When my generation thinks about Murder Inc. they usually are referring to the record label. Music artists such as Jah Rule and Ashanti may come to mind, but not the gangsters who once occupied Brownsville, Brooklyn in the 1930’s. These men, mostly of Italian and Jewish origins, were the deadly contract killers first called Murder Incorporated by the press.
It seems like the spirit of organized crime has manifested itself in all things associated with the name Murder Inc. Fortunately for the music label, they have changed their name to Inc. Records to save their image. Brownsville is stuck with the reputation of being dangerous. The spirit still haunts the Brownsville community that is permanently tainted as one of the worse neighborhoods in Brooklyn, as a result of this organization’s gang activity.
This area has not always been this way. In 1861, Charles S. Brown, a real estate speculator who bought property in the area originally called it Brown’s Village. This neighborhood was intended to be a vacation spot for people who lived in the city. That plan failed miserably and was further developed into tenement buildings in 1867 by Aaron Kaplan who renamed it Brownsville.
Over the next four decades, Brownsville became littered with abandoned buildings, poverty, drugs, crime and declining schools. It was even common to see children playing basketball at the Brownsville Recreation Center on empty drug vials that littered the outdoor courts.
Today’s status of this neighborhood remains the same and it leaves me to wonder if the residents of this neighborhood will stop living in fear and see the day when Brownsville truly experiences redemption from the haunting of the Murder Inc. ghosts.
I think with the music industry they are fascinated by organized crime and the lifestyles of gangsters. Reguardless of the fact that the label Murder Inc. changed there name to just Inc. it won’t help there image. Having Suge Knight as an executive is probably not helping them clean there image up.
I think Brownsville has been a dynamic neighborhood, I hope the future is just as bright.
To TJose: Suge Knight is not an executive of Murder Inc. He is actually the founder of Deathrow records. I think that by changing their name along with their agenda will help change their image.
To Krivero: I thought he was now affiliated with the label in some way, but either way their name has been in the mud with legal problems of Irv Gotti.