Assault in My Celebrity Hood

This year, this happened twice. Two times?after school?two different men followed my 13-year-old daughter into my building. Both men tried to sexually molest her. The first man did his best to kiss my daughter's mouth. The second one tried to feel her up. But both times my daughter fell to the lobby floor, covered her face and screamed as loud as she could, which sent the men running.

But the first time this happened, I was dumbstruck. I was born and raised in the South Bronx and a thing like this was expected to happen (and it did, only once, to my sister). Yet now, hadn't I worked hard to become a college professor to raise my family in a safe neighborhood, one that's considered to have the most expensive real estate on the planet? I mean, I live in Manhattan's far West Village. Donna Karan has a house one block from me, and so does Gregory Hines, and not far from him Matt Dillon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Monica Lewinsky and other celebrities of all kinds.

So the first time this happened I was sure it was a freak event. In fact my wife and I and the police all reassured my daughter that after this one time there was no reason she should not continue her life as an independent young person like her peers, all of whom take a bus on their own to school and come home with their own set of house keys, including one for the mailbox. And with cellphones Mom and Dad can call to make sure that homework is being done and all is well.

Within a month my daughter exhibited her mettle. She stopped asking Daddy to walk her home every day. I was pleased, though during these walks I kept an eye out for the perpetrator. I badly wanted to exhibit my mettle in the form of a pipe, which I carried in my book bag?a skill I learned on the streets of the South Bronx when I was in a gang and we believed in our own justice.

The police, of course, tried to discourage me from taking matters into my own hands, warning me about the legal consequences of Bernie Goetz-style vigilantism. So for my daughter's sake, I promised the police that if I should see our suspect the only thing I'd punch would be the 9-1-1 keys on a cellphone. After all, as one policeman put it, "Hey, it could have been worse. She could've been raped or murdered."

But then all this happened again, and I was back at the police station with my daughter looking through hundreds of pictures of possible suspects. Only this time it was worse. I soon learned that a few months prior to my daughter's attack men followed two other teenage girls into their buildings only blocks from us. One choked his victim so hard she passed out so he could have his way with her. But it could have been worse, as I was told again, because that girl was only robbed.

Still, now that this has all happened, it is disturbing to read news reports that rape in New York City is up 9 percent overall. Mayor Bloomberg is now scurrying to set up a tough anti-rape task force. Which is great. Meanwhile, my daughter will no longer be able to enjoy the personal freedom of her teenage years, because now she needs an adult beside her until the day she is old enough to escape these...mean streets of the rich and famous.

P.J. Rondinone is the author of The Digital Hood (Picador USA), a collection of short stories about South Bronx gangs.