Possible hate crime rocks West Village

With gay pride festivities a little more than a month away, the news a group of teenagers viciously beat a man on Seventh Avenue near Christopher Street early yesterday morning has rocked the West Village.

The Daily News reported four young men blocked Alan Williams, 50, from entering a cab outside of Cafe Riviera on Seventh Avenue around 2 a.m. The men proceeded to viciously beat Williams in the head before they fled. The Daily News and other news outlets have reported Williams, who is an accountant from Buffalo, remains in extremely critical condition at St. Vincent's Hospital.

The New York City Anti-Violence Project has said the New York Police Department's Hate Crimes unit continues to investigate whether the perpetrators attacked Williams because he is gay. His friends have confirmed his sexual orientation to the Daily News. And Williams reportedly had a Gay Men's Health Crisis card in his pocket.

“Any violent assault of this kind is a terrible tragedy," AVP executive director Sharon Stapel said.

This attack comes roughly six months after Hakeem Scott and Keith Phoenix allegedly beat Ecuadorian immigrant Jose Sucuzhanay to death as he and his brother walked home arm and arm from a Bushwick bar. And the vicious attack against Williams is yet another reminder hate and bias-crimes remain a serious problem in the city.

West Village arrests underscore long-standing tensions between residents, LGBT youth

As the weather continues to grow warmer, more LGBT youth will certainly descend upon the Christopher Street Pier and the adjacent West Village. This seasonal influx, however, leaves some local residents concerned as they continue to contend with what they say is an increase in crime, vandalism and other things they maintain diminish their quality of life.

The arrest of two transgender teenagers earlier this month in connection with a string of purse snatchings and credit card thefts outside an exclusive apartment building on the corner of Christopher and Greenwich Streets only heightens these concerns as I reported in EDGE New York yesterday. Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment (FIERCE) continues to call for a 24-hour LGBT center on Pier 40, but some of the young people with whom I spoke on the pier last Saturday conceded some of their friends do indeed cause unnecessary problems for local residents.

This story will certainly continue to unfold as it has done for years, but attached is the link to the article I posted.

Gentrification Continues to Cause Tension in New York

Gentrification continues to transform neighborhoods many New Yorkers once condemned as too violent. Bushwick, this blogger's home, remains an example of how a once maligned area has attracted a growing number of artists, hipsters and 20-somethings who have recently moved to the city. This influx of new residents continue to change the long-held identity on which Bushwick and other neighborhoods hold.

These changes inevitably cause tension among recent arrivals and long-time residents as the Los Angeles Times detailed today in an article about the evolution of the West Village. The neighborhood remains a cradle of the modern LGBT rights movement. But some long-time West Villagers remain unhappy with the new generation of LGBT people whom they say continue to disrupt their quality of life. Local residents have long complained of increased violence, vandalism and prostitution as a result of the youth who gather in the neighborhood. The murders of Sakia Gunn, Marsha B. Johnson and others only exacerbate these tensions.

The neighborhood and the Christopher Street Pier in particular remains a haven for many LGBT youth of color from the Bronx, Staten Island and New Jersey. West Villagers concerns about increased violence, vandalism and prostitution remain valid but it is perhaps disingenuous to exclusively blame the youth for the ongoing problems in the neighborhood. Many of these residents played prominent roles in the early gay rights movement. They, along with the youth themselves and their advocates, have a responsibility to ensure the neighborhood remains a safe haven for everyone.