The Bronx

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The Bronx
—  Borough of New York City  —
The Bronx is widely known as the location of Yankee Stadium, the famous baseball stadium
Location of The Bronx shown in yellow.
Coordinates: 40°50′14″N 73°53′10″W / 40.83722, -73.88611
Country	United States
State	New York
County	Bronx
City	New York City
Settled	1639
Government
- Borough president	Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Area
- Total	57.43 sq mi (148.7 km²)
- Land	42.03 sq mi (108.9 km²)
- Water	15.40 sq mi (39.9 km²)
Population
- Total	1,332,650
- Density	31,709/sq mi (12,242.9/km²)
Website: www.ilovethebronx.com—Official website of the Bronx Borough President

The Bronx is New York City's northernmost borough, coterminous with Bronx County. The Bronx is located northeast of Manhattan. It is the only one of the city's five boroughs situated primarily on the United States mainland (the others are on islands). As of 2006, the United States Census Bureau estimated that the borough's population was 1,361,473,^[1] which ranks fourth of the five boroughs. Recently, its population, which had been declining since it peaked in 1950,^[2] showed a small increase.

The Bronx is referred to, both legally,^[3] and colloquially,^[4] with a definite article, as The Bronx. (The name of Bronx County, which is coterminous, does not include a the, nor does the USPS in its address database.^[5]) The name for this region first appeared in the Annexed District of the Bronx created in 1874 out of part of Westchester County and named after the Bronx River, and was continued in the Borough of the Bronx, which included a larger annexation from Westchester County in 1898. The use of the definite article is attributed to the style of referring to rivers.^[6][7] The river itself was named after Jonas Bronck, a Swedish sea captain and 1641 resident whose 500 acres (2.0 km²) farm lay between the Harlem River and the Bronx River, the latter of which was then known as the Aquahung by Native Americans. Another explanation for the use of the definite article in the borough's name is that the original form of the name was possessive: The Bronck's.

The Bronx was called Rananchqua^[8] by the native Siwanoy^[9] band of Lenape, while other Natives knew The Bronx as Keskeskeck.^[10] It was divided by the Aquahung River, now known as the Bronx River. The land was first settled by Europeans in 1639, when Jonas Bronck, for whom the area was later named, established a farm along the Harlem River in the area now known as the Mott Haven section. The Dutch and English settlers referred to the area as Bronck's Land.^[11]

The territory now contained within Bronx County was originally part of Westchester County, an original county of New York state. The present Bronx County was contained in four towns: Westchester, Yonkers, Eastchester, and Pelham.

In 1846, a new town, West Farms, was created by division of Westchester; in turn, in 1855, the town of Morrisania was created from West Farms. In 1873, the town of Kingsbridge (roughly corresponding to the modern Bronx neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Riverdale, and Woodlawn) was established within the former borders of Yonkers. On 1874-01-01, the western portion of the present Bronx County, consisting of the towns of Kingsbridge, West Farms, and Morrisania, was transferred to New York County, and to New York City; the three towns were abolished in the process.^[12][13] On 1895-06-06, the Town of Westchester and portions of Eastchester and Pelham, similarly were transferred to New York County and City.^[12][14] City Island, New York City's only nautical community, voted to join New York County in 1896. In 1898, the amalgamated City of New York was created, including the Bronx as one of its five boroughs (although still within New York County). On 1912-04-19, those parts of the then New York County which had been annexed from Westchester County in the past decades were newly constituted as Bronx County, while keeping its status as a borough of New York City. ^[12][15]

The Bronx underwent rapid growth after World War I. Extensions of the New York City Subway contributed to the increase in population as thousands of immigrants flooded the Bronx, resulting in a major boom in residential construction. Among these groups, many Irish and Italians but especially Jews settled here. Author Willa Cather, tobacco merchant Pierre Lorillard, and inventor Jordan Mott were famous settlers. In addition, French, German, and Polish immigrants moved into the borough. The Jewish population also increased notably during this time. Many synagogues still stand in the Bronx, but most have been converted to other uses.

In prohibition days, bootleggers and gangs ran rampant in the Bronx. Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants smuggled in most of the illegal whiskey. By 1926, the Bronx was noted for its high crime rate and its many speakeasies.

After the 1930s, the Irish immigrant population in the Bronx decreased. The German population followed suit in the 1940s, as did many Italians in the 1950s and Jews in the 1960s. As the generation of the 1930s retired, many moved to southeastern Florida, west of Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach. The migration has left a thriving Hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican) and African-American population, along with some white areas in the far southeastern and northwestern parts of the county.

During the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the Bronx went into an era of sharp change in the residents' quality of life. Historians and social scientists have put forward many factors. They include the theory that Robert Moses' Cross-Bronx Expressway destroyed existing low-density neighborhoods, as well as the development of high-density housing projects. Another factor may have been the reduction by insurance companies and banks in offering property-related financial services (mortgages) to some areas of the Bronx — a process known as redlining.

In the 1970s, the Bronx was plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was mostly in the South Bronx, concentrated especially along Westchester Avenue and in West Farms. The most common explanation of what occurred was that landlords decided to burn their buildings and take the insurance money as profit.^[16] Competing explanations blamed the insurance companies since their non-renewals of policies encouraged the landlords, or the residents themselves. After the destruction of many buildings in the South Bronx, the arsons slowed significantly in the later part of the decade, but the aftereffects were still felt into the early 1990s.

Since the early 1990s, significant residential development has occurred. Groups affiliated with South Bronx churches have built the Nehemiah Homes with about 1,000 units. This and other developments have began to rebuild the South Bronx, and the ripple effects are felt borough-wide. This is due to many reasons, but primarily to community members working to build the community back up once again by creating affordable housing. As a result of the growing population, the IRT White Plains Road Line has had an increase in riders. Business chains such as Staples have started stores in the Bronx, and the number of bank branches has increased.

In 1997, the Bronx was designated an All America City by the National Civic League, signifying its comeback from the decline of the 1970s. In 2006, the New York Times reported that "construction cranes have become the borough's new visual metaphor, replacing the window decals of the 1980's in which pictures of potted plants and drawn curtains were placed in the windows of abandoned buildings."^[17]. The borough has experienced substantial new building construction since 2002. Between 2002 and June 2007, 33,687 new units of housing were built or were under way and $4.799 billion has been invested in new housing. In the first six months of 2007 alone total investment in new residential development was $965 million and 5,187 residential units were scheduled to be completed. Much of the new development is springing up in formerly vacant lots across the South Bronx.^[18]

Contents 1 Geography 1.1 Neighborhoods 1.1.1 West Bronx 1.1.2 East Bronx 1.1.2.1 City Island 1.1.3 South Bronx 2 Government 3 Demographics 3.1 Ethnicity and race 3.2 Household size and age distribution 4 Shopping 5 Culture: from Poe to hip-hop 5.1 The Bronx in the movies 5.2 Media 5.3 Poetry and The Bronx 6 Transportation 6.1 Roads 6.2 Bridges and tunnels 6.3 Mass transit 7 Education 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

[edit] Geography

The Bronx is almost entirely situated on the North American mainland.^[19] The Hudson River separates the Bronx from New Jersey to its west, the Harlem River separates it from the island of Manhattan to the southwest, the East River separates it from Queens to the southeast, and Long Island Sound separates it from Nassau County to the east. Westchester County is directly north of the Bronx. The Bronx also includes several small islands in the East River and Long Island Sound. Rikers Island in the East River is home to the Rikers island jail facility. Although it is a part of Bronx County, the island is only accessible by a bridge running from Queens to the island.

As a part of New York City, Bronx County contains no other political subdivisions. It is located at 40°42′15″N, 73°55′5″W (40.704234, -73.917927).^[20] According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 148.7 km² (57.4 sq mi). 108.9 km² (42.0 sq mi) of it is land and 39.9 km² (15.4 sq mi) of it (26.82%) is water.

The Bronx River flows south from Westchester County through the borough, emptying into the East River; it is the only freshwater river in New York City. A smaller river, the Hutchinson River, passes through the east Bronx and empties into Eastchester Bay. The borough includes two of the largest parks in New York City, Pelham Bay Park and Van Cortlandt Park. Pelham Bay Park includes a large man-made public beach called Orchard Beach, created by Robert Moses. Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in New York City, is located near the border with Westchester County. It opened in 1863, at a time when the Bronx was still considered a rural area.

The United States Postal Service zip code prefix is 104xx, meaning all of the Bronx zip codes begin with the zip 104. Like Manhattan, all numbered streets run east-west, with Jerome Avenue as the dividing line, the equivalent of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Broadway, Park Avenue, and 3rd Avenue are continuations of Manhattan avenues.

[edit] Neighborhoods

See also: List of Bronx neighborhoods

A Department of City Planning map names 49 neighborhoods in the Bronx. Notable Bronx neighborhoods include the South Bronx, Little Italy on Arthur Avenue in the Belmont section, and Riverdale.

[edit] West Bronx

Main article: West Bronx

The western parts of the Bronx are hilly and are dominated by a series of parallel ridges, running south to north. The West Bronx has older apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, multifamily homes in its lower income areas as well as larger single family homes in more affluent areas such as Riverdale. It includes New York City's fourth largest park: Van Cortlandt Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. The Grand Concourse, a wide boulevard runs through it, north to south. Neighborhoods include: Port Morris, Mott Haven, Melrose, Morrisania, East Morrisania, Longwood, Hunts Point, Concourse, Highbridge, West Farms, East Tremont, Tremont, Morris Heights, University Heights, Belmont, Fordham, Fordham-Bedford, Bedford Park, Norwood, Kingsbridge Heights, Kingsbridge, Riverdale, and Woodlawn.

[edit] East Bronx

East of the Bronx River, the borough is flatter, and includes four large low peninsulas or necks of low-lying land that jut into the waters of the East River and were once saltmarsh: Hunts Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck (Castle Hill Point) and Throgs Neck. The East Bronx has older tenement buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multifamily homes, as well as smaller and larger single family homes. It includes New York City's largest park: Pelham Bay Park along the Westchester-Bronx border. Neighborhoods include: Harding Park, Soundview, Castle Hill, Parkchester, Westchester Square, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park, Throgs Neck, Country Club, City Island, Pelham Bay, Williamsbridge, Eastchester, Baychester, Edenwald, Wakefield, and Co-op City.

[edit] City Island

Main article: City Island, Bronx

City Island is located in Long Island Sound, and is known for its seafood restaurants and waterfront private homes. City Island's single shopping street, City Island Avenue, is reminiscent of a small New England town. It is connected to the mainland by the City Island Bridge. The Long Island Sound is to its east.

[edit] South Bronx

Main article: South Bronx, New York

The South Bronx has no official boundaries. The name has been used to represent poverty in the Bronx. The informal designation has moved northward in recent decades so that by the 2000s the name, the South Bronx, has come to be applied to the area roughly bound by Fordham Road to the north and the Bronx River to the east. Today neighborhoods outside of this area are economically distressed, as well. The South Bronx is filled with high-density apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multi-unit homes. The South Bronx is home to the Bronx County Court House, Borough Hall, and other government buildings, as well as Yankee Stadium. The Cross Bronx Expressway bisects it, east to west. The South Bronx has some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, as well as very high crime areas. Neighborhoods include: the Hub, a retail district at Third Avenue and East 149th Street, Mott Haven, Melrose, Morrisania, East Morrisania, Hunts Point, Longwood, Highbridge, Concourse, West Farms, East Tremont, Tremont, Morris Heights, University Heights, Belmont, and Fordham.

[edit] Government

Main article: Government of New York City

Presidential election results

Year	Republican	Democrat
2004	16.5% 56,701	82.8% 283,994
2000	11.8% 36,245	86.3% 265,801
1996	10.5% 30,435	85.8% 248,276
1992	20.7% 63,310	73.7% 225,038
1988	25.5% 76,043	73.2% 218,245
1984	32.8% 109,308	66.9% 223,112
1980	30.7% 86,843	64.0% 181,090
1976	28.7% 96,842	70.8% 238,786
1972	44.6% 196,756	55.2% 243,345
1968	32.0% 142,314	62.4% 277,385
1964	25.2% 135,780	74.7% 403,014
1960	31.8% 182,393	67.9% 389,818

Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, the Bronx has been governed by the New York City Charter that provides for a "strong" mayor-council system. The centralized New York City government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services in the Bronx.

The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 to balance centralization with local authority. Each borough president had a powerful administrative role derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. In 1989 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had no greater effective representation on the Board than Staten Island, the least populous borough, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision.^[21] Since 1990 the Borough President has acted as an advocate for the borough at the mayoral agencies, the City Council, the New York state government, and corporations. The Borough President of the Bronx is Adolfo Carrión Jr., elected as a Democrat in 2001 and re-elected in 2005.

The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. Local party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Controversial political issues in the Bronx include environmental issues, the cost of housing, and annexation of parkland for New Yankee Stadium.

The Bronx, as each of the other counties of New York City, has its own criminal court system and District Attorney, the chief public prosecutor who is directly elected by popular vote. Robert T. Johnson, a Democrat, has been the District Attorney of Bronx County since 1989. He was the first African-American District Attorney in New York State. The Bronx has 9 City Council members. It also has 12 administrative districts, each served by a local Community Board. Community Boards are representative bodies that field complaints and serve as advocates for local residents.

In the 2004 presidential election Democrat John Kerry received 82.8% of the vote in the Bronx and Republican George W. Bush received 16.5%.

[edit] Demographics

Main article: Demographics of The Bronx

Historical populations
Census	Pop.		%±
1900	200,507		—
1910	430,980		114.9%
1920	732,016		69.8%
1930	1,265,258		72.8%
1940	1,394,711		10.2%
1950	1,451,277		4.1%
1960	1,424,815		-1.8%
1970	1,471,701		3.3%
1980	1,168,972		-20.6%
1990	1,203,789		3.0%
2000	1,332,650		10.7%
Population 1920–1990.[22] Population 1900-1910[citation needed]

[edit] Ethnicity and race

As of the census^[23] of 2000, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough. The population density was 12,242.2/km² (31,709.3/sq mi). There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of 4,507.4/km² (11,674.8/sq mi). The racial makeup (in Census terminology) of the borough was 35.64% Black or African-American, 29.87% White (14.53% White non-Hispanic), 0.85% Native American, 3.01% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 24.74% from other races, and 5.78% from two or more races. Also 48.38% of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race. (The 2005 U.S. census estimates that the percentage of Latinos has increased to a majority: 51.3%.) The Bronx has one of the highest percentages of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in the U.S. with 24.0% and 20.0%, respectively. However, the Puerto Rican population has slowly been declining over the last few years^{[citation needed]} and the Dominican population has increased.

West Africa is the most frequent region of origin for immigrants to the Bronx. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service data shows that in 1996, about two-thirds of those Ghanaians arriving in the United States, and nearly three-fourths of those naturalized, live in The Bronx. Many have clustered in Bronx communities along the Grand Concourse.^[24]

Based on sample data from the 2000 census, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 47.29% of the population five and older speak only English at home. 43.67% speak Spanish at home, either exclusively or along with English. Other languages or groups of languages spoken at home by more than 0.25% of the population of the Bronx include Italian (1.36%), Albanian (1.07%), Kru, Ibo, or Yoruba (0.72%), French (0.54%).

The African-American and Puerto Rican populations have begun to decline in the 2000s,^{[citation needed]}. The Dominican population has increased significantly in the last five years, and is expected to be double from 2000 to 2010^{[citation needed]}. The Jamaican population continues to increase^{[citation needed]}. Albanians and Russians are some of the recently arrived European immigrants living mainly in the east Bronx. The size of southern Asian-origin ethnicities has grown, including immigrants from Bangladesh and other countries.

[edit] Household size and age distribution

There were 463,212 households out of which 38.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.4% were married couples living together, 30.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.0% were non-families. 27.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.37.

The age distribution of the population in the Bronx was as follows: 29.8% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 30.7% from 25 to 44, 18.8% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 87.0 males.

The median income for a household in the borough was $27,611, and the median income for a family was $30,682. Males had a median income of $31,178 versus $29,429 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $13,959. About 28.0% of families and 30.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 41.5% of those under age 18 and 21.3% of those age 65 or over.

While the Bronx as a whole is one of the poorest areas in the United States, there is wide variation between neighborhoods, including affluent areas such as Riverdale and Country Club.

[edit] Shopping

Prominent shopping areas in the Bronx include Fordham Road, Bay Plaza, The Hub, River/Kingsbridge Shopping center, Bruckner Blvd. Shops are also concentrated on streets aligned underneath elevated lines, including Westchester Avenue, White Plains Road, Jerome Avenue, and Broadway.

[edit] Culture: from Poe to hip-hop

Author Edgar Allan Poe spent the last years of his life (1846 to 1849) in the Bronx at Poe Cottage, now located at Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse. A small wooden farmhouse built about 1812, the cottage once commanded unobstructed vistas over the rolling Bronx hills to the shores of Long Island.^[25]

In recent years, the Bronx has become an important center of African-American culture. Hip hop first emerged in the South Bronx in the early 1970s. The New York Times has identified 1520 Sedgwick Avenue "an otherwise unremarkable high-rise just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway and hard along the Major Deegan Expressway" as the starting point, where DJ Kool Herc presided over parties in the community room.^[27][28] Beginning with the advent of beat match DJing, in which Bronx DJs including Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Kool Herc extended the breaks of funk records, a major new musical genre emerged that sought to isolate the percussion breaks of hit funk, disco and soul songs. As hip hop's popularity grew, performers began speaking ("rapping") in sync with the beats, and became known as MCs or emcees. The Herculoids, made up of Herc, Coke La Rock, and Clark Kent, were the earliest to gain major fame. The Bronx is referred to in hip-hop slang as "The Boogie Down Bronx", or just "The Boogie Down". This was hip-hop pioneer KRS-One's inspiration for his thought provoking group BDP, or Boogie Down Productions, which included DJ Scott La Rock. Newer hip hop artists from the Bronx include Fat Joe, Big Pun (deceased), Swizz Beatz, Drag-On and Terror Squad.

The Bronx is home to several Off-Off-Broadway theaters, many staging new works by immigrant playwrights from Latin America and Africa. The Pregones Theater, which produces Latin American work, opened a new 130-seat theater in 2005 on Walton Avenue in the South Bronx. Some artists from elsewhere in New York City have begun to converge on the area, and housing prices have nearly quadrupled in the area since 2002. However rising prices directly correlate to a housing shortage across the city and the entire metro area.

The Bronx Museum of the Arts, founded in 1971, exhibits 20th century and contemporary art through its central museum space and 11,000 square feet (1,000 m²) of galleries. Many of its exhibitions are on themes of special interest to the Bronx. Its permanent collection features more than 800 works of art, primarily by artists from Africa, Asia and Latin America, including paintings, photographs, prints, drawings, and mixed media. The museum was temporarily closed in 2006 while it underwent a major expansion designed by the architectural firm Arquitectonica.

Other major cultural sites in the Bronx include The New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo, and the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, a national landmark overlooking the Harlem River and designed by the renowned architect Stanford White and Yankee Stadium which is the home of the New York Yankees

[edit] The Bronx in the movies

Originally, movies set in the Bronx portrayed densely-settled, working-class, urban culture. Paddy Chayefsky's Academy Award-winning Marty is the epitome of this, with its tag line, "What are you doing, Marty? Nothing." This thematic line has continued in the 1993 Robert De Niro/Chazz Palminteri film, A Bronx Tale, Spike Lee's 1999 movie Summer of Sam, centered in an Italian-American Bronx community, 1994's I Like It Like That that takes place in the predominately Puerto Rican neighborhood of the South Bronx, and Doughboys, the story of two Italian-American brothers who are in danger of losing their bakery thanks to one brother's gambling debts.

Other movies have used the term Bronx for comic effect, such as the 1995 Jackie Chan film Rumble in the Bronx (Hong faan kui in Cantonese) — which had nothing to do with the real Bronx, and "Bronx", the character on the Disney animated series Gargoyles.

Starting in the 1970s, the Bronx often symbolized violence, decay, and urban ruin. In casual French c'est le Bronx stands for what a mess. The wave of arson in the South Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s launched the phrase the Bronx is burning: in 1974 it was the title of both a New York Times editorial and a BBC documentary film. The line entered the pop-consciousness with Game Two of the 1977 World Series, when a fire broke out near Yankee Stadium as the team was playing the Los Angeles Dodgers. As the fire was captured on live television, announcer Howard Cosell intoned, "There it is, ladies and gentlemen: The Bronx is burning". Historians of New York City frequently point to Cosell's remark as a sign of both the city and the borough's decline.^[29] A new feature-length documentary film by Edwin Pagan called Bronx Burning is in production^[30] in 2006, chronicling what led up to the arson-for-insurance fraud fires of the 1970s and the subsequent rebirth of the community.

These themes have been especially pervasive in representations of the Bronx in cinema. There are good depictions of Bronx gangs in the 1974 novel The Wanderers by Bronx native Richard Price and the 1979 movie of the same name. They are set in the heart of the Bronx, showing apartment life and the then-landmark Krums ice cream parlor. In the 1979 film The Warriors, the eponymous gang go to a meeting in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, and have to fight their way back to Coney Island in Brooklyn. The 2005 video game adaptation features levels called Pelham, Tremont, and "Gunhill" (an apparent corruption of the name Gun Hill Road).

This theme lends itself to the title of The Bronx is Burning, an eight-part ESPN TV mini-series (2007) about the New York Yankees' drive to winning baseball's 1977 World Series. The TV series emphasizes the boisterous nature of the team, led by manager Billy Martin, catcher Thurman Munson and outfielder Reggie Jackson, as well as the malaise of the Bronx and New York City in general during that time, such as the blackout, the financial problems, the arson issues, and the election of Ed Koch as mayor.

The 1981 film Fort Apache, The Bronx also portrayed the Bronx as gang- and crime-ridden. The film's title is from the nickname for the 41st Police Precinct in the South Bronx. This movie was condemned by community leaders for condoning police brutality, and for its unflattering depiction of the borough; former Young Lords member and Puerto Rican activist Richie Perez formed a protest group, The Committee Against Fort Apache. By contrast, Knights of the South Bronx, a true story of a teacher who worked with disadvantaged children, is also set in the Bronx. A more neutral portrayal is Portfolio, a "B" movie starring model Carol Alt (the daughter of a New York fireman) the opening scenes of which are set in and around Ladder 58, Engine 45 at 925 East Tremont Avenue.

The Bronx was the setting for the 1983 film Fuga dal Bronx, also known as Bronx Warriors 2 and Escape 2000, an Italian B-movie best known for its appearance on the television series Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The plot revolves around a sinister construction corporation's plans to depopulate, destroy and redevelop the Bronx, and a band of rebels who are out to expose the corporation's murderous ways and save their homes. The film is memorable for its almost incessant use of the phrase, "Leave the Bronx!" Amusingly, many of the exterior scenes were filmed in Queens, not the Bronx.

[edit] Media

The Bronx has been featured in much fiction. One rich tale is Avery Corman's The Old Neighborhood (1980) in which the upper-middle class white protagonist returns to his birth neighborhood (Fordham Road and Grand Concourse), and learns that even though the folks are poor Hispanic and African-American, they are good people.

By contrast, Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) starts with an account of a similar upper-middle class white protagonist getting lost off the Major Deegan Expressway in the South Bronx and having a vicious altercation with a local gang. A substantial piece of the last part of the book is set in the resulting riotous trial at the Bronx County Court House. However, times change, and in 2007, the New York Times reported that "the Bronx neighborhoods near the site of Sherman's [the protagonist's] accident are now dotted with townhouses and apartments. In the same article, the Reverend Al Sharpton (whose fictional analogue in the novel is "Reverend Bacon") asserts that "twenty years later, the cynicism of The Bonfire of the Vanities is as out of style as Tom Wolfe's wardrobe."^[31]

Don DeLillo's Underworld (1997) is also extensively set in the Bronx and offers a perspective on the decline of the area from the 1950s onwards.

The Bronx has several local newspapers, including The Riverdale Press, Riverdale Review, The Bronx Times Reporter, Inner City Press and Co-Op City Times. Four non-profit news outlets, Norwood News, Mount Hope Monitor, Highbridge Horizon and The Hunts Point Express serve the borough's poorer communities. The editor and co-publisher of The Riverdale Press, Bernard Stein, won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for his editorials about Bronx and New York City issues in 1998. (Stein graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1959.)

The Bronx once had its own daily newspaper, The Bronx Home News, which started publishing on January 20, 1907 and merged into the New York Post in 1948. It became a special section of the Post, sold only in the Bronx, and eventually disappeared from view.

One of New York City's major non-commercial radio broadcasters is WFUV, a PBS-affiliated 50,000 watt station broadcasting from Fordham University's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. The radio station's antenna is atop an apartment building owned by Montefiore Medical Center.

The City of New York has an official television station run by the NYC Media Group and broadcasting from Bronx Community College, and Cablevision operates News 12 The Bronx, both of which feature programming based in the Bronx. Co-op City was the first area in The Bronx to have its own cable provider outside of Manhattan. The local cable access station BRONXNET provides public affairs programming in addition to programming produced by Bronx residents. Its website showcases Bronx Music Vol.1, a CD featuring the old and new sounds and artists of The Bronx.

[edit] Poetry and The Bronx

See also: Culture of New York City, Music of New York City, and List of people from The Bronx

In poetry, The Bronx has been immortalized by one of the world's shortest couplets:

The Bronx

No Thonx

Ogden Nash, The New Yorker, 1931

Nash later repented 33 years after his calumny, penning in 1964 the following prose poem to the Dean of Bronx Community College:

I can't seem to escape

the sins of my smart-alec youth;

Here are my amends.

I wrote those lines, "The Bronx?

No thonx";

I shudder to confess them.

Now I'm an older, wiser man

I cry, "The Bronx? God

bless them!"^[17]

The Bronx has also become home to a peculiar poetic tribute, in the form of the Lorelei Monument, also known as the Heinrich Heine Memorial. Created amidst a flourishing of affection for the German language poet in the years leading up to the centennial of Heinrich Heine's 1797 birth, a Tyrolean marble statuary was created in his honor at the end of the 19th century. As anti-Semitism gained political currency in Germany in that period, the memorial did not have a home in Germany.^[32] With the intercession of German-American groups, the memorial finally came to be located in The Bronx, where an inscription recalling its origins suggests that "aesthetic as well as political" obstacles precipitated its relocation from Düsseldorf to Joyce Kilmer Park, near Yankee Stadium in The Bronx.

[edit] Transportation

[edit] Roads

The Bronx street grid is irregular. The west Bronx's hilly terrain leaves a relatively free street grid that closely resembles that of extreme upper Manhattan which has similar terrain. Much of the west Bronx follows the Manhattan street grid, and some of the streets are numbered. Because the street numbering carries over from upper Manhattan, the lowest numbered street in the Bronx is East 132nd Street. However, the numbering does not match the Manhattan grid exactly.

The east Bronx is considerably flatter, and the street layout tends to be more regular. Only the Wakefield neighborhood picks up the street numbering.

Three major north-south thoroughfares run between Manhattan and the Bronx: Third Avenue, Park Avenue, and Broadway. Other major north-south roads include the Grand Concourse, Jerome Avenue, Webster Avenue, and White Plains Road. Major east-west streets include Gun Hill Road, Fordham Road, Pelham Parkway, Boston Road and Tremont Avenue. Many east-west streets are prefixed with either East or West, to indicate on which side of Jerome Avenue they lie (continuing the similar system in Manhattan,which uses Fifth Avenue as the dividing line).

Several major expressways and highways traverse the Bronx. These include:

• the Bronx River Parkway
• the Bruckner Expressway (I-278/I-95)
• the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95/I-295)
• the New England Thruway (I-95)
• the Henry Hudson Parkway (NY-9A)
• the Hutchinson River Parkway
• the Major Deegan Expressway(New York Thruway) (I-87)

[edit] Bridges and tunnels

Many bridges and tunnels connect the Bronx to Manhattan and Queens. These include, from west to east:

To Manhattan: the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge, the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Broadway Bridge, the University Heights Bridge, the Washington Bridge, the Alexander Hamilton Bridge, the High Bridge, the Concourse Tunnel, the Macombs Dam Bridge, the 145th Street Bridge, the 149th Street Tunnel, the Madison Avenue Bridge, the Park Avenue Bridge, the Lexington Avenue Tunnel, the Third Avenue Bridge (southbound traffic only), and the Willis Avenue Bridge (northbound traffic only).

To Manhattan or Queens: the Triborough Bridge

To Queens: the Bronx Whitestone Bridge and the Throgs Neck Bridge

[edit] Mass transit

The Bronx is served by six lines of the New York City Subway:

• IND Concourse Line (B D)
• IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line (1)
• IRT Dyre Avenue Line (5)
• IRT Jerome Avenue Line (4)
• IRT Pelham Line (6 <6>)
• IRT White Plains Road Line (2 5)

Two Metro-North Railroad commuter rail lines (the Harlem Line and the Hudson Line) serve 12 stations in the Bronx. In addition, trains serving the New Haven Line stop at Fordham Road.

See also: Transportation in New York City

[edit] Education

Education in the Bronx is provided by a large number of public and private institutions. Public schools in the borough are managed by the New York City Department of Education. Private schools range from elite independent schools to parochial schools run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Jewish organizations.

Many high schools are located in the borough including the Bronx High School of Science, American Studies, De Witt Clinton, and the Grace H. Dodge Vocational & Technical H.S.. Parochial (Catholic-linked) high schools include St. Raymond High School for Boys, All Hallows High School, Cardinal Hayes, Cardinal Spellman High School, Fordham Preparatory School, Academy of Mount Saint Ursula, Aquinas High School, Preston, St. Catharines Academy, and Mount Saint Michael Academy. The Bronx is home to three of New York City's most elite private schools: Fieldston, Horace Mann, and Riverdale Country School.

In the 1990s New York City began closing large, public high schools in The Bronx and replacing them with small high schools. Cited reasons for the changes include poor graduation rates and concerns about safety. Schools that have been closed or reduced in size include James Monroe, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, Evander Childs, Christopher Columbus, Morris, Walton, and South Bronx High Schools. More recently the City has started phasing out large middle schools, also replacing them with smaller schools.

Several colleges and universities are located in The Bronx. Fordham University, a coeducational undergraduate and graduate university, was founded in 1841. It is officially an independent institution but strongly embraces its Jesuit heritage. The Bronx campus, known as Rose Hill, is the main campus of the university (other Fordham campuses are located in Manhattan and Westchester County). Additionally, the main campus of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, part of Yeshiva University, is in Morris Park. Three campuses of the City University of New York are in The Bronx, including Bronx Community College (occupying the former University Heights Campus of New York University), Hostos Community College, and Lehman College (formerly the uptown campus of Hunter College). The College of Mount Saint Vincent is a Catholic liberal arts college located Riverdale and is under the direction of the Sisters of Charity of New York. Founded in 1847 as a school for girls, the academy became a degree-granting college in 1911 and began admitting men in 1974. The school serves 1,600 students. Manhattan College is a Catholic college in Riverdale. Manhattan College offers undergraduate programs in the arts, business, education, engineering, and science. Graduate programs are offered for education and engineering. Monroe College is a private college with a campus in the Bronx. It offers both two-year and four-year programs. The State University of New York Maritime College is a national leader in maritime education.

See also: Education in New York City

[edit] See also

• List of people from The Bronx

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Briggs, Xavier de Souza, Anita Miller and John Shapiro. 1996. "CCRP in the South Bronx." Planners' Casebook, Winter.

[edit] External links

• Official Website of the Bronx Borough President
• Bronx.com presents The Bronx Times - Everything Bronx
• Bronx County at the Open Directory Project
• Bronx Nostalgia, photos, narratives, personal accounts, school alumni, videos
• Weekly Bronx Report from Inner City Press
• I Love The Bronx
• Sustainable South Bronx
• NYC MTA Transit Bus Map of The Bronx
• The Bronx: A Swedish Connection
• The Bronx River Alliance
• The Bronx Zoo
• The New York Botanical Garden
• Walking tour of the Grand Concourse Boulevard-Cross Bronx Expy area
• Bronx River Art Center
• Forgotten New York: Relics of a Rich History in the Everyday Life of New York City
• Wave Hill: New York Public Garden and Cultural Center
• The Bronx County Historical Society
• Poe Cottage
• Walk in the Bronx

• The Bronx is at coordinates 40°50′14″N 73°53′10″W / 40.8373, -73.8860 (The Bronx)Coordinates: 40°50′14″N 73°53′10″W / 40.8373, -73.8860 (The Bronx)

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