This article on New York City’s burgeoning superhero movement started out earnestly. Although as a matter of procedure, it seems dishonest to refer to costumed vigilantes as either super or heroes, I’m sure it’s hard to resist the temptation to romanticize something so instinctively American.
There are hundreds of superheroes in cities across the nation. New York’s superheroes patrol the nighttime streets for crime, putting themselves in situations that ordinary citizens do their best to avoid. […] Though New York City’s crime rate has drastically decreased from its notorious heyday between the 1960s and the 1990s, it has recently seen an uptick. There are dark gaps in the city’s terrain where some superheroes believe the watchful eye of Commissioner William Bratton’s police force does not reach, and where they believe they are needed. One of these heroes is Dark Guardian.
Okay. I’m in. This is totally badass. Dark Guardian is out for justice, courageously standing up for the downtrodden and disaffected among us. Where the cops won’t get their hands dirty, he alone will uphold the law.
Where does he patrol? The rough and tumble neighborhood of Brownsville? East New York? The wretched hives of scum and villainy of … uh … Little Felontown? DoRiTo? Okay, I clearly don’t know where criminals hang out.
It is eleven at night on a Sunday. I’m standing under a traffic signal on the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue waiting to meet Dark Guardian. We’re going to patrol Greenwich Village.
You’ve got to be kidding.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with New York City’s endless series of boutique neighborhoods, Greenwich Village is one of the nicest parts of Manhattan. In this “hardscrabble” part of town, you can live the authentic life in a 4 bedroom, $5 million apartment. It contains three of the most expensive zip codes in America. How absurdly ritzy is Greenwich Village? Celebrity residents have their own category on Wikipedia.
That being said, it’s not some wonderland without any crime at all. While there were literally zero murders in this neighborhood in 2013, check out the statistics. While Greenwich Village sees below-average crime in almost every category, the rate of Grand Larceny is almost four times higher than the city’s average.
For those of you keeping score at home, Grand Larceny is when you steal:
- Anything worth more than a thousand dollars; or
- A credit or debit card; or
- Anything directly from a person.
There are other ways to get to Grand Larceny (11 different kinds of 4th degree Grand Larceny alone!), but those are your most common.
Well, all right. I stand corrected. Initially, I did a spit take upon reading the “we’re going to patrol Greenwich Village” line. But apparently, there are a lot of muggings there. You go, Dark Guardian. Break up the purse snatchings and the apple pickings, and do Batman proud.