By Katarina Hybenova
Anybody else sometimes feels like Bushwick is getting too polished with all these new brunch places and luxurious condos being built? Anybody misses the old timey rough Bushwick of 1974? [Full-of-it allert ;-)] Look at this NBC News reportage from about teenage gang The Devil’s Rebels that used to operate in the infamous 83rd precinct, Brooklyn. The video made by NBC, contains a lot of footage shot with a concealed camera “with a special night vision lens” [aw!]. It captures a regular night of The Devil’s Rebels in Bushwick getting drunk, some casual gang member stabbing, and a subsequent confrontation with the cops. It is noteworthy that the cops are being pretty rough as well- kicking a gang member’s ass, threatening to kill Wally Savage, and tossing a bike…
Regardless of everything, I have to admit that there is something romanticly adventurous about the video as well. It’s probably the era to blame and the 70s gang fashion….
The tone of the reporter is very educational. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the video:
….and this is the part of Brooklyn that few people see anymore… It is the 83rd precint, a battleground for the police and young street criminals….
This is how the night starts for The Devil’s Rebels- with heavy drinking. They drink beer and wine. And they pop pills- uppers and downers. By 10 o’clock this night, some are ready for the action, some are not…
The first police members who found themselves to catch up with the gang were outnumbered, and they made no arrests.
It is now as much the neighborhood of rats, strait dogs and burned out buildings, as it is of people…