…ish. Things have been crazy. Work has been non-stop, and every time I sit down to write, something comes up. Reporting has been nearly out of the question. Bad, bad blogger.

I realized at some point when the password to this site became fuzzy that I had to make a choice: keep going, or bid adieu. Instead, I’m compromising.

For the next several months, the site will have weekly news updates. I’m also working on recruiting a few others to provide the occasional original story. Many, many apologies for email that went unanswered. I really appreciated the notes from people asking where I disappeared to (The answer? Grad school, mostly. Sad tale.). Keep an eye out this week for links, but here is a teaser: the NY Post reports on a recent settlement with the NYPD, City Limits looks at the state of Sunset Park as a Promise Neighborhood and Inhabitat offered a sunny take (along with renderings) of the Sims recycling plant that broke ground on the waterfront.

For those of you who sent notes, I’m going to do my best to write back. Is there a story you think should be covered? Send me a note. I’ll pass it on to the reporters I know out on the beat.

Lisa

Police have opened a homicide investigation in the death of a man found with his throat slashed at the scene of a fire on 56th Street last Tuesday, according to Jesus Pintos, deputy inspector of the 72nd precinct. It looks, sadly, like Sunset Park is following a recent uptick in murders throughout the city.

Burglaries in the 72nd Precinct are up 120 percent from this time last year, due in large part to a recent spate in Sunset Park. Shoddy locks and improper safety measures have a lot to do with it, Inspector Pintos said. Police recommend taking basic precautions–make sure doors are shut properly when you leave the house, and replace old or flimsy locks and bolts.

Two men in their early 20s were badly stabbed near Greenwood Cemetery on March 16, the Inspector said. Carlos Perez and Fernando Simon were walking along on 26th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues when they were confronted by one or two men. Perez and Simon were rushed to Lutheran hospital where last week they remained in critical condition. Police said the investigation is ongoing.

Things do look a bit grim, but here is some perspective: while crime may be up 12.32 percent this year in the 72nd precinct, it is down 21.92 percent from this time in 2008.

The man murdered in the early hours of March 10 in Sunset Park has been identified as Hang Yu Chen of 55th Street. He was found shot in the chest at about 4 a.m. on 53rd Street, WABC reported. “We’re pretty much where we were the day of,” said Deputy Inspector Jesus Raul Pintos of the 72nd Precinct, but the investigation is ongoing.

The body of a man was found in the backyard of a burning row house on 56th Street in Sunset Park early Tuesday morning.

The body of a man in his 30s was found with his throat slashed in the backyard of a house ablaze on 56th Street in Sunset Park, the Daily News reported.

The fire at 322 56th Street, set the street alight at 1:22am Tuesday morning. More than 100 firefighters spent 90 minutes extinguishing the blaze, according to the Daily News. Eight sustained minor injuries.

The man found sprawled in the back yard was bleeding from a laceration at the neck, and was declared dead at the scene, said Jesus Raul Pintos, deputy inspector of the 72^nd Precinct. Police are investigating the death, but have not declared it a homicide.

“His body was found in the behind the building,” said Melissa Velez, whose aunt and grandparents live in the house next door. “We heard someone threw the body out the window.”

Velez’s aunt Janet Morales lives with her parents in the house, and awoke early Tuesday morning to find the house next door burning. She rushed her two sons and her parents onto the street, and fire crews soon arrived.

The family was safe, but their house was not, said Morales, 40. Firefighters used her front room to help put out the blaze, leaving water damage that has seeped from Morales’ apartment on the third floor down to the foundation.

“It was a terrible experience,” she said.

Morales’ family and neighbors have complained to police and buildings inspectors about people passing in and out of the vacant building next door for years, Morales said. Police too have tried to do something about the structure, but have had little success contacting the bank that now owns the house, Pintos said.

Neighbors across the street said they often saw people lingering outside the house. One man in his twenties made it a regular post, they said, and often stumbled around as if drunk. They didn’t believe anyone lived in the building, but people regularly seemed  to come up from Third Avenue and walk in and out. The door, to anyone willing to walk up and test it, was open.

“We tried to call the bank too after someone tried to rob my grandfather’s house,” said Melissa Velez. “And then this.”

At about 5pm, Velez stood with an umbrella and a baby carriage, watching an emergency team clean out the contents of her aunt and grandparents’ house. Detectives with notepads passed up and down the block, asking neighbors what they had seen. But the investigation was not the first thing on Velez’s mind. Her aunt and grandparents must vacate the row house where they have lived for decades.

Janet Morales came down the stairs, surrounded by family. They had been in the house, looking at the damage, and what they might salvage.

“I lost everything,” Morales said.

They were heading to Fifth Avenue to buy some clothes. Morales looked at her violet fingernails, “Maybe I’ll get my nails done,” she said. “They got all messed up.”

Morales laughed, the ring a little hollow. “I’m trying to make the best of it,” she said.

Here are the latest CompStat numbers from the 72nd precinct (click to enlarge). They do not include what sadly appears to be the first murder of the year, which took place early on the morning of March 10. I hope to have more on that soon.

Below is a comment from reader and longtime Sunset Park resident Tony Giordano left on the last Crime Stats post. I thought, for those who missed it, it might provide food for thought. What’s your take on crime in the neighborhood?

March 13, 2010 at 1:12 pm: We’re coming up against an “invisible” enemy. Rudy Giuliani took credit for the dramatic drop in crime. Yet NYC crime was dropping under Dinkins before Rudy took office. In fact, crime was dropping across the nation. Experts agreed – they didn’t know what caused the drop. The traditional cause and effect items – the number of young people, the economy, didn’t correspond. In the end, no one knew why crime dropped, but everyone was willing to take credit.

The good news was, that the drop in crime allowed NYPD to reorganize their attack on crime – it gave them “breathing” space – for the first time, they were able to get ahead of the problem. The institution of ComStat was huge in maintaining the low levels. And it was for a very simple reason – supervisors were being held responsible. NYPD was notoriously corrupt for generations, now ComStat held bosses (precinct commanders) responsible for the crime in their precinct.

But we are losing ground and have been for a few years. But good juggling of statistics and creative manipulation of how to “label” crimes has kept the numbers good. But push will come to shove now. NYPD has to redeploy its cops. There are too many jobs they do that don’t require police or are more for show than for true effect. A simple example – the cops who sit in their patrol car on the Brooklyn Bridge 24 hours a day. Or the NYPD patrol boat that sits in the East River looking at the Brooklyn Bridge. Also, too many cops are used for traffic duty – waving at cars. And too many for parade duty or giving summoneses. Also, NYPD has to keep their cops longer. No more 10 to 20 years and gone. Keep cops to 55 or longer and put them on the desk duty jobs or low profile ticketing or traffic duty. And have cops contribute to their pensions.

This can go on and on. Do I feel safer? Right now yes, but i am old enough to remember Sunset Park being very dangerous because our police were not doing their job.

Crime rose last week in comparison with one year ago. Robbery and burglary in particular are up–500 and 300 percent, respectively. The 28 day statistics also show more robberies, assaults, grand larcenies and particularly burglaries have increased. The  overall crime rate, however, is still nearly 50 percent lower than nine years ago.  So, what do things feel like on the streets? Do you feel safer, or less safe? Leave a comment or drop a line to sunsetparkchron@gmail.com.

Want to keep up with CompStat or see how the 72nd precinct compares to areas around the city? You can look at all precinct statistics here on nyc.gov.

Good morning. It’s Thursday. The weekend looms. Let’s start with the prettiest in news:

*Lush trees, boggy wetlands and birds…in New York City? That’s precisely what Joel Meyerowitz portrays in large-scale photographs of 50 city parks on show at the Museum of the City of New York. Commissioned by the parks department, the exhibit is the largest documentary of the city’s 29,000 acres of parkland since they were photographed as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s WPA project of the 1930s. Sunset Park made the cut, City Limits Online reports, offering a little bit of urban to the pastoral scenes of the lesser known green in our nation’s great metropolis. Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks, at the Museum of the City of New York, Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., adults $10, through March 21.

*Governor David Paterson led the way in welcoming Councilwoman Sara M. González at the new Sunset Park High School into her second term on the council, YourNabe reported. The comment section (ever enlightening) offers a range of reactions to the news.

*Last weekend, nearly every paper ran stories on the tragic fire that killed five in Bensonhurst, including the mother of two young children.The New York Times offered some history, and the story about how the blaze affected families of the dead in Guatemala. The Post reported while the alleged arsonist said “demons” drove him to torch a baby carriage that drove the blaze, it may have had more to do with revenge. A Daily News story portrayed 2-year-old Josias’ confusion at his mothers death. Their home destroyed, the family has taken up residence in Sunset Park.

*A string of holdups in local warehouses, including at least one in the 72nd precinct, continued this week. From YourNabe.com: On January 11, two black males armed with handguns entered a warehouse on Centre Street between Smith and Court Streets and robbed a 43-year-old man inside. Police said that cops have connected the thieves to four similar robberies in the nearby 78th Precinct in Park Slope and the 72nd Precinct in Sunset Park.

*In other crime news, a police arrested a man believed to be a thief with a thing for mailboxes. Officials alleged 49-year-old John Sturiale was one of two men who in December stole metal and plastic post office containers worth upward of $2500 (who knew?) from the post office on 58th Street, YourNabe.com reported. First email, then missing containers. Times are tough for USPS.

The NYPD Comp Stat numbers for the 72nd Precinct released today show overall crime on par with 2009’s low numbers, though the categories have shifted.

The Precinct counted 23 crimes between January 18th and 24th, including one rape and six burglaries. Rape numbers have been creeping up in the neighborhood–two have been recorded in the first 27 days of 2010, and that’s two more than this time last year.

Inspector Jesus Raul Pintos said at a Community Council meeting last year that rape victims who have come to the precinct have by and large have known their assailants.

Burglaries have risen as well, up to 19 thus far, a 90 percent increase from twelve months ago. Grant larceny and car thefts, however, have dropped. Overall, the Precinct has 67 crimes on the books this year, the exact number recorded in January 2009.

Check out the stats for yourself here.

Mapped here are the eight murders that took place in the 72nd precinct during 2009. Click on the figures to see details the circumstances of each death

New York last year celebrated the lowest murder rate since the city began to keep statistics in the 1960s, but Brooklyn’s 72nd precinct bucked the citywide trend with eight murders, one more death than in 2008.

The precinct, which patrols Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights and Sunset Park, in 2009 saw a 14.3 percent jump in murders since last year, and 33.3 percent since 2001. Homicides have however dropped 55.6 percent since 1993–the city saw an annual average of 2000 murders during the early nineties.

The victims and those arrested for the murders in the 72nd have for the large part been young men. Of the eight people killed (one of which was a woman) not one had celebrated a thirtieth birthday. Of the three men accused of murder, not one had reached 25. The murders were concentrated in the second half of the year–seven of the eight took place since August.

Overall crime in the 72nd dropped ten percent in the twelve month period, and nearly 40 percent since 2001. While felony assault and burglary showed only modest reductions, the year marked a 22 percent reduction in both robberies and car thefts. Rapes, however, rose 57 percent, from seven in 2008 to 11 last year.

View 2009 Murder in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in a larger map

Many of you have shown interest in the story of Daniel Vargas, whose body was discovered Christmas Eve morning wrapped in plastic and dumped by the Gowanus Expressway. According to Inspector Jesus Raul Pintos of the 72nd Precinct, there is nothing new to report on that case to date.