Brownstone Brooklyn residents are living in fear of the roving gang of violent teenagers roaming the streets, punching anyone who gets in their way. But they can't help it! They're just high-strung!
The Brooklyn Paper talks to a Cobble Hill man who was walking down Boerum Place toward Bergen Street when he was interrupted by a gang of eight teenagers, who were rudely "taking up the entire sidewalk." One the teens leaned toward the man and hollered "Boo!," which, while unoriginal, did manage to scare the bejesus out of the chap, who responded with a kindly "What the fuck are you doing?" before getting punched in face by another teen. Teens in the area have been doing all sorts of damage lately, from smashing parked cars with golf clubs to attacking unsuspecting passerby with icy snowballs.
“My friends like to fuck with people. They find it funny,” one ninth grader at the School of International Studies in Cobble Hill told the Paper. “Some kids are really high-strung, and if they feel disrespected they’ll hit somebody.”
The neighborhood has evolved so much that the gentrifiers are pushing property values of brownstones up—one longtime resident, shocked that a home was listed at $2.5 million, told the NY Times she paid $17,000 for her brownstone in 1972— while situated between two public housing projects (namely the Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens). “You got too much ‘ippity’ folks around here,” another longtime Boerum Hill resident said. “They’re uppity, but I call them ‘ippity.' They look at you like you don’t belong here.” Maybe everyone should just get together and move a few blocks over to Park Slope instead?
