My evening gym trip today was plagued by my sudden awareness that New Haven isn't quite as safe as I'd felt it was (that is, of course, only considering my post first semester freshman year feelings, because way back when I pretty much believed I was going to be mugged by people who turned out to be docents at the art gallery and classics professors). Surprisingly, this has nothing (or very little) to do with my off-campus living situation, as comparatively few of the recent crimes have taken place outside the Yale bubble. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the crime rates off campus have stayed status quo, while on-campus residents appear to have been plagued by increasingly bizarre and horrific trespasses.
Now when I walk down Howe, I wonder if I will be bludgeoned by teenagers (all between 5'3" and 5'7") with milk crates.
Now when I jaywalk across "the most dangerous intersection in the world" (ie: the corner of Elm, Whalley, Dixwell, Tower Parkway, and Howe, right by the Shell station and El Amigo's) I wonder if I will be struck by a hit and run driver.
And while I'm on the elliptical machine, trying not to think about my back spasms or my homework and focus on the episode of "Lost" on my iPod, I worry that someone is scrawling death threats in blood on my walls.