April 17, 2008
My car was broken into sometime between Tuesday evening and this morning. I know a suitcase was stolen. It had a jacket in it, which was still there. It probably wasn't the right style. I'm not sure if there was anything else in it. And I don't know exactly what all is in my car, so I don't know for sure if anything else was taken. Some boxesand the glove compartmetn were dumped out into the seats and floor.
When I was living in Astoria I kept expecting my car to have been broken into or damaged or stolen while parked on the street, but it never happened. Then when I moved to Washington Heights—in not the cleanest neighborhood, by the way—I started thinking about that kind of thing again. I figured it was even more likely here, because I'm leaving a lot of stuff in my car (there's just no room where I'm subletting). And it's more of a stereotypical "urban New York City" neighborhood. But I haven't thought about it lately. I've also stopped wondering if I'm going to get mugged (in NYC, not specifically this neighborhood), so let's hope that doesn't happen.
It's not such a big deal that someone took a suitcase. I can get another suitcase—maybe one with wheels. Mainly it pisses me off that someone would be so rude. Did they have to dump stuff out of those little boxes? Can't they tell that it's a cheap car and whoever owns it isn't likely to have anything of value in it?
I don't have any real major racial hang-ups, and I don't want that to change. But this is a mostly Latino area. I knew a guy in college who was uncomfortable with black men, because he'd been attacked by one while he was working at a convenience store. (He also didn't like people coming up behind him—same reason.) I used to look at the groups of people hanging out on the streets around here with a sort of pleasant wistfulness—even with a sense of admiration and maybe jealousy. It would be nice to belong to a community and know everyone and say hi as you pass on the street. But now I'm pretty sure I'll look with suspicion and perhaps distain at the teens and young adults hanging around. I'm sure it wasn't the whole neighborhood that broke into my car. But the sad truth is that, I will now look around at the people here and wonder who it was. I'll feel differently about living here. I hate that. It's the saddest part about this.
When I was living in Astoria I kept expecting my car to have been broken into or damaged or stolen while parked on the street, but it never happened. Then when I moved to Washington Heights—in not the cleanest neighborhood, by the way—I started thinking about that kind of thing again. I figured it was even more likely here, because I'm leaving a lot of stuff in my car (there's just no room where I'm subletting). And it's more of a stereotypical "urban New York City" neighborhood. But I haven't thought about it lately. I've also stopped wondering if I'm going to get mugged (in NYC, not specifically this neighborhood), so let's hope that doesn't happen.
It's not such a big deal that someone took a suitcase. I can get another suitcase—maybe one with wheels. Mainly it pisses me off that someone would be so rude. Did they have to dump stuff out of those little boxes? Can't they tell that it's a cheap car and whoever owns it isn't likely to have anything of value in it?
I don't have any real major racial hang-ups, and I don't want that to change. But this is a mostly Latino area. I knew a guy in college who was uncomfortable with black men, because he'd been attacked by one while he was working at a convenience store. (He also didn't like people coming up behind him—same reason.) I used to look at the groups of people hanging out on the streets around here with a sort of pleasant wistfulness—even with a sense of admiration and maybe jealousy. It would be nice to belong to a community and know everyone and say hi as you pass on the street. But now I'm pretty sure I'll look with suspicion and perhaps distain at the teens and young adults hanging around. I'm sure it wasn't the whole neighborhood that broke into my car. But the sad truth is that, I will now look around at the people here and wonder who it was. I'll feel differently about living here. I hate that. It's the saddest part about this.
