Shooting leads to unjustified neighborhood freakout about bars
A tragic shooting at 4:30 on Sunday morning left a beloved community member dead as he tried to intervene in a fight that broke out outside a bar at 13th Street and Avenue A. It’s the first confirmed homicide in the 9th Precinct this year, and the details are gruesome. Taz Pagan was shot point-blank in the head simply for trying to break up a fight outside Forbidden City, where he often DJed and was bouncer who was off-duty. Even more tragically, he was a single father who leaves behind two children.
This atrocity must not go unpunished. Unfortunately, the perpetrators got away. Police were combing the neighborhood yesterday looking for clues. While spending some of my Sunday afternoon across the street from the scene of the crime, the detectives of the 9th acted very professionally and were doing their damned hardest to find any clue to help catch these heartless sons of bitches.
At the same time, however - not 10 hours after Taz Pagan was shot and killed - neighbors along Avenue A were shamelessly harping on his death as another example that East Village nightlife has gotten out of hand. As family members and friends were mourning Pagan’s death at a makeshift memorial outside Forbidden City, cranky neighbors hopped on their soapbox to complain to the press about the noisy bars on Avenue A and the 4am closing time of these bars, and attempted to make the case that it contributed to Sunday morning’s shooting. But the circumstances of the crime, the timing of the incident, and the very location of the incident itself tell otherwise, and show just how desperate a vocal minority of the East Village has gotten in trying to rob the neighborhood of its vibrant nightlife.
Nearby bars on Avenue A have drawn the ire of neighbors in the East Village recently. Things came to a head just last week when a community meeting was called to discuss the recent opening of two new bars - Destination, at the corner of Avenue A and 13th, and Superdive, one block further south.
I mention this only because this incident has nothing to do with either of these bars, yet these neighbors tried to shoehorn their complaints from that meeting into the dialogue about Pagan’s death. In fact, this incident has very little to do with Forbidden City (which has been open, by the way, for more than seven years), since according to the Post’s account of what happened, the gunman was never even at the bar. It has nothing to do with the closing times of these bars, since thousands of bars in this city close at 4am every night without incident. It has nothing to do with the “fratty crowd” that patronizes places like the ghastly Superdive and roam the neighborhood in noisy packs in search of pizza or tacos after the bars close.
Pagan’s death has everything to do, however, with the fact that hoodlums still exist in this city, they still carry illegal guns, and they still believe that violence is the only way to solve a problem. On top of this first homicide, there have been 90 reported felony assaults in the East Village this year. I was mugged earlier this year at knifepoint on 12th Street. Overall, crime in the neighborhood is up only slightly over last year, but it’s still a problem. If my cranky neighbors spent less time complaining about a few drunkards and more time devoting their efforts toward curbing violence, maybe some of this wouldn’t have happened.
Let me tell you a story. On a mild November night in 1990, a bouncer refused to let two patrons into a vibrant East Village nightclub without paying. Those two patrons went back to a car, grabbed a gun, and shot and killed the bouncer. That tragic and seemingly random incident set off increased community scrutiny of the club, and a string of other violent incidents at similar nightclubs elsewhere in the city during the 1990s led to this particular club’s demise.
That club was the Palladium. You know what’s there now? An NYU dorm and a chain supermarket.
Is that the future of Avenue A? I sure hope not.
So please, let’s all calm down, show some respect to Pagan’s family and friends, and stick to the issue at hand: a member of our community died at the hands of hoodlums that infiltrated our neighborhood. Let’s do everything we can to bring the perpetrators to justice and make sure it doesn’t happen again. It would be awful if the already tragic death of a beloved member of our community led to the death of East Village nightlife - the very industry Taz Pagan used to express himself and make part of his living.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 10:27 am and is filed under Life in NYC. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 24th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Diane says:I was waiting for you to bring this story up. I live right by where this horrible shooting happened. The problem we have in our neighborhood has NOTHING to do with nightlife. Old people need to realize this!!! If anything nightlife helps keep Ave. A busy and I feel rather safe walking on the populated street at night. If you start getting deeper and deeper into Alphabet City the less safe you will feel because at night there is nothing going on. No way would I be caught wandering around Ave. D at night alone…and maybe not even Ave. C for that matter. The main issue is that there are hardly any cops around! If there were maybe some of this violence wouldn’t happen.
August 24th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Flawed Logic « On Transport says:[…] why would so many residents of a New York neighborhood want to force bars to close earlier in reaction to a violent incident at 4:30am near that strip of bars? leave a comment […]
August 24th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
BJ says:This article is right on point. The bars are not the problem, the hoodlems running unabated breaking car windows and sticking up innocent people are the problem. I go out every weekend and rarely if ever do i see a cop on any of the side streets and barely ever on the avenues either. However, I do see plenty of broken windows on parked cars on sat/sun morning. Get your priorities straight if your gonna complain!
August 28th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
ron fro east village says:What this person seems to overlook is the fact that if bars close at 1am as they used to that would mean that for 3 less hours in the absolute darkest part of the night there would be thousands of less people usually high from drinking roaming the streets of our neighborhood.
I attend our local community board meetings and no one brags about vibrant nightlife, they complain about people creating noise,total disrespect for the neighborhood, urinating in the streets, and many, many, many bar owners do not even try or if they do try cannot stop their clientile from all of the above complaints.
i challange this person to come to the next cb-3 sla meeting and get up and defend the bar owners that are there in answer to all the above complaints.
you may be devending vibriant night life, we trying to create statis quo quiality of life.
you must work for the mayor of new york–to hell with the constituncy.
August 29th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
nonetheless says:Shooting leads to unjustified blogger’s freakout about neighborhood’s freakout about bars
Your complaint over the neighborhood’s complaints about the noise during the time that Taz’s death should be mourned is no different than what you’re trying to convey with this post: you are also shoehorning your complaint from this post into the dialogue about Pagan’s death
“So please, let’s all calm down, show some respect to Pagan’s family and friends, and stick to the issue at hand: a member of our community died at the hands of hoodlums that infiltrated our neighborhood.”
your blog is really fitting, you’re an EV Idiot, indeed.
(you don’t know what this neighborhood was like before you moved in here from NH, this ain’t NH.)
August 31st, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Chris says:nonetheless:
No, you’re shoehorning it in by assuming my position is “pro-noise.” I am petrified by the Bridge and Tunnel scum that comes into this neighborhood each weekend, as you are. That’s not what this was about. This was about shaming the nearby residents who shamlessly pounced on the reporters about the noise while friends and family were literally in tears over Taz Pagan’s death.
And, oh, the Idiot comment was so clever. I’ve never heard that one before. And I’m not from New Hampshire, and I’ve lived here long enough (7 years) to mingle with long-time residents of the East Village. I think I have a pretty good idea what this neighborhood was like before I moved here, and if you shut down the bars at 1am (as the above commenter suggests), the streets will be empty and as dangerous as they were two decades ago.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Megevil says:Amen, dude.
January 15th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Bert and Erny says:I hear the cops talk about the reason why they arent around. Its because morons in the city call 911 for NONSENSE, and tie up the police constantly. Cabbies drive like animals and crash, bouncers at bars call 911 to throw people out because they cant do their jobs themselves. Retail stores on Broadway and Duane Reades call 911 and take cops off the street by making them arrest shoplifters stealing 5 dollars worth socks or chapstick.
The city needs to cut the NONSENSE out of the 911 system and let the cops and EMS do real work
March 6th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Shooter says:I really enjoyed reading your interesting yet very informative insight. In the book of life every page has two sides: we human beings fill the upper side with our plans, hopes and wishes, but providence writes on the other side, and what it ordains is seldom our goal. Thank you for sharing and I am looking forward to reading more of your very current blog postings!!!
Shooter Game