Spent all night walking around NYC last summer, saw no Latin Gangs...

[Logical]

My 16 year old daughter wanted to stay up all night in NYC while there on vacation.
We started at in Times Square and saw a 11:00 pm movie.
Took the subway to Central Park and walked to the 24/7 Apple store!
Then walked to a 24/7 diner and had a 3:30am breakfast.
Then walked some more and took the subway to the Staten Island Ferry and rode it there and back and saw the sun come up over manhattan.
The Latin American Gangs must have been off that night because no one bothered us at all.

[JaneyVee]

1. Sounds like fun. This really is the city that never sleeps.

[Logical]

4. It is one of those memories I will cherish forever! n-t

[Drale]

2. How do you tell a gang?

A few guys hanging out on a porch is that a gang? Do you think they run around carrying a banner? Unless you know what your looking for you can't tell a gang from a group of people. Here in Chicago I know what to look for and you see those signs all over.

[RZM]

3. I've never heard anyone argue that gangs interfere with the typical NYC tourist experience

Did somebody say that? Because otherwise I'm not sure what your point is. I don't think gang members tend to hang at the Apple store.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

5. I'm thinking this post must be in relation to something else...

but, you were in the wrong part of NYC.

Try Harlem or the Bronx, I'm pretty sure you'll find what you're looking for.

[NightWatcher]

6. I heard there was going to be a rumble.

Seems one of the Jets was talking to a girl whose brother is a Shark....

Be careful

[JVS]

7. Oohh, the Apple store. Always the hallmark of a dangerous neighborhood.

[Marrah_G]

8. Well then.. gang problems have been eliminated!!!!!

[RZM]

9. LOL. Let's try again from the opposite direction

Is this a parody post having to do with guns and gang violence, where you poke fun at middle class white people's lack of exposure to street violence?

[NoGOPZone]

10. No surprise, New York's crime rate is lower than a lot of other big US cities. nt

[RevStPatrick]

11. When you were on the Staten Island ferry...

...you should have gotten off on the Staten Island side.
Walk up Bay Street about 3 blocks, and then turn right onto Victory Blvd.
Walk about 8 blocks up Victory.
You would have found your Latin gangs.

You weren't trying very hard...

[Populist_Prole]

12. I've always enjoyed going to NYC with people who have never been there before

Seeing their reactions. All the better if they're from a small town from anywhere but the northeast. Along with seeing their surprised look at how staggeringly huge it is, is seeing their initial trepidation vanish as they relax and enjoy it all the more. I'll always ask at that point: "So, do you feel at all unsafe here?" They all respond they don't and say some version of how they've missed in avoiding going there all these years.

[HappyMe]

13. Apple canceled Gang Night.

The gangs weren't interested.

edit to add -
I have been to NYC several times. Never once felt afraid, and NYers are good people.

[NCTraveler]

14. Time Square movie theater and the Apple Store.

That's gangster.

[tkmorris]

15. LOL right?

[NCTraveler]

18. I wonder if he and his daughter were throwing up signs.

Throwing up signs going "damn, I know they are around here somewhere".

[sir pball]

16. Yeaaaah...next time try going out to

Eastern BK/Queens, Jamaica...or pretty much anywhere in the South Bronx. Midtown is a sanitized, mostly ethnically purged Potemkin Village (it's where I spend most of my time, I know this firsthand). The City is a lot better than most others in the US but there are DEFINITELY places you do not want to be after dark.

[snooper2]

19. They are all around you and you don't know it...

[aquart]

20. What is this referencing?

Because you never left very protected areas of Manhattan except to ride the ferry? Uh...And our gangs are much more area-specific. Just as there were Irish, Jewish, and Italian gangs among the immigrants of the last century, today's gangs are also belligerent self-protection societies formed by immigrants banding together with people who speak the same language with the same accent.

I had one student who preferred a two-hour daily trip in and out of Manhattan rather than his local high school in which, he said, every floor was controlled by a different country.

[HereSince1628]

21. Sounds like you spent most of the night in a theater, retail shop, restaurant and ferry

And I'd say your experience directly relates to the nature of your experience.

Would a person expect to see much gang activity on the Staten Island Ferry or in the Apple Store?

[Logical]

22. And 3 hours walking the streets.

[HereSince1628]

23. Yep.