How bad was the crack era?

I was born in 1991 so my childhood the crack era was at its tail end. My mom and pops came to NYC from Haiti and told me stories how much a zoo it was. My pops said you would see crack vials on the ground broken. He saw an old spanish dude blew a nigga s head off in Coney Island. My moms lived in Uptown and said how the Dominicans would shoot at the police every day. Pops said Caton Ave park was a place where women got raped, crack heads would shank niggas get shoot on broad daylight. He told me he saw a cop buying drugs from a dealer in Flatbush. A Rican old head told me how the neighborhood i live in(Sunset Park) was nicknamed Gunset Park ciz the Latin Kings and Netas would bust at each other every summer night.

So how bad was the crack era in your own city or hood? What did you see or what stories old heads told you about that era?