Need help from New York City Tropers: where would Fagin's gang hide?

I need some help with a place/location question from NYC tropers. In my post-apocalyptic Oliver Twist retelling, Fagin's gang hide out in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. The thing is that I'm not sure exactly where in lower Manhattan their hideout would be even though the general area is near the Lower East Side. Even though it's set in the future I'd like to have an idea of where it would be in the 21st century.

So does anyone know which low-income neighbourhoods in lower Manhattan/near the Lower East Side have loads of abandoned warehouses? I know the general area is gentrified and now costs a lot to live in and that I could take poetic licence seeing as it's the future but I'd like to have a good idea of the general area (other than through Google Street View).

edited 24th Nov '13 2:37:10 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

There are very few warehouses - and I'm almost sure there are no abandoned ones - left anywhere on Manhattan island. They could always just take the twenty-minute subway ride over to Brooklyn. There are some in the Williamsburg area.

edited 24th Nov '13 3:40:22 PM by Wheezy

@Wheezy: Thanks. On Brooklyn: I heard that the distinctive accent pretty much doesn't exist anymore.

Although— isn't there something about secret warehouses of counterfeit purses on Canal Street?

There might be. I visited Canal St. several times last year, and took a bunch of pictures, and although there are certainly a ton of street vendors selling that kind of thing - although fewer since there was a massive NYPD crackdown on counterfeit-peddlers recently - I don't think there's a "secret warehouse" of them. It's probably more like an unusually large storage room. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think there are any warehouses anywhere near there. (The surrounding areas are among the most expensive neighborhoods in the US these days.)

There are a ton of other kinds of abandoned buildings in Manhattan, though.

Or they could always rent a full-sized storage unit and meet in there. There's a storage facility on the Lower East Side right off the FDR highway. ...But that would lack the ominousness of an abandoned warehouse.

And there still is a Brooklyn accent, but it's pretty much indistinguishable from any other borough accent, at least to an outsider. I think the stereotypical Archie Bunker "Noo Yoik" accent died out in the '70s and '80s.

edited 24th Nov '13 3:56:14 PM by Wheezy

@Wheezy: Searched for "Williamsburg Brooklyn." That might make more sense...

Looking at the blog you posted — is that a torn book in the North Brother Island picture?

Yes.

By the way, I was looking at the CityData forums recently...

edited 24th Nov '13 11:25:02 PM by Wheezy

That question was a rhetorical question . For some reason I like to ask questions on as many forums just in case I don't get an answer on one. I really need to get over that. Seriously. And the worst thing is that I have no clue why I do it.

edited 25th Nov '13 1:18:11 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

Also, I just noticed the story is "post-apocalyptic." In that case, wouldn't most buildings be abandoned? Why would you need to find one that's already abandoned before the apocalypse?

Good point. It's the feeling of a Wrong Side of the Tracks neighbourhood where things show little sign of getting better that I'm after, and I get the impression that in a working-class neighbourhood close to the East River, things are unlikely to get better and might even get worse in a post-apocalyptic situation.

Nowhere in Manhattan, then. (I don't think a lot of people understand just how entirely gentrified the whole island is now.) There are no Wrong Side of the Tracks neighborhoods anywhere in that borough. The only working class neighborhoods left there are Harlem and Inwood/Washington Heights on the northern tip, and even they're rapidly getting expensive.

The worst neighborhoods in the city today are the legendarily-shitty Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn, as well as the neighboring parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant. (I was only there for four months, but I was told to avoid those places by 7 or 8 different people and tens of websites/guides.)

Coming up next would be the South Bronx, but even that's slowly improving. If you're willing to go across the river, there are East Orange and Newark, NJ. Almost all of both cities are abject hellholes.

edited 25th Nov '13 9:09:00 PM by Wheezy

Billy Joel mentioned that neighbourhood (Bedford-Stuyvesant) in ''You May Be Right". That might actually work.

BTW, this is maybe a stupid question but is it possible to get to Canal Street from Bedford-Stuyvesant (Weeksville) on the subway?

You can get virtually anywhere in the city on the subway, which is part of why the neighborhood isn't that important.

But Bed-Stuy to Canal St. is roughly 30 minutes on the A train, an express line that runs right by both places.

(I stayed in west Bed-Stuy - the gentrifying part - for a month, and took the A to work.)

edited 26th Nov '13 5:17:01 AM by Wheezy

What about Brownsville? Does that take the same time or a little shorter or longer?

A little longer. Also, no warehouses. (Those would be in East New York.)

It's also 95% black and Hispanic. I'm assuming these characters are white, so they wouldn't be likely to be found there. Bed-Stuy's more integrated.

edited 26th Nov '13 1:39:57 PM by Wheezy

No, the Artful Dodger (protagonist) is Black. East New York may actually make more sense (predominantly Black, lots of warehouses). Looking at the directions on Google Maps tells me that going to Canal Street from New Lots takes 36 minutes.

edited 26th Nov '13 4:31:11 PM by MorwenEdhelwen