An old pal, who lives about a mile uptown from me, writes as follows:
Did you hear about the multiple murder up here on 122nd Street, in a car parked outside the Manhattan School of Music?Not to mention you and your neighbors, brother, with institutional affiliations and without.All the reports, probably all cribbed from The New York Times, refer to a crime "just blocks from Columbia University."
Apparently being right in front of the music school, around the corner from Riverside Church, and a block away from both the Jewish and Union seminaries is of no interest compared to the threat to Columbia students.
This is a somewhat specialized case of what is technically known -- in my house, anyway -- as the Colin Ferguson Startle Reflex. Colin Ferguson, you may recall, if you are old enough, is the fellow who suddenly pulled out a gun 20 years ago, or so, on the Long Island Railroad, and shot up a bunch of commuters. (Having spent more time than I would like on the LIRR myself, I admit to a certain sympathy for the guy.)
Reactions were of course sought from various Long Islanders. To a man, and woman, they responded with variations on a single theme: This is not supposed to happen here. In the city, among the schvartzers, okay, but Long Guyland is supposed to be safe. That's why I paid so much for my butt-ugly(*) house and my three-hour commute!
Just so: car shootups in Harlem used to be routine -- hardly worth reporting on, except to deplore the mores of the schvartzers. But now that Harlem is suddenly 'just blocks' from Columbia -- thanks to Clodumbia's own metastatic growth -- the Colin Ferguson reflex comes into play.
Perhaps Columbia should hire George Zimmerman to organize a neighborhood watch.
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(*) Why do we say that? Okay, some butts are ugly, but others are very much the reverse. Why don't we say 'face-ugly'?
Comments (8)
of or ummm. op's two-pay. like there says under to in ear buick. for whichs eats putlander, solid salad. righteous!!
Posted by jes' practisin' | June 8, 2012 3:05 PM
Posted on June 8, 2012 15:05
Ditto recent NYT coverage of a rash of gun murders in Seattle. Some loon lit up....a coffee house. The bearded folk-music set. THAT sure merited a headline. Unlike the gangsta-land daily shootings in Chicago.
Posted by chomskyzinn | June 8, 2012 4:27 PM
Posted on June 8, 2012 16:27
But now that Harlem is suddenly 'just blocks' from Columbia -- thanks to Clodumbia's own metastatic growth -- the Colin Ferguson reflex comes into play.
Uh... the last time 122nd Street and Broadway was not "just blocks" from the Columbia campus was 1896. I sympathize somewhat with your general comments, but this has nothing to do with Columbia's (admittedly troubling) accelerated expansion into Harlem in the past few decades.
I do think it's funny that this crime is, per your friend, apparently being reported breathlessly while the nightly muggings and stabbings in Morningside Park, less than a block from the campus -- the former of which I myself have been party to -- barely make the police blotter. This can be explained, I think, as follows: Columbia students are told on their first day not to try to cross the park at night, but they (grad students, if not undergrads) are housed in significant numbers on 122nd street.
I'm not sure this allegedly breathless reporting is really so outrageous. A car bombing in Baghdad gets reported differently from the same thing in Pittsburgh. It's newsworthy if it's not part of a longstanding pattern. 122nd and Broadway is generally regarded as being fully gentrified. Morningside Park and parts east (which I called "Morningside Depths" when I lived there -- the neighbourhood literally exists in the shadow of the Columbia campus) are not. So violent crime in one place is anomalous, in the other not so much. The reference to Columbia rather than MMM or Riverside Church is simply a matter of illustrating how gentrified the place is with a reference most people will understand.
Posted by Picador | June 8, 2012 5:15 PM
Posted on June 8, 2012 17:15
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Posted by MJS | June 8, 2012 7:26 PM
Posted on June 8, 2012 19:26
I can't for the life of me make any sense of Picodar's comment. Did he stab someone in Morningside Park?
Posted by Al Schumann | June 9, 2012 6:26 AM
Posted on June 9, 2012 06:26
Or did he mug someone? It's early and I'm not really awake yet, so I get 'former' and 'latter' confused.
Posted by Al Schumann | June 9, 2012 6:33 AM
Posted on June 9, 2012 06:33
op sez:
Why do we say that? Okay, some butts are ugly, but others are very much the reverse. Why don't we say 'face-ugly'?
Actually, I like to say "coyote ugly".
Posted by Mike Flugennock | June 9, 2012 1:42 PM
Posted on June 9, 2012 13:42
But one can't really say that of a *house*, can one? Or can one?
Posted by MJS | June 9, 2012 2:59 PM
Posted on June 9, 2012 14:59