Maria Castillo submitted this interesting article she found online at streetgangs.com. I noticed that this article was actually syndicated from New York Magazine, which features Ric Curtis, a John Jay professor, speaking about gangs and gang history. The article, “Gangbusters” (Donaldson, 02) talks about where the gangs of New York have gone, as the face of the gangs have changed considerably over time.
The Bloods and Crips have been able to maintain L.A.’s status as the drive-by-shooting capital of the world, and the mega-street gangs of Chicago like the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords continue to flourish. So where have all the New York gangs gone? Ric Curtis, an anthropology professor at John Jay College, suggests that urban renewal has helped speed the demise of the ethnic gang in New York: “So many neighborhoods were destroyed, there was nothing left to fight over.” Curtis points out that West Side Story was about a battle over land that is now Lincoln Center. He also notes that this has been compounded by the fact that many new arrivals are too savvy to move into the notorious inner-city neighborhoods that have traditionally served as immigrant portals: “You simply couldn’t sell the South Bronx to the Eastern Europeans.” (para. 4)
A little late for a reference for your paper- but definitely exciting to see other Professors in our school talking and thinking about similar topics, but from a different angle- that of Anthropology. Thanks Maria for finding this excellent source!
