The Urban Geography of 'Fresh'

I recently watched this movie, and I was quite intrigued by amount of urban decay and poverty. I study urban geography, which includes the research of urban subcultures-mainly graffiti, urban decay, and violent crime. I am not sure of where this movie takes place. It quite possibly was East New York or even Brownsville, which at the time (1993-1994) were among the cities most drug-plagued neighborhoods. However, I did take notice of where Hector (a heroin dealer working with Esteban) told Fresh where the cash for the drugs was hidden (11th and J). I entered that data into Mapquest and it indicated that it was in the southern part of Brooklyn, north of Bensonhurst. The address may have just been made up to mirror the fictional nature of the film. There were a great numbers of condemmed buildings in the movie, so it is very likely that the film takes place in the Brownsville area. The area used to be largely inhabited by Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe, but as businesses migrated to other areas of the city and land values plummeted, large numbers of poor African-Americans and Puerto Ricans moved in, and with the poverty came an underground economy that included prostitution and drug trafficking. The same held true for East New York. Fresh's aunt mentions Bushwick, another beleaguered neighborhood in Brooklyn, where she would send Fresh to a group home.

The drug gangs in the movie show the violent nature of the inner-city areas of large US cities. Although, violent crime has been reduced in many major cities thanks to increased police presence, arrests of drug lords and dealers, and "Weed and Seed" programs, it is sad to say that such behavior is commonplace in smaller cities. Drug dealers have been pushed out of New York City, Philadelphia, and other major cities; they have been settling in cities that have similar demographic characteristics and less tactful police departments.

In 2004, I completed an honors thesis for college graduation in Reading, PA, a city of 82,000 people in eastern Pennsylvania. Reading has a large concentration of Hispanic and African-American people, many of which are poor or lower-middle class. Reading proved to be an ideal market for these drug gangs to set up new markets, and gun crime and drug-trafficking skyrocketed. In 2000, Reading had 38 homicides; a number that is even less than many cities such as Buffalo, NY or even Cleveland. Gun battles frequented the streets of Reading's most dilapidated sections, much like they did in "Fresh." Reading is working to improve the crime rate, but it still ranks among the most dangerous cities in the nation based on population categories. Therefore, I can really relate to "Fresh" and the struggles I saw with the residents of public housing interviewed in my thesis. Mercifully, the Reading residents I interviewed did not have to live in fear, thanks to excellent police patrols and crime watch groups.

Thus, "Fresh" is a great film that seems to reach into some depths of my research and my interests. I recommend it for anyone wishing to see some of the lifestyles inner-city people faced during the early 1990s.