Old Timers How did the Bronx looked before it turned "Ghetto"? (Bedford: home, neighborhoods)
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Yes it's a CLASS issue, not race. But just you wait, pretty soon I won't be surprised if instead of being called a racist, I'm now called a classist...LOL. Someone will always be offended now matter what.
Nope... No problems with being classist as long as we're not talking about income... You however, clearly subscribe to the theory (whether you choose to admit it to yourself or not) that only black and hispanic people can be ghetto and create problems... I understand that where you live at causes your feelings of resentment but if that's truly the case, moving may be your best option. I'd suggest Pelham Parkway... At least there you'd be able to see how your notions are so outdated it's ridiculous... For the record, from what I've seen majority of the people you speak with on here are black or hispanic including myself... do we fit the mold you seem to hold for all of us?...
Have you ever been extremely poor close to homeless and have no idea where and when your next meal will comes because if you have then you'll know the last thing on their mind is wasting time, energy, and money on making sure things are aesthetically pleasing.
It is more than evident that Libertarian knows for nothing, buttttt...
It is when you are nearing or even in such a state, that you need standards, and the will to maintain them. Otherwise, there will be nothing, but the abyss.
It is in the 'Will' to refuse to fall no further, that brings one back from the brink.
Cleanliness is a matter of maintaing the spirit.
I personally have looked into the Abyss. Shocked to find myself at the precipice, I gathered my 'bootstraps', turned, and took my first step forward....
Sometimes, the first step is cleanliness. Clean your thoughts, your mind, your body, and your surroundings. Sometimes, you just gotta remove yourself from an unClean environment.
Whatever you do, you refuse to accept what is unacceptable!
Control yourself and control your environment.
Unfortunately, many have no control over themselves, and, consequently, none over their environment.
Despite what "El Jefe Sobro" proclaims that I am living in a romantic fantasyland, the Bronx was much better about 50 years ago than now. In ever metric from housing, school scores and achievement, tax revenues, crime, public safety, it was generally better. Many of my older relatives and family friends can vouch for this. What hurt our beloved Bronx was many factors, and chief among them was Robert Moses, and liberal policies.
Here is a picture of 4th of July kids dancing at Poe Park in 1964. Doubt we will ever see those times again.
I'm only 23 so i have only seen it ghetto all my life.
I really dislike the word "ghetto". For us older people the word belongs in WW2 and should have stayed there. There is nothing now that fits the description of it from then to now. Now if you are comparing the same low income area from then to now. Then you have much more now than we had then. A 3-bedroom apartment was a 3-family apartment then. If we had a car it was a rust bucket compared to your pocket rocket. TV was a 13" B/W. If we got bored during hot summer nights, we'd set out mouse traps and see how many we could catch within a few hours. Go ahead and give us something to compare to. The only advice I can give you to get out of a poor area is to get educated, get experience and move somewhere else where those skills are needed. BTW getting educated never stops. The more you get the more options you have. Don't listen to the idiots who tell you there are no jobs upon graduation. There are. They have to do what we did, move to where the jobs are.
Good question. At that time in my life near Fordham Road and Kingsbridge in the early 1960s, I saw relatively few black people. I do recall very clearly seeing an Asian man on Fordham Road when walking with my Mom on the overpass going over the Grand Concourse. I had never seen an Asian person before, very black straight hair, eyes, etc. As a child it was fasinating. I did hear ugly words about 'f.... Japs' from an Uncle who fought in the Pacific. You have to recall WWII ended only 18/19 years earlier. Kind of how we view Desert Storm (Storming Norman and Colin Powell) today.
I fist started seeing Blacks and Hispanics in the mid 1960s to late 1960s. 1967 sticks out in my mind I was old enough to see differences. In ones or twos they were like everyone else in the area, but in larger groups they tended to be very loud and uncivil. Now we had some of the same kind of idiots in the nabe, but they seemed more acceptable, likely because they were white.
By 1970, the ratio of blacks/hispanics was clearly rising. The the crime rose, vandalism increase greatly, and many white families, especially those with kids, moved.
St. James Park and Poe Park by 1974 were clearly deteroiating. The only thing that changed was the demographics.
Interesting thread. From a different perspective, I grew up about 30 miles northwest of the city in a small town that was predominantly people of Dutch descent and Protestant (and mostly the two church denominations descended from the Dutch Reformed Church). I was fifth generation from Holland born in that town. There was a fairly-new Catholic church in town, because other people had begun to move into the area after WWII. (I was born in 1958.)
In the mid-1960's, developers cleared out a large area in town that had previously been woods and farmlands and threw up these little houses on small lots and pitched them to city people. Within a few years, droves of people from the Bronx moved into our town and packed their families into these little houses. They were Irish, Italian, and Polish and had these funny last names. The kids were so different from us--they were loud and rude, they got into fights after school sometimes, they swore, and their mothers dyed their hair and wore makeup. Their fathers did shocking things like using their lawn mowers on Sundays. And most amazing of all, they were mostly Catholic. The kids would get out of school early to attend something called catechism classes in order to make their First Communion. The rest of us kids had no idea what that meant, but we knew it was because they were Catholic. They were just very, very different people from what we were used to.
When I look back on that, it's hilarious how isolated and naive our community was. In 1971, just before he died, my grandfather was horrified when my sister became engaged to an Italian. He didn't live to see my other sister marry the black guy.
Anyway, in answer to the OP question, I don't know what the Bronx was like years ago, but I can tell you where all those people went who used to live there!
so blacks in the bx are the reason for all your problems?
wow. still blaming black people for everything that is messed
up in this world. and you wonder why some people can't stand
whites.
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Good Question
