The Decline of the Bronx (Cortland, Roosevelt: houses, neighborhoods, living in)

[Songbird42]

Let me start by saying I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings here, that's not my intent, whether Hispanic/Black/Asian/or whatever. I lived in the Bronx from 1947 to 1964, I was a teenager then, back then my neighborhood was mostly Jewish/Irish/German, period. We were one block off the Concourse and from the low 80's North all the way to Moshula Parkway(sp) there were only whites, very very few of other nationalities. The Italians were over in the Belmont Section, the Hispancis (Puerto Ricans) were over by Kelly St, Simpson Ave and Charlotte St. The Blacks stayed below the 70's and didn't venture North for fear of getting their a**s beat. Things started to change around 67 from what I can remember being told, there was a major blackout and everyone went nuts, looting/burning....which I believe was unneccessary
and vicious. From that point on, things just went downhill....WHY?

Is it that those who were the poorest, felt the need to vandalize/burn/rob
and beat, because the had less than everyone else? Did they need to bring a whole borough to its knees like savages, did it make them feel better?
There were still some very good citizens that remained, as today, I can count on one hand friends that stayed, eventually, the madness made everyone get out of dodge, so to speak. Those that stayed, well, they struggle and try to survive. Meanwhile, the borough also struggles, they try to clean up areas, the local parks and clean up buildings, and still there are those that given half a chance would destroy what they have. WHY.

For the life of me, I can't understand the reasoning behind it all, I mean the Bronx was a good place for many years, then all of a sudden, a zoo, don't people have any pride in where they live, shop, work......don't get me wrong I love my birthplace, I will defend it with my whole heart, but when I see and hear gangster gangbangers talking sh*t about this being their hood, and they rule the Bronx, I want to scream and holler and tell them to go back to whereever they came from, because they didn't originate in my hometown.
And I want them to get the hell out of there, they give my hometown a bad name.

Thank you for letting me rant, I feel better now. BTW, I come from 183rd St
now one of the worst blocks (as I've been told-right Hustla) in the Bronx.

Your comments welcome............

[mead]

Yeah its kind of depressing to think about stuff like that, so I don't think about it too often.

There are lots of causes for it the decline and fall of the Bronx. The creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s which led to the suburbanization of the country and white flight, the northern migration of blacks out of the south in the 50s and 60s, the immigration of large numbers of Puerto Ricans to NYC starting in the 1950s (most of whom had trouble speaking English and finding a job), the creation of the welfare state in the 1960s with Johnson's Great Society, the creation of large numbers of housing projects in the Bronx and Northern Manhattan, the plague of drugs (heroin, cocaine, crack) that hit America in the past couple of decades, and the breakdown of the traditional family.

All of this stuff combined back in the 50s/60s/70s/80s to create a "perfect storm" of storts that created the living hell that exists in the majority of neighborhoods in the Bronx today.

Many people forget that up until the 1950s the Bronx was a really nice place to live. A very stable middle class community. It used to be the most heavily Jewish area in NYC. All the white people left though. There are only a handful of white neighborhoods left in the borough, and even some of those are falling apart at the moment.

The Bronx was definitely hit the worst in all of NYC during that time period. Brooklyn was probably the 2nd worst affected. Queens and Staten Island got thru this time period unscathed, for the most part.

Its interesting to sit down and think about this stuff sometimes, if only to learn from the mistakes and make sure it doesn't happen again. I don't think NYC could survive another collapse of one of its boroughs.

EDIT: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the blackout riot occured in the 1970s (1977?) and not in the 1960s?

[Freak]

Two neighborhoods in the Bronx, Riverdale and Country Club, will never change from the middle-upper class neighborhoods they are. Others like Woodlawn and City Island have stabilized into nice neighborhoods. One, Van Cortlandt Village, is a nice neighborhood getting better. Morris Park and parts of Throgs Neck could potentially continue to see decline as they have in recent years, but they'll never be "ghetto-bad".

Everything else in the Bronx remains undesirable to moi.

[ogplife]

Originally Posted by Songbird42

Let me start by saying I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings here, that's not my intent, whether Hispanic/Black/Asian/or whatever. I lived in the Bronx from 1947 to 1964, I was a teenager then, back then my neighborhood was mostly Jewish/Irish/German, period. We were one block off the Concourse and from the low 80's North all the way to Moshula Parkway(sp) there were only whites, very very few of other nationalities. The Italians were over in the Belmont Section, the Hispancis (Puerto Ricans) were over by Kelly St, Simpson Ave and Charlotte St. The Blacks stayed below the 70's and didn't venture North for fear of getting their a**s beat. Things started to change around 67 from what I can remember being told, there was a major blackout and everyone went nuts, looting/burning....which I believe was unneccessary
and vicious. From that point on, things just went downhill....WHY?

Is it that those who were the poorest, felt the need to vandalize/burn/rob
and beat, because the had less than everyone else? Did they need to bring a whole borough to its knees like savages, did it make them feel better?
There were still some very good citizens that remained, as today, I can count on one hand friends that stayed, eventually, the madness made everyone get out of dodge, so to speak. Those that stayed, well, they struggle and try to survive. Meanwhile, the borough also struggles, they try to clean up areas, the local parks and clean up buildings, and still there are those that given half a chance would destroy what they have. WHY.

For the life of me, I can't understand the reasoning behind it all, I mean the Bronx was a good place for many years, then all of a sudden, a zoo, don't people have any pride in where they live, shop, work......don't get me wrong I love my birthplace, I will defend it with my whole heart, but when I see and hear gangster gangbangers talking sh*t about this being their hood, and they rule the Bronx, I want to scream and holler and tell them to go back to whereever they came from, because they didn't originate in my hometown.
And I want them to get the hell out of there, they give my hometown a bad name.

Thank you for letting me rant, I feel better now. BTW, I come from 183rd St
now one of the worst blocks (as I've been told-right Hustla) in the Bronx.

Your comments welcome............

This is going to set this forum on fire. I can't wait to read the responses. My prediction is 50 responses.

[mead]

Hey what he wrote might not be popular or politically-correct, but its definitely true. Sometimes the truth hurts, and a lot of people in the NYC area don't want to think about what happened during that time period. It was painful for many people to have to flee their old neighborhoods and move out to the burbs.

[BXGEAR]

You can't blame anyone because there is no one person to blame. Everyone is to blame. Somehow, in varying degrees, everyone had a hand in the downfall of NYC (esp. the Bronx). People tend to blame other people. Other people tend to blame the government. Others blame themselves. It's a never-ending cycle of whodunit.

This world is flawed because we are human. But as humans we have the power to try our best and make things better. So, instead of wrestling with the past, look towards how we can change the future.

[mead]

Well I think one guy in particular deserves a lot of the blame:

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1968/1101681101_400.jpg (broken link)

[Songbird42]

More often that not, I've heard people from NY say that Lindsay and his programs turned NY into a slum.........I've even heard people say the Robert Moses was to blame because he built the CrossBronxExpressway and split some of the streets in half.

Back in the 60's I could walk the Concourse, hang out in front of Roosevelt HS, walk anywhere in the middle of the night and not hesitate or be afraid.
I could walk through St. James Park and not a soul would be around.
When I was around 6 yrs old, I rode the Bus from Fordham Rd. to Woodlawn
get off walk up the hill at 237th St. and no one would bother me, going to grandma's house. And yes, back then the middleclass were all white and everyone knew their place.

Gotta tell you, I was back to 183rd St. awhile ago, nasty people, mostly
black the apts houses looked OK, my old house has seen better days.
The garage is not there, the illegal apt in the basement looks like crap.

There's a saying, you can't go home again......sorry to say, but I can't see living in that area ever again......also as you get older you tend to want to go back to what/where you felt most comfortable.......this is where I'm at
right now........I wanna go back to what I remember, but can't.

[BXGEAR]

^thats sad. i think we're all going to feel that way sooner or later

[SuperMario]

Originally Posted by Songbird42

Thank you for letting me rant, I feel better now. BTW, I come from 183rd St
now one of the worst blocks (as I've been told-right Hustla) in the Bronx.

Your comments welcome............

Yeah, I live on 183rd st, it's definately rough. The Bronx has a lot of poverty, that alone conduces violence. It sets up a ghetto. You see that in most of the Bronx. My block has been getting worse IMO. Alot of "new" neighbors moving in, with bad intentions.