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My grandmother lived in Esplanade Gardens until the mid 70s so we're talking about before the crack era. Her church was on 132nd and Adam Clayton Powell and she would shop on 125th Street.
I am in Harlem at least once a month in these same areas and they do not feel safer to me today than they did then. Especially at night, in the summertime. Too many idle people roaming around, getting into trouble. Elderly people are much more vulnerable than younger people. I would be concerned if grandma was living there today, mainly because the respect and protection that the community gave older people then does not exist anymore.
I would be more comfortable below 125th street to 110th near Lenox.
I can't argue with you concerning your feelings, everyones feelings and viewpoint is valid.
However I know quite a few Seniors that still live in Esplanade, many have been their since they were young adults, and are now Seniors. They feel quite safe and would never move.
As you know that area is changing, and it is a mixed bag. Esplanade is still Esplanade as you knew it. There is also Luxury housing that used to be PS 90. There is more luxury housing built on Bradhurst. Some in between blocks are still edgy, but changing daily. I was in Esplanade just last week visiting my cousin.
Also as you know before the crack era there was the era when heroin was King. This would be the late 50's up to the 80's when crack took its place.
Crack was actually a much shorter era in time.
From my perspective there were more dangers then because older people were robbed, homes, and apt were burglerized more frequently. Not Esplanade it was always safe. Just speaking of Harlem in general.
Growing up in Esplanade, Lenox Terrace, the Bowery Building, Riverton or any or the premier buildings like that or the prewars on Riverside Drive, or Brownstone in Brownstone Block where the owners still lived, would be a different Harlem experience than most of the general public outside of Harlem is aware of. We are on the same page because this is the Harlem I grew up in and the one I frequent, and am more intimately aware of. It still exist, and it is still going strong. It is more diverse racially now.
As for old people they are still respected and protected in the neighborhood. There may be some isolated incidents around, but it is the same as before, those criminals that harm old people, can't come around, they better hope that the police catch them before people in the neighborhood see them. That hasn't changed
When all we had were ourselves to rely on, we thrived. The welfare state and employment discrimination against black males has destroyed us.
Yes I agree. the supposed poverty alleviation programs werent designe dto help the poor. How can one escape poverty if in order to qualify for help women with kids had to chase the men out of the house. A steep increase in female headed households ocurred when two things happened. Increased automation and the transfer of jobsm first to the South, and then overseas made job prospects for uneducated urban men dire. So women decide that Uncle Sam made abetter husband than Tyrone and Jose so out they went.
If these programs were aimed at improving the skills of the poor and not in ensuring that they remained permanently poor, just more comfortable in their poverty we would see less pathologies today.
Don't forget the U.S. government (CIA) that allowed drugs to come into the black neighborhoods in the first place causing all kinds of havoc. The government hands are dirty too. As my friend always say "We [blacks] didn't own any planes or make the guns". Drugs also helped to break families up.
The 50's and back had two parent homes in most black families and extended families tended to live all together.
No, just a few loud people who choose not to acknowledge.
Thank you for your thoughtful posts. As you recognize, the Bronx and indeed all of NYC is a constantly changing organism. Some changes are for the good, the others end up bad. I think good people come from every background and in general they tend to be more color-blind.
Poor civil behavior, uncouth manners, criminal activity, etc. erode the civility of a good society. That is what happens when the uncivil-anti social reaches ciritical mass and drives out the good folks.
Parents need to be accountable for their kids. Just because you are fertile does not mean you should be parent.
Unfortunately, Liberalism has created a "Black Lost Boys" culture that is killing the opportunties of the Afro-American Community. What was earned in 1954 in the landmark court case "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" is now thrown away. I would argue that today's civil rights leaders have thrown away the lessons of the past and have helped to create a growing 'underclass' that will be beholden to pubic assistance for the rest of their lives.
Perhap even SOBRO gets this.
As I stated, I have friends of every background. Why, because they are quality people, and folks I choose to associate with. You can't choose who lives in your community.
Again, blaming "liberals" for the current state of our society is laughable...unless of course your memory or knowledge only goes back to 1960. Everything that was done post 1960 was driven from the bottom up through hard fought battles and protests to finally provide equality to all men and women. After several hundred years..it was kinda overdue. You do realize women could not even go to an IVY league school until the 70s and black-white marriages were illegal until then too. Those darn liberals and their "equality nonsense" ruining your "perfect and wholesome" America again!
There is no doubt that ultimately some government programs and policies had unforseen consequences, and as a lifelong resident of the Bronx I have lived them first hand. However, the idea that the current state of our society is due to "liberals" since the 1960s is revisionist history at best and an outright lie at worst. The allegation that blacks or people of color were somehow better off pre-1960, in the world of "seperate and unequal" (violently so in many cases) just because you can cherry pick a random stat or 2 showing they were "better off" than today is absurd. And the idea that our society was better or more "moral" is outright laughable...unless of course you were a white male...everyone else had it pretty bad. Which is kinda why there was so much social upheaval leading to the 1960s...not because everyone was so happy..because everyone was NOT HAPPY. Get it?
Why do you keep regurgitating that nonsense? It makes you seem like nothing more than a talking head for Fox News and strips you of any credibility you may have.
Again, blaming "liberals" for the current state of our society is laughable...unless of course your memory or knowledge only goes back to 1960. Everything that was done post 1960 was driven from the bottom up through hard fought battles and protests to finally provide equality to all men and women. After several hundred years..it was kinda overdue. You do realize women could not even go to an IVY league school until the 70s and black-white marriages were illegal until then too. Those darn liberals and their "equality nonsense" ruining your "perfect and wholesome" America again!
There is no doubt that ultimately some government programs and policies had unforseen consequences, and as a lifelong resident of the Bronx I have lived them first hand. However, the idea that the current state of our society is due to "liberals" since the 1960s is revisionist history at best and an outright lie at worst. The allegation that blacks or people of color were somehow better off pre-1960, in the world of "seperate and unequal" (violently so in many cases) just because you can cherry pick a random stat or 2 showing they were "better off" than today is absurd. And the idea that our society was better or more "moral" is outright laughable...unless of course you were a white male...everyone else had it pretty bad. Which is kinda why there was so much social upheaval leading to the 1960s...not because everyone was so happy..because everyone was NOT HAPPY. Get it?
Why do you keep regurgitating that nonsense? It makes you seem like nothing more than a talking head for Fox News and strips you of any credibility you may have.
Please my poor exaulted son, couch your comments in reality, it will be easier for the other readers on the board.
We could go back 500 years on this debate but what tangible steps can be taken now to fix this problem?
In looking at your comments (just narrowly on the side of ranting mind you), you kept stating the Irish were in Gettos too. Of course they were. So were Jews, Poles, Italians, etc. But after about 50 years or so, they moved out and generally moved up. That is not the way things have gone for current day getto inhabitants. Why?
Even after almost 50 years of government subsidies (of course, there were none for the white getto dwellers in the 19th ad 20th Century) there has been very little improvement. It appears that despite many helping hands, American Blacks and others in the Bronx are not prospering. The community itself must fix this problem, white people can't do it. And I will tell you, more and more people feel this way--it seems the more money applied to fix the various social ills does no good, the problems still remain and indeed often grows larger. There is a real sense of 'donor fatigue' setting in. I fear there will be a backlash given economic pressures as the far right KKK nutjobs starts talking about the 'white man's burden' and getting some sympathy from those who see little progress. This social welfare has to stop somewhere.
When one sees immigrants come to our country, not even knowing English, but after a decade or second generation, prosperubg, it bgs the question, why not those in the Bronx?
Even after almost 50 years of government subsidies (of course, there were none for the white getto dwellers in the 19th ad 20th Century) there has been very little improvement. It appears that despite many helping hands, American Blacks and others in the Bronx are not prospering. The community itself must fix this problem, white people can't do it.
This social welfare has to stop somewhere.
When one sees immigrants come to our country, not even knowing English, but after a decade or second generation, prosperubg, it bgs the question, why not those in the Bronx?
Well since you are opening a big can of worms here, I'll dive right in. These are some facts, not fiction, not theory.
Right now across the entire US the biggest group of people receiving gov't subsidy through HRA (welfare) in some form, across the US are Mexican immigrants.
In NYC it is immigrants from the Dominican Republic. This is according to NYC HRA statistics.
There is one specific problem with the DR immigrants is many work, but go every year to HRA for "one shot deal" to pay rent arrears (usually up to 7K), and con edison. Some also own property in DR that cannot be easily traced.
Black Americans and Puerto Ricans have much lower percentages per population than these 2 groups receiving subsidy from HRA in NYC now.
Much lower percentage across the US.
I don't think you can use Black Americans as scape goats for welfare problems anymore.
Well since you are opening a big can of worms here, I'll dive right in. These are some facts, not fiction, not theory.
Right now across the entire US the biggest group of people receiving gov't subsidy through HRA (welfare) in some form, across the US are Mexican immigrants.
In NYC it is immigrants from the Dominican Republic. This is according to NYC HRA statistics.
There is one specific problem with the DR immigrants is many work, but go every year to HRA for "one shot deal" to pay rent arrears (usually up to 7K), and con edison. Some also own property in DR that cannot be easily traced.
Black Americans and Puerto Ricans have much lower percentages per population than these 2 groups receiving subsidy from HRA in NYC now.
Much lower percentage across the US.
I don't think you can use Black Americans as scape goats for welfare problems anymore.
The Irish and those euro derived immigrants thereafter also experienced the ghetto, and "moved up and out" as you say after about 50 years, while the current Blacks and other people of color in the Bronx have not, according to you.
There are a couple problems with your assertions. The idea that after 50 years those euro derived immigrants were able to "move up and out". Well, sorta. Many were able to easily assimilate into the "white" culture, as the bar kept getting lower as increasingly more undesirable immigrants arrived. The Irish became "better than the Italians" who were eventually "better than the Jews" who were eventually "better than the Blacks." However, blacks can never "be white", but those other populations can appear so....making it much easier to mix into the dominant white culture.
Secondly, those existing populations of Irish, Italians, Jews etc did not "move up and out" moreso than many "got the heck out at any cost" when those brown and blacks showed up. They took advantage of GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS for low-cost loans to buy in the suburbs....which of course those black and brown people could never get. You do know the first planned development "Levittown" in Long Island expressely forbid blacks ON THE DEED right? Now how exactly do blacks and browns move up and out again?
Furthermore, there are LOTS of blacks and browns "moving up and out" since that time, despite all the challenges and lack of inherited wealth, and have been populating lots of the country, in particular Southern and Mid-Atlantic states.
However, there are still many that have remained...and to that I say...so what? How about we go to Appalachia and talk about how the whites just haven't been able to "move up and out" after several hundred years. Clearly it must be because of social programs since the 1960s? They are just lazy and like living off the government? Or is it because IN THAT AREA, the poor are stuck for a variety of reasons. And after 100+ years of development and investment in that region, not much has changed...so must be because those whites are lazy and addicted to social programs huh? Clearly the failure of these whites means the entire white population has failed...because that is your logic for those colored folks in the Bronx.
Webster, I really hope you can turn off Fox News, and realize our society functions such that there are lots of poor, and a few who benefit off exploiting them. Until that system changes, you will see segments of the population, whether it is people of color/whites, generationally poor. And it has nothing to do with "liberal policies of the 1960s."
I understand that not everyone has critical thinking skills, but I am laying it out for you as clearly and simply as possible.
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Queens Girl
