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They didn’t wa t to replace burned down tenements with even more projects. The Bronx was not desirable to live in and they did not want to concentrate more people in there.
NYCHA may not be the best building model. However, the presence of NYCHA saved major portions of the South Bronx as often they were the best mainfained units in the area. They also could not be burned down and their presence maintained the local stores. My classmates often envied those of us in the projects because we never really went without hot water, heat, and had elevators while they were often the victims of slum lords
Yeah I noticed that. I wonder if being further from a subway line is part of the reason. Or maybe because it's rowhome heavy?
For fun go onto YouTube and watch " South Bronx Heroes " with Mario Van Peebles. Corny film but shows you the way the South Bronx looked like when I was a kid in the 80s.
NYCHA may not be the best building model. However, the presence of NYCHA saved major portions of the South Bronx as often they were the best mainfained units in the area. They also could not be burned down and their presence maintained the local stores. My classmates often envied those of us in the projects because we never really went without hot water, heat, and had elevators while they were often the victims of slum lords
I just wish the rowhomes they put in place of the burned out buildings were nicer looking and flush with the street
For fun go onto YouTube and watch " South Bronx Heroes " with Mario Van Peebles. Corny film but shows you the way the South Bronx looked like when I was a kid in the 80s.
I did watch the movie Wyld Style, and remember seeing lots of vacant lots
If you walk around/take a bus through the South Bronx you can generally get a good feel for what is original and what is replacing what was destroyed. I do agree with most people here that the further west you went the less arson. The area along the 4 seems to have far, far less damage than along the 2/5 which at times you can tell whole blocks were simply wiped out. Good telltale signs are rowhomes that have vinyl siding, buildings with newer windows, taller/shorter buildings than the average 5/6 floor walkup. It seems the worst areas were Melrose, Morrisana, Longwood, Mott haven, Soundview, West Farms and parts of Tremont.
Has anyone ever made a map for this? I might even make one myself with color shading to show how hard (or not hard) each neighborhood was hit by this.
And another Bronx related question, is Parkchester used colloquially to refer to a whole neighborhood, or just the Parkchester complex? I'm curious because "Rochdale" is a neighborhood too, but I never hear anyone use "Rochdale" to refer to anything but the towers.
All you have to do is walk around and take a Google tour and you can see what areas. A lot of the South Bronx (Melrose, Morrisania, etc.) Most of the areas near subways were hit hard.
When white flight occurred, whites generally moved to the more isolated parts of the Bronx or left the Bronx entirely. For example, when the Jews fled the South Bronx, they moved to areas like Riverdale, and the Irish fled Norwood for Woodlawn. Throggs Neck (which is devoid of subways) was still highly respected as a middle to upper middle class neighborhood while most of the Bronx was a no go. The same is true for just about all of the other areas that are considered good neighborhoods. (Riverdale, Country Club, City Island, Pelham Bay, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park, etc.)
Parkchester is generally thought of as the complex, but people who live outside the complex refer to themselves as living in Parkchester as well (as in the general area). It should be noted that there was heavy discrimination to keep the Parkchester neighborhood mainly white, so the neighborhood did not look like what it looks like today (demographics wise).
The Bronx has a very interesting history. Neighborhoods were highly segregated and have remained so until recently. If you look at a lot of the white majority neighborhoods, they were mainly white until only recently when Hispanics and/or other groups started to move in.
I don't know if that's true, it looks like most of University Heights, Morris Heights, Highbridge, and Belmont are intact. Fordham and Concourse even more so
University Heights, Morris Heights and Belmont all experienced white flight. A perfect example is Charles Moerdler. He is on the MTA board. He grew up in University Heights. When white flight hit, he moved to Riverdale.
Keep in mind that the Bronx was created as an escape for the middle class, which back in the day was mainly white, so most of the Bronx was white going back to the 60s even. When black and brown people started moving in, that's when whites started leaving en mass or ran to the furthest out of the way parts of the Bronx. Co-op City was once heavily Jewish. When blacks and Hispanics started to move in, whites moved out, to Riverdale, to Westchester, etc.
Co-op City despite being mainly black, has managed to stabilize itself into a mainly working class area, and there are still some whites living there that are hold overs. The area didn't suffer too much from the whole arson situation.
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