walking freely

Eric has been in the habit of late-night walks for years.  He won’t go to bed without saying a full rosary and if ten o’clock rolls around and he’s feeling sleepy he often chooses to pray while walking.  When he first started to resort to this tactic on a regular basis  (which is to say, sometime after our first child was born) we lived in the heart of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.  It’s a lovely, wealthy, safe neighborhood that makes it onto those “Top Ten Places to Live” lists.   Living in that neighborhood–and, indeed, Eric’s solitary late-night walks–fueled a great deal of our urban interest.  I never worried about Eric’s solo outings.  Our street was well-lit and he wandered freely.  But we both agreed that only he could do this safely.  We were living in a dorm, working as residence directors at that time and every semester we gave safety talks.  We always told the students that if they were coming home after dark to stick to well-lit, well-traveled streets.  We always had to admit, regretfully, that women needing to walk at night had best ask a male classmate to act as escort.  We had few problems given the circumstances but, even so, two women were attacked during our three-year term (both were fine).  I almost never walked alone after dark even in our “safe” neighborhood.

After that apartment we moved to the very edge of the same neighborhood.  There were murders not too far away, there were drug dealers six feet from my bay window.  There were regular muggings at intersections I frequented.  Though I did walk in this neighborhood during the day (alone and with the kids) I was never at ease.  At night I was nervous going from my car to our front door.  Eric did sometimes go for nighttime walks and I was always nervous for him and asked for a precise return time.

All last year we lived in St. Paul, MN.  We chose perhaps the most mixed-use walkable neighborhood we could find apart from downtown itself.  The crime rate in St. Paul is nothing compared to DC but in this neighborhood I also felt a bit on edge walking alone during the day.  I felt nervous if Eric went out at night and I was uneasy, again, going from my street parking to my front door.

Now we live in Newark, NJ and I think nothing of running errands by myself, on foot, after dark.  I let my children play outside unsupervised.  Eric goes for walks alone late at night and I don’t worry at all–sometimes I even leave our front door wide open until he returns.

As I was making my way to the grocery store the other night I was reflecting on all this.  How is it that I feel perfectly safe in Newark, of all places, but felt uneasy in St. Paul Minnesota?  It occurred to me that darkness is not the issue.  Use is the issue.

Our first neighborhood was sort of mixed.  You could go five to six blocks and hit a busy commercial area that was busy well into the evening.  Immediately around our apartment the non-residential units were only in use during the day.  By day the neighborhood was bustling.  If I were walking home from a restaurant at night I felt less safe the closer I got to home.

Our second neighborhood was cut off from the “nice” area of The Hill by a wide, blighted commercial corridor (in the process of a fantastic revival).  Our street was such a busy vehicle route that drug dealers ran a drive-thru right outside our window.  The number of vacant properties made it just statistically much less likely that a neighbor would be out with you–at any time of day.

St. Paul, on the surface, looked like the “safest” neighborhood.  Cute houses, neat yards, nice people, etc.  But all those yards meant that it took much longer to walk up to the commercial boulevard and the time in-between was eerily quiet.  Since we weren’t living cheek-by-jowl with our neighbors I didn’t know them.  Which meant I didn’t know them.   My brother-in-law who went to high school 1.5 blocks from us (and whose students gave us the 30 minutes of daily foot traffic we saw on our sidewalks) suggested once that there was just as much drug traffic in our new ‘hood as our old but we just couldn’t tell.  The police reports were short but regularly told of muggings, shootings, robberies, etc. within a couple blocks of us, often in broad daylight.  I would bet that the per-capita crime rate of that neighborhood was similar to that of parts of DC.

Then there is Newark.  Now, to be fair, we live in the Ironbound which is completely different from the rest of the city.  I’m not going to write about any other neighborhoods because I don’t know them.  Our current neighborhood probably looks to outsiders like it should be the least safe–very dense, very hodge-podge, lots of litter (why is that?) but it is the safest place we’ve lived yet.  I can walk alone at night because there are people out–lots of people–at all hours of the day.  Our street connects two very busy thoroughfares and dumps into a park at one end.  Even though our block is long pedestrians use it to connect the two streets or to visit the bar halfway down the block.  As I walk up to our main drag I pass people running errands or going out.  There is essentially no zoning in this neighborhood so almost every block–and certainly every corner–has commercial use.

I can leave my door open in the evenings when Eric isn’t here because our neighbors across the street sit on their patio talking until late.  I can let my kids play outside while I work in the kitchen because I know the neighbor kid’s mom is watching from her porch, too.  And the lady across the street is hanging her laundry.  And the guy two doors down will be coming by in a minute and will stop to chat as always.

Running errands at night is safe because all the streets on my route are in heavy use.  The darkness doesn’t affect it.  By way of counter-example, I would not cut through the park after dark because no one uses it after dark.

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