through the new york city neighborhood of brownsville historically the most dangerous neighborhood in the city for violent crime but i'm going to show you today it's not all that bad there's a lot of cool people who live here they work very hard and a lot of great places so let's get this walk started i'm at the intersection of east 98th street and sutter avenue i just got off the train number three now brownsville is bounded by crown heights to the north bed stuy and cypress hills and east new york is on his east canarsies on the south and east flatbush is on the west this neighborhood started off as a dutch farming community but there was a person named william sudam who parceled the land and he didn't really go into good economic times with the land so what he did was he had to declare bankruptcy and he failed to pay his mortgages so charles s brown of utopus new york took over the land at an auction and he actually advertised brownsville well it wasn't called brownsville at the time it was actually called new lots but this area was subdivided and it was marketed to the jewish who were living in lower manhattan at the time and this area became known as brown's village so that's where the name brownsville came from so what happened was a lot of the jewish from lower manhattan moved over here and they immigrated here and it was predominantly a jewish neighborhood all the way up into the 1950s but even in the 1930s a lot of african americans started moving into the neighborhood because it was um more affordable here and they were able to purchase property or move in here now what happened in the 1950s was there was a big change in this neighborhood because the new york city public housing authority nycha led by robert moses a lot of public housing projects were built in the neighborhood and it brought a lot of new immigrants into the neighborhood a lot more african-americans and latinos and there were efforts to um integrate all the communities together the african-americans latinos and the jewish but it didn't really prove successful because many of the jewish they couldn't really handle the handle the um gosh i'm forgetting the word now hey that's me yeah action kid i'm in brownsville today awesome man every time thank you yeah yeah this is good yeah we're good we're here before we're back here again yeah there's like there's a pizza shop they invited me i was like i gotta check it out oh yeah yeah yeah the villain uh shop i think they called it paul yeah okay they don't open till later so i'm gonna come back around i'll try to do it up this week so beautiful yeah man take it easy all right take care [Music] that was pretty cool you welcomed me um so what happened was yeah the jewish and the african americans they couldn't integrate all the ways so as a result many of the jewish moved out of the neighborhood this area has been depressed for a long time there really i felt like there really wasn't enough opportunity for people in this area it was always a challenging area to live in just through the large amount of housing projects and um lack of affordability too many people couldn't really make it out here i've been to brownsville before i did a walk through here and that was a pretty good um video i did it's funny because um that same video that i did last time walking through here there were thunderstorms that came in and there's thunderstorms threatening to hit the same area again so i hope that doesn't happen so there's a few famous people who have their roots in brownsville some of them include sid gordon red holzman larry king and mike tyson i think mike tyson he was in the van dyke houses here's howard avenue and sutter avenue there's people who say that gold will never gentrify and gentrification is a term where there's new residents who move in who displace the older residents and they feel like it's because it's a large amount of public housing projects here that it will never do that most of the main commercial street of brownsville is on pitkin avenue on sutter avenue it's mainly residential and in a few blocks we're actually going to um encounter one of those main housing projects there's a lot of them here i don't really know all the names of them but like i said there's van dyke houses i think there's brownsville houses [Music] what's the other one that uh i had it off the top of my head i forgot it already yep i forgot the name already but maybe we'll find out when we head over there a lot of brownsville by the way can be categorized within the east new york neighborhood east new york really is like a large area in new york but past the l train is really where east new york begins this is a really nice public school in the area looks very modern they've got a nice track and feel this is a public school 156. and also they have free summer meals here i still am really surprised that the city still has that program where people can go into those schools at certain times and get free meals i think it's a great program it helps a lot of people who really need it it's also a shame too that a lot of that food that doesn't get picked up over there gets thrown out i've talked to the staff running the program there they only have like a day or two to give the food away and then if no one picks it up they throw it out so please if you are in need of food anyone can go in there and pick up some food don't let it go to waste okay here's saratoga avenue saratoga is a city in upstate new york there's actually a lot of um a lot of street names here named after places in upstate new york so this part of brownsville is mostly quiet private homes like these they take really good care of their front yards nice green grass this isn't really the dangerous neighborhood that is portrayed in the media at times [Music] sure there are violent crimes that happen here the same as any other neighborhood in the world but that's very rare most people are fine are hard working and if you don't bother them then you just mind your own business that's all so actually what i was talking about earlier there's a new pizza bar that opened up and i'll be visiting it probably at the end of this video because they don't open until 3 p.m so i've got about half an hour until that happens that's the villains hideout pizza bar [Music] um it's hot today you hear these air conditioners running well i forgot to even mention the public transportation in the area in terms of subways the number three train and the letter l trains serve this area and there's also a few buses that run through the area i think the one i'm familiar with is the b82 bus is that right let me look at it i've taken it once before okay it's the b83 the b15 and the b14 that's what comes through thank brownsville these are some really nice brick homes [Music] it's a nice breeze there so once i get past rockaway avenue you'll really see the tall public housing projects come into full view there has been a lot of criticism of nycha the authority that's responsible for managing it because a lot of repairs don't get done in time and there's a lot of mismanagement at that agency when these tenement buildings were constructed many of them had modern facilities and they were very clean and modern i said modern twice but yeah when everything was new it worked fine but stuff needs to be maintained and it really is not good for the city to be lacking in its duties especially when people need essential services like that [Applause] all right so this is rockaway avenue and this is pretty much the center of the main housing projects in the area this one's brownsville houses very busy street here got to be careful there's the b60 bus to canarsie brooklyn canarsies name comes from the canarsie native americans who used to live here these ones over to the left side across the street are much taller than the ones on the right here i feel like these ones on the right are a little bit newer than the ones constructed over to the other side what's up i think across the street may also be brownsville houses oh i guess not let's cross the street and walk through oh this is langston hughes that was the other one i was missing off the top of my head from earlier welcome the langston hughes and there's even a plaque on the wall here a dream i dream a world where a man no other man will scorn or love will bless the earth and peace is past adorned they chose some really good plaques to put up here very inspiring so right now i'm going to take my walk onto the main commercial area of brownsville that's pitkin avenue huh can i even get out that way yeah there is there's a route there looked like it was a parking lot from where i was before people are trying their best to keep cool today it's very hot in the sun although when the temperatures drop that's when the rain is going to start yeah this is very strange it is kind of like a parking lot but at least i could walk through this way got to watch your step too hey what's up china pavilion takeout restaurant this is belmont avenue and watkins there's a lot of stuff happening on belmont too let's go check it out i couldn't wait to go to pitkin i've been on pitkin many times but never over here divine african hair braiding takes a lot of work to get this stuff done i really commend the workers because i know how tricky it could be rolling all the hair and handling it with fine touches we got some retail stores across the street clothing brands natasha's fashion this store looks like it's oh community justice center looked like it was closed from the gates but it's not this is a really cool street in brownsville nice mural on the street here jimmy jazz also dollar tree i think it's good that the dollar tree is here because this store brings a lot of value to the neighborhood because people historically in this area are lower income than others at least there's a dollar tree that helps people you know still get good products for their money i think the median income here is only 32 000. yeah according to wikipedia it's 31 252 so it's very low for new york city a local grocery store c-town supermarket this is a beautiful mural here yeah it is that's cool yeah it's amazing yeah that's cool yeah i'm gonna uh put on youtube okay yeah you got me on here all right take it easy man everybody yep of course i know people say brownsville is dangerous it's not no way it's the people of course yeah but other than that everybody's cool of course yep take it easy fatima's african hair braiding gm tailoring there's so many hair braiding places here look at all the different styles you can get oh my goodness and it's not just for the woman either the men can get hair braids too here's another major commercial area of brownsville rockaway avenue rainbow fashion some of these clothings could be very useful right now look at how busy this street is [Music] there's also a subway station for this street by the way on the number three rockaway avenue station it's rockaway mini mall dance ten dollars that's a strange name for a store why do they call it ten dollars when they have prices for a dollar ninety nine three ninety nine four ninety nine oh is it denise ten dollars the tree was blocking the other letter here's a local grocery store 1.99 for a bag of onions that's a good price five limes for a dollar and it smells very fresh too and over here is a sidewalk vendor where they selling here pineapples mangoes really neat so we've made it to pitkin avenue definitely the main drag of brownsville commercial area i i should say here we've got boost mobile medical office wonder how this place says sal and paul's pizzeria looks but good also his bargain land discount center it's great that they have all the fans in the window for people to see i'm sure people are going to need it right now if they don't have one already oh we got some more commercial places kfc taco bell there's also golden crust caribbean bakery golden cross has got some great food i've eaten there many times not this one but there are other locations it's bristol and pitkin also a corner to the mcdonald's i love the design of this foot locker here looks like coney island statue of liberty washington square park williamsburg savings bank tower brooklyn bridge is there's thomas boylan streets [Music] oh marino's isis i was thinking about it for a second furniture [Music] what's going on here oh someone double parked their car happens too a lot too much in new york [Music] so there are so many stores here on pitkin all different types of industries too as you can see i know shoppers world your family department store looks like we have a large area let's see what they sell top tech audio headphones toasters coffee makers and of course we need all our cleaning supplies now it's a huge store in there oh swimming cool of course i could use one right now oh this store moved doesn't seem to be too far that they move though 1542 pipkin avenue just over here sometimes the store doesn't need all that space and they could save a lot of money on rent by moving just a few stores down here we're back at saratoga avenue there's also pizza hut and subway with all the hair places here there's also the beauty supply store i'm sure all the hair salons here rely on that here's a local restaurant which seems pretty cool hitkins soul food and seafood it looks very clean they also describe themselves as new york's number one caterers looks pretty good there's a local church huh no it's uh it's called the pocket too it's a camera yeah it's awesome yeah too hot today man keep yourself cool later looks like it's getting busy down there so i don't want to keep going on pitkin i'm gonna head back towards sutter avenue headquarters this is a really nice residential street in brownsville very quiet homes and across the street the same thing also these are called brownsville apartments brownsville garden apartments that's what the sign said here's another church saint james holiness usually when you think of churches you think of the ones in like a gothic or neo-gothic architecture like st patrick's cathedral but these are a little bit more simple in design let's cross over this way i hope that garbage gets collected soon because it's piling up and the thunderstorms are coming soon so so i'm actually one block away from the pizza bar the villains hideout it'd be really cool to see what that place is all about so i don't really like this street it's way too busy with the cars [Music] so um [Music] this is it right here very inconspicuous you wouldn't even know if it's here because there's no name on other than the billboard but this is villains hideout i'm gonna come back here because there is a friend i'm meeting so we're almost back where we started this video and i think i spotted her yep look who it is this is the friend i said i was gonna meet ming from the bing bus oh my gosh i just came from the train station and someone was like where are you trying to go you're not one of us oh my gosh i was like okay i'm gonna walk now all right what are you doing here oh i i have work around the area yeah nice seeing you here too okay what are you doing i'm gonna go get some pizza now at the villains hideout okay nice yeah glad to see you're highlighting that all right bye if you want some pizza you can join me i'm gonna go shopping go through shopping now okay take care bye so that was very nice to meet ming she had some work around the area so i was like hey i need to come down here anyway you want to make a cameo on my video so all right let's see what this place is all about the villains hideouts fitting name for a quote-unquote dangerous neighborhood i didn't really experience much forms of danger while i was walking through here but here we are villains hideout all right so folks this is the villains hideout we got some cool vibes here all right so there's the villains hideout i know but i was like you know what i gotta come here so this is latisha she's the owner right yes villains hideout you just opened right we opened um it's going on three months okay so we haven't been here very long all right yeah but we're excited to be here so come hide out with us yeah i know it's such a cool spot batman comics so all of the art is donated by local artists okay and they'll do something special for us that's with regard to certain villains oh wow so we have we have like joker and harley quinn and all of those we also have other villains that aren't as popular yeah and i like the storefront too it's like you don't know it until you last spot like wait i have to double back yeah it's like a speakeasy yeah batman the animated series when they of course in the bar and they only they told the stories about how they almost got batman that was the idea yeah so yeah we're really happy happy that you came out no problem man all right well i'm gonna end my video here at the villains hideout in brownsville if you enjoyed this walk smash the like button and i'll see you soon [Music] bye [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: ActionKid

Views: 308,668

Rating: 4.8300524 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: CEW8bwFnM0Q

Length: 54min 2sec (3242 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 10 2021