From the reading I have done on this site in the last couple of weeks I would advise you to arrive any place in POP with a full squad of Marines. Have them exit the aircraft first and lay down covering fire while you sprint to your armored car. Have them proceed you to your hotel in an uparmored Humvee firing for effect on both sides of the road.........I recommend 50 cals. Once in your room set up a Barrets sniper rifle on the roof and booby trap the hallways leading to your room. When going out always carry a few gernades and use them liberally. If you plan to stay more than a couple of weeks you should consider buying some tatical nukes off the international arms market.............enjoy your vacation..........BTW I may see you there, I will be in the bunker next door with the small tank at the entrance...................PH
- Thread starter gringobachata7
- Start date
Santo DOmingo Not That dangerous
This is place where people lie to one another all day long. Unashamedly. They do it to their parents, kids, mates, brothers, sisters, neighbors, merchants, police, and it's all done right back to them, with the pigs at the top being the biggest offenders. It's mind-boggling to me and I've been around it for over twenty years. Scamming, from 20 pesos to 1000 dollars, is the biggest crime that takes place here. I've walked all over all hours, like I did in NYC when I was young, and never had trouble on the streets. But I've been lied to plenty and fell for way too many.
Whilst I have never lived in Santo Domingo, and have only stayed on vacation for a maximum of 3 months at a time, all my family does live there, and I visit twice a year so I think I have some sort of grasp of the city.
Like the OP I'm from New York Cty, and grew up in the hood (Harlem on 113th Street between 6th and 7th avenue) I could remember growing up and not venturing upwards towards St. Nicholas Avenue or Fredrick Douglass Blvd because after 6 PM those two zones turned into a warzone between the rival gangs, and drug dealers. I also couldn't venture east toward 5th Avenue because I'd have to cut through two different project houses in the King towers, and Taft which at one point or another sometime in the 90's rated as two of the most violent housing projects in Manhattan only behind places like the Polo Grounds, and Wagner. I also lived in Brooklyn very briefly in Brownsville in the Tilden Projects, and what I saw, and experienced there for the brief time while I was staying there is 100x worse than anything I have seen in Santo Domingo (again I'm comparing two small sample sizes) While in East New York, I witnessed several people getting cut in the face, I saw 3 people on 3 different occasions shot, I heard 2 different rapes go on as they happened. It was another world out there, something I never knew could exist, but I have also been to places in the Mid-West, and the west coast like LA, and Detroit, where things are soooo much worse than East New York.
So I could understand the OP's point in that being street smart, and from a place like East New York would not make him to afraid of Santo Domingo, but I do think Santo Domingo is an extremely dangerous place. From my experiences in New York, it was always a case of wrong place, at the wrong time. If you don't want to be mugged at gunpoint then don't walk through the projects at 2:00 AM, if you don't want to get jumped in front of the bodega then don't wear all blue clothes in a heavily infested Blood neighborhood, if you don't want to get a buck 50, then don't walk around on Halloween at 10:00 PM in the hood when it is wildly known as gang initiation night. I have never felt unsafe walking down the streets of Harlem or East New York at 3:00 PM, and if I did I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing. There are unwritten "rules" you have to follow in these places, and if you stick to them you're going to be fine, but that's the difference between Santo Domingo, and places like New York IMO there are no "rules" in Santo Domingo.
In Santo Domingo every crime is a crime of opportunity, and the opportunity is when you're not on your guard. In Harlem I have no problem walking down the street listening to my iPhone, and whistling Dixie, in Santo Domingo I would never dare to do this. Santo Domingo people just don't give a F*** what time it is, where it is, whose around. If a crime can be committed it will be. There are no cases of wrong place, at the wrong time, it is just a case of crossing path with someone who just doesn't care. From my experience of course.
I think CC was most on point with his analysis on the crime situation here.
Like the OP I'm from New York Cty, and grew up in the hood (Harlem on 113th Street between 6th and 7th avenue) I could remember growing up and not venturing upwards towards St. Nicholas Avenue or Fredrick Douglass Blvd because after 6 PM those two zones turned into a warzone between the rival gangs, and drug dealers. I also couldn't venture east toward 5th Avenue because I'd have to cut through two different project houses in the King towers, and Taft which at one point or another sometime in the 90's rated as two of the most violent housing projects in Manhattan only behind places like the Polo Grounds, and Wagner. I also lived in Brooklyn very briefly in Brownsville in the Tilden Projects, and what I saw, and experienced there for the brief time while I was staying there is 100x worse than anything I have seen in Santo Domingo (again I'm comparing two small sample sizes) While in East New York, I witnessed several people getting cut in the face, I saw 3 people on 3 different occasions shot, I heard 2 different rapes go on as they happened. It was another world out there, something I never knew could exist, but I have also been to places in the Mid-West, and the west coast like LA, and Detroit, where things are soooo much worse than East New York.
So I could understand the OP's point in that being street smart, and from a place like East New York would not make him to afraid of Santo Domingo, but I do think Santo Domingo is an extremely dangerous place. From my experiences in New York, it was always a case of wrong place, at the wrong time. If you don't want to be mugged at gunpoint then don't walk through the projects at 2:00 AM, if you don't want to get jumped in front of the bodega then don't wear all blue clothes in a heavily infested Blood neighborhood, if you don't want to get a buck 50, then don't walk around on Halloween at 10:00 PM in the hood when it is wildly known as gang initiation night. I have never felt unsafe walking down the streets of Harlem or East New York at 3:00 PM, and if I did I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing. There are unwritten "rules" you have to follow in these places, and if you stick to them you're going to be fine, but that's the difference between Santo Domingo, and places like New York IMO there are no "rules" in Santo Domingo.
In Santo Domingo every crime is a crime of opportunity, and the opportunity is when you're not on your guard. In Harlem I have no problem walking down the street listening to my iPhone, and whistling Dixie, in Santo Domingo I would never dare to do this. Santo Domingo people just don't give a F*** what time it is, where it is, whose around. If a crime can be committed it will be. There are no cases of wrong place, at the wrong time, it is just a case of crossing path with someone who just doesn't care. From my experience of course.
I think CC was most on point with his analysis on the crime situation here.
You pretty much said and explained everything I agree with. I could not have said it better myself.
I'm pretty sure that they (DR police) do a lot more stop and busts than you're giving them credit for. I literally have mental map routes where I never go through just to avoid them.
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I grew up between Harlem and Santo Domingo. 151st and Broadway and El Ensanche La Fe respectively and ultimate went to dental school here (DR). I agree with everything you said. Word for word, you have hit the nail on the head homie. I bet I could add to this, but nothing comes to mind at the moment except that you better not have a headlight dimmer than the other one or it'll cost you with the cops, haha. This was a pretty well rounded post.
Still Harlem
North end of Harlem, maybe your thinking 181st just north of the bridge.
North end of Harlem, maybe your thinking 181st just north of the bridge.
Washington Heights is a neighborhood within Harlem. Back in the 50's and 60's when I was growing up and the residents were predominantly of Irish Catholic descent it was referred to as "White Harlem".
No, I know the area very well and used to live there till recently (Sugar Hill). I was always told that on the West side above 145 street it wasn't Harlem anymore.
I stand corrected (thanks to Wiki :classic
, apparently the border to the heights is on 155st.
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No, I know the area very well and used to live there till recently (Sugar Hill). I was always told that on the West side above 145 street it wasn't Harlem anymore.
I stand corrected (thanks to Wiki :classic
I was born and raised in Harlem. When I was in grade school they beat the City's history into my ROM until I could give tours by the time I was 10. Everything North of Central Park in Manhattan to the Harlem and East Rivers is part of Harlem, settlement founded by Peter Stuyvesant in 1648.
Harlem is inclusive of the following neighborhoods:
Central Harlem
East Harlem (El Barrio)
Hamilton Heights
Inwood
Manhattanville
Morningside Heights
Sugar Hill
Washington Heights
West Harlem
Forget Wiki. There are many Harlem based websites as well as the official NYC website which specifically detail the geography demography and history of Harlem.
Music, Art, Historic House & Walking Tours, Culture and more! - Harlem One Stop
You must be among the ones who love the name "SOHA" then, lol
Sorry, Chiri, back to SD and its dangerous neighborhood :nervous:
I use to live not for a full scale in Fort-Lauderdale and Miami for 13 years before i came to D.R. I was living in what i called the Guetto past Dixie road. My house was front of a boot camp. I was surended by people from every communities, Haitians, latinos, Black americans white drugs addicts and the bussiness in that area was the full time crack and white powder deal. As i recalled from thoses days for me that district was the saferest i have been (sorry i lose my English), beside the Sri-Lanka jungle !! I was living with my family with 3 kids and no one bother to give me problems because they new i was not rich. They did regularly roberies on the coast where houses where over a million from Miami to Palm Beach. Now if you see the news in Alabama one kid killed 3 students and + in Florida one man as eaten the face of another fox, A canadian as cut body parts of a chinese, Today in Baddad 80 death with a bomb, Syria 23 kids been stables and so on.... What are we talking about the D.R. let s not traumatise our feellings. It is a resonable safe place if you re wise, intelligent and have good public relations !
Safe is when you can purchase any item you want or drive any car you want and DO NOT have always be on GUARD that some "PENDEJO" or BS cop will target you. Also walking out of a supermarket and NOT have to always show your reciept or take a ticket when you park your car so some BS guard will not think you are a theif like everyone else.
BTW and some of you believe you have so much freedom in the DR I can't tell. I never have to show anyone a reciept when I purchase a bag of Lays and a 7up in the USA, but the DR they need to see a RECIEPT for EVERYTHING some FREEDOM!!! Everybody is a treated like a theif until you show a reciept.
BTW and some of you believe you have so much freedom in the DR I can't tell. I never have to show anyone a reciept when I purchase a bag of Lays and a 7up in the USA, but the DR they need to see a RECIEPT for EVERYTHING some FREEDOM!!! Everybody is a treated like a theif until you show a reciept.
Inwood (dykeman (200th) st. till the island ends and the bronx start) is a different world from Harlem in my opinion, I live there, in an all dominican building (well with a few white medical students, a mixed hippie, and one irish family that is holding out, ohh, and I am a black guy who likes cheap rent and loud music). It's not an abyss of blocks and bricks, there are lovely parks and everyone knows everyone. There are lots of people from Santo Domingo and it's quite safe... I wanted to provide a full circle moment..Not That dangerous
I lived in Marble Hill, just across the river into the Bronx, and my gf(now ex-wife) on Post & Dyckman. Never felt unsafe and yes, enjoyed the parks and trees.