Brownsville: Inside One of Brooklyn's Most Dangerous Neighborhoods

Brownsville has the highest concentration of public housing in the nation. Within one square mile, the community comprises more than 873 stories in over 100 different buildings.

Reed Young

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Al is more of a neighborhood counselor than a barber. He puts a jar of condoms in plain sight, one of the many reasons his shop is a place teenagers both rely on and trust. Al says his real work happens in the conversations that ensue while kids are getting their shape-ups or trims.

Reed Young

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"Sixx” has been a mentor to his nephew Brasco since Brasco was a small child; Brasco feels comfortable only around those whom Sixx trusts. Every person in the gang to which both men belong is known by his “gun name.” Sixx was named for his very first gun, a “six shot.”

Reed Young

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Until 1960, Brownsville was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Leon Sternhell is now one of only two Jews still operating a business in the community. He has watched Brownsville’s crime rates increase as shops and storefronts are pushed out of the neighborhood. In response to the ongoing street violence, Sternhell locks the front door after every customer enters, and notes that if anything, this improves business, as his customers appreciate the safety precaution.

Reed Young

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UPS driver Hakeem delivered packages without a security guard for about a year, until he was robbed at gunpoint while walking into a project building. As a Brownsville native, Hakeem had felt secure that he would be left alone, but it didn’t take long for reality to prove him wrong. The stolen package was left in the hallway, but the robbery motivated Hakeem to ask the company for an armed security guard.

Reed Young

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Donte is one of eight who live in this three-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor. He is in the third grade and wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.

Reed Young

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Olivia recently formed the “Made Life Pretty Gunnas” (MLPG) crew, which is now made up of more than 50 young girls. Olivia feels that MLPG is her most dependable support network and would defend its members under any circumstance. She is currently suspended from school for fighting in defense of one of her group members.

Reed Young

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Gang leader “Loco” and his mom live on one of Brownsville’s most notorious blocks, which, according to them, hasn’t changed a bit over the past 20 years.

Reed Young

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Many Brownsville residents say that the area has more sneaker stores than after-school programs. Brownsville has a total of three sneaker stores. A few years ago, Penny began hosting an informal after-school program so that children in her building would have a safe place to go after school.

Reed Young

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Wendy’s son Tyquan was shot and killed in July 2010 after playing basketball in a court at the Howard housing projects. As a Sethlow resident, Tyquan was not welcome on the Howard courts.

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January 31, 2012 4:00 AM EST

Brownsville, located in east Brooklyn, has long been one of New York City’s most dangerous neighborhoods. But even as crime rates reached record lows in the borough in 2009, violence has continued to increase in Brownsville, which has remained untouched by the gentrification seen in so many other parts of Brooklyn. Inspired by the rapid changes in his own neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Reed Young began researching places that hadn’t seen such gentrification over the last few decades. “I always tried to kind of stay away from New York stories just because I think it’s so easy to do a personal story in New York if you live here,” the Brooklyn-based photographer says. “But once I started doing research, I found out that Brownsville has similar crime rates to a place like East New York, but is almost a third of its size. Brownsville is one square mile of public housing, basically.”

In May 2011, Young and a friend, who does social work, spent two weeks photographing various community members in Brownsville, from gang members to a UPS driver who has to deliver packages with a police officer because he was held up at gunpoint. But before beginning to shoot, Young and his friend first met with Greg Jackson, who runs a recreation center in the neighborhood, after reading an article about him in the New York Times. “We asked if it was cool to just walk around and kind of talk to people to get a feeling of the neighborhood,” Young says. “And he said, ‘Hell no. You’ve got to be kidding.” In the same breath, Jackson called a Brownsville resident named Randy, who eventually led Young and his friend around the neighborhood for the project.

Though some people tried to rough up Young and his friend over the two weeks, the photo shoots were, for the most part, hassle-free. The most intense moment from the project took place when Young photographed a gang member and his mother in their doorway. “That was the most tension I’ve ever felt doing a photo shoot,” Young says. “Because he was head of the gang, all of his people were around, and it was on this block that’s really, really, really tough.”

Young walked away from the project seeing Brownsville divided between the good and the bad, with little in the middle. “There’s a saying in Brownsville that says if you’re 25, you’re either dead, or in jail or you’re done with the gang life,” he says. “You’re one of the three because you can’t be much older and be out of that category.” The photographer hasn’t returned to Brownsville since shooting the series, though he hopes to in the future. “I want to go and do a follow up and even talk to a lot of the same people,” he says. “But I wonder if it’s too early yet. Change happens really slowly there.”

Reed Young is a Brooklyn-based photographer. See more of his work here.

Feifei Sun is an associate editor at TIME. Follow her on Twitter at @feifei_sun.