What are we really talking about when we talk about neighborhood safety?
BY NICOLAS STERGIOU
Producer, Social Media Manager, labor Organizer, and Unofficial “astoria Street Spectator.”
You hear it constantly: “Astoria is getting worse.” But is it? How exactly?
I’ve always been fascinated by this conversation. You see it in Facebook groups and comment sections — usually from people who moved to Long Island years ago or have been living in Florida since Obama’s first term, yet still haunt the AstoriaCentric and GrowingUpAstoria Facebook Groups like digital neighborhood-watch ghosts.
Part of why I find this topic so interesting is because of how I grew up hearing about New York City. My father grew up in Astoria in the 60’s and 70’s during an era when New York’s reputation was “different” than it is today. At my wedding, one of my uncles even brought this up during his speech and got a loud “YUP” from the older New Yorkers in the room — like they had all collectively survived some urban war zone together.
We moved from Astoria to Central California before I could walk , but I never stopped hearing stories about “old” New York.
The graffiti. The crime. The FREAKING Mafia. You know — ORGANIZED crime. Maybe crime isn’t worse now, maybe it’s just… less organized? Compared to the stories my mother grew up with in Colombia, half of New York’s “crime discourse” sounds like a neighborhood parking dispute
If you grew up in a New York family in Queens, you probably know the stories. Every family seemed to have that one relative who talked about “when the mob was around” like they personally survived a military conflict while buying loosies at the corner store. But… times have changed. Mostly.
Granted, even our parents were already somewhat removed from New York’s highest-crime era during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s. New York City is significantly safer today than it was then. The Brennan Center for Justice notes that murders and shootings are now at or near historic lows, despite the city having a larger population than it did when annual murders exceeded 2,000 during the 1990 crime peak. So when people say “it was a different time back then,” there’s actually plenty of data to support that claim.
But what fascinated me wasn’t the crime itself. It was the mythology surrounding the city. The New York I grew up hearing about sounded gritty, chaotic, unpredictable and alive. It felt larger than life. Not because I wanted danger, obviously. But because there was something prideful about the idea that if my family could survive this giant, complicated city, maybe I wanted to prove I could survive it too.
So in 2005, I moved back here. And what did I return to? Disneyland.
Times Square looked like a shopping mall. Elmo was taking photos with tourists. The “dangerous” city I had heard about my entire childhood suddenly had chain restaurants in the middle of it. Giuliani — what exactly did you DO here? Where are the peep shows I heard so much about?
And for some reason, I remember feeling oddly disappointed. Not because I wanted New York to be dangerous. I didn’t. It was more complicated than that. The city I grew up hearing about felt mythological. Then I came back and found a cleaner, safer, more corporate version of it that somehow felt less mysterious.
Now obviously, New York has changed. Some people call that progress. Others call it sanitization. Usually both. But what’s interesting is how selective people are about what counts as “better” versus “worse.”
People will say Astoria has become more dangerous while also acknowledging the neighborhood is dramatically more expensive, more commercialized, more developed and filled with luxury buildings. Sometimes I wonder how much of what people describe as “danger” is really just discomfort with the neighborhood looking, sounding and feeling different than it did 20 years ago.
Spend enough time in neighborhood Facebook groups and you’ll start noticing a pattern. A fight breaks out outside a hookah lounge and suddenly it’s proof that “Astoria isn’t what it used to be.” Someone posts a video of teenagers hanging around a corner store and people start talking about the decline of civilization. But when the person involved looks familiar, comes from a background people identify with, or reminds them of somebody they know, the conversation often changes. Suddenly people want context. Suddenly they want to know what led up to it. Suddenly it’s a tragedy instead of a symptom.
Funny how quickly nuance appears when people recognize themselves in the story.
And statistically speaking, overall crime in New York is significantly lower than during many of the decades people nostalgically reference. Yet many people would probably tell you the opposite.
The difference may be that crime isn’t just something we experience anymore — it’s something we consume. Every alert, headline, surveillance video and neighborhood Facebook post competes for our attention. A single incident can now be seen by tens of thousands of people who were nowhere near it.
That changes perception. And perception eventually starts feeling like reality.
Yes, crime is real. Bad things happen in cities. People get robbed. Fights happen. Mentally ill people have episodes in public. Nobody serious is denying that. And if somebody feels unsafe because of something they experienced personally, that feeling is real too.
But saying Astoria is “worse than ever” is still a massive claim. Based on what exactly? Are people comparing long-term crime statistics? Or are most people building their worldview through Citizen App alerts, neighborhood Facebook groups, and emotionally charged political headlines during election season?
I think we know the answer.
And to be clear, I’m not arguing Astoria hasn’t changed, gotten better, or gotten worse. I could say yes to all three. Every New York neighborhood changes. But as somebody who has spent years studying media and now works professionally in commercial media, I can tell you this with confidence: Fear spreads. Fear makes misinformation easier.
A recent New York Post headline declared subway murders were “up 300%.” Sounds terrifying — until you read further and learn the statistic referred to an increase from one incident to four in a specific amount of time. Technically accurate? Yes. But also a perfect example of how statistics can be framed to maximize emotional impact — 1 to 300 sounds a lot scarier than 1 to 4.
One subway incident on Steinway becomes “Astoria is collapsing.” One bike theft becomes proof that “the neighborhood has changed forever.” A blurry cellphone video with no context gets reposted thousands of times until people who haven’t walked down 30th Avenue in years become experts on civilization’s downfall.
Sometimes, I think what people are reacting to isn’t even crime itself — it’s overstimulation. Astoria is louder than it used to be. More crowded. More scooters. More delivery drivers. More luxury buildings. More strangers filming each other. More notifications telling you every bad thing happening nearby.
Twenty years ago, you might hear about a robbery three days later from your uncle at Neptunes. Nowadays, we get horrible notifications in real time while while we’re already doomscrolling.
Again: crime exists. Some categories go up. Some go down. Cities are complicated. But the idea that Astoria has suddenly become some lawless wasteland usually falls apart once you separate actual data from internet panic.
Ironically, if you really wanted to make Astoria feel more dangerous, the formula is actually pretty simple: Convince everyone that it is.
