Another Downtown Shooting
By floor9 on Sep 23, 2007 in Downtown
Story here. In short, there was a shooting last night (Sunday morning) around 2am. The shooting took place on Chestnut between Second and Third. That’s between Executive House and Pennsylvania Place apartments. Surprising, because crime — let alone violent crime — usually doesn’t work its way down there. In my five years at Executive House, the only area incident that I ever heard about was a DUI crashing into a neighbor’s girlfriend’s car. Mark my words, though: tomorrow, the Patriot-News will blame the shooting on Dragonfly. And by the end of the week, Randy King will issue a statement asking the city to “remove all the black people”.
Seriously, though, there’s been a nationwide surge on violent crime over the past few years. While I still feel that downtown Harrisburg is far safer than most other cities, I found myself asking today — for the second time — at what point the balance will flip. I still feel safe walking some of the downtown alleys, but I also know how to make myself an unattractive target. What’s more important, however, is what the average Joe & Jane Consumer thinks about the area.
We all know west shore people who refuse to come to the east shore “because of all the crime”, and we all know east shore people who refuse to go to the west shore “because they’re all snobs”. And for most of us, that’s nothing more than an amusing and silly rivalry. But what happens when these people genuinely start to feel unsafe? You can make all the “oh yeah well you should try Detroit sometime” comments you like, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re on a downhill slide towards a 1985 version of downtown. It won’t happen tomorrow. And 2008 is probably pretty safe. But what about 2009? 2010?
Any ideas?
Sadly, I am not surprised by this news at all…
One word: stagnation. DT HBG needs to keep reinventing itself to draw new people and money in. Overall, it has been the same ‘ol same ‘ol for YEARS now and no new hotel is going to help with that. [I know this is going to be one heck of a generalization, but] all of the decent people I know don’t frequent DT anymore because they are completely and totally bored with it. Dragonfly and the other clubs have morphed into garbage IMO (Disclaimer: I haven’t set foot or lived in DT for almost 2 years now so I will readily admit that it may be different now) and “new” people don’t want to go there; if they were there 3 years ago, they’ve already been there and done that.
No way will I ever say that DT HBG is a cesspool, has no hope, etc…NO WAY! For a smaller DT it sure packs a lot of punch. But it really needs to do something new, and it needs A LOT MORE to really be something special, draw people in and knock the crime down a few pegs…
dskillz | Sep 26, 2007 | Reply
blame it on Dragonfly? well when you welcome the sort of crowd it does, not only black people, you tend to have a diminshed area w/crime, noise and filth. last time i heard it is NOT the people who DONT listen to the boom bbom of rap music as it is the crowd, again, not just black people, that flocks to Dragonfly. i happen to live down there very close and am quite tired of all the crime and especially the boom boom until 4am in the street and the parking garage. lets be honest, it IS this crowd who make DT unsafe and unsettled. w/that crowds disdane for common decency and cleanliness its no wonder. you want PROOF??? easy! go to any local cd store and pick up ANY rap cd. crime, filth, profanity and sexual inuendo is all you will find. DT has become one HUGE RAP VIDEO. imagine a city w/no talent!?
sid vicious | Oct 18, 2007 | Reply