The Bronx Music Heritage Center is situated in Crotona Park East in the South Bronx on Louis Nine Boulevard, off of the historic Southern Boulevard. Learning about the history of the South Bronx has revealed the politics, failures and cycles of urban renewal. By understanding the timeline of events that occurred from the late 1800s to the beginning of the 21st century in the South Bronx, I have been able to better contextualize the mission and work carried out by WHEDco, and the Bronx Music Heritage Center. In particular, studying the arc of urban development–from blight to renewal–has illuminated the importance of grassroots and non-profit organizations in revitalization initiatives.
I primarily used Evelyn Gonzalez’, The Bronx, for my research on Crotona Park East.
The Bronx’ history began in tandem with the implementation of the New York and Harlem railroad in lower Westchester County. Towns like West Farms and Morrisania were established in 1846 and 1855, respectively, and attracted new populations. From the middle of the century onwards, land subdivisions created suburbs. The areas were further urbanized once the IRT Third Avenue Line connected Manhattan to the Bronx
The Hunts Point-Crotona Park East region lays east of Prospect Avenue. In the late 1800s, it was home to many estates (such as the ones belonging to the prominent Spofford and Faile families), but had few houses or streets. This area did not have public transportation until the subway arrived in 1905. Around this time, the population was largely of German and Irish descent. The arrival of the subway caused a construction boom, and properties sprung up along both sides of the subway. The five to six story apartment house was the predominant form along Southern Boulevard, Charlotte Street, Freeman street, and Fox street.
Crotona Park East in the early 1900s was home to many tenement buildings and densely constructed apartments–a kind of extension of the tenement structures of the Lower East Side. However, the buildings in Crotona Park East were generally better constructed and less narrow than those of Morrisania-Claremont and the LES because of new tenement legislation. The neighborhood grew more dense and its population increased from 19,000 in 1905 to 153,000 people in 1920. Crotona Park East was historically made up of German and Irish Immigrants, but as the neighborhood became more diverse, a third of the population was constituted by Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe.
Crotona Park East in the early 20th century was a place that provided opportunity, decent housing, and easy access to transportation into Manhattan. According to Gonzalez, early residents were “comfortable in income and middle class in outlook and aspirations.” (34) But as Crotona Park East changed, the neighborhood was considered more working class and lower class.
But from the 1920s onwards, the area’s reputation took a turn; the depression hit the area hard. As statuses changed, many of the Jews relocated to University Heights, Tremont, Grand Concourse, or Pelham parkway. By the end of the century, the once middle-class neighborhoods in the South Bronx were characterized as working and lower middle class areas.
The Bronx has a history of leftist working class politics rooted in Jewish socialist ideals and labor activism. In the early 1930s, Bronx tenants were struggling to pay rent so they organized through rent strikes, picket lines, and confrontations with police and landlords. These tenant riots were perpetuated by the Workers Cooperative Colony, known as the “Coops”. Tensions continued to manifest as evictions escalated, eventually leading to the realization of the City-Wide Tenants League.
As early as the 1930s and 1940s, the South Bronx residents were systematically disadvantaged. The area was redlined by FHA and private lending institutions in the 1930s because it was considered too diverse, too dangerous for loans. Rent-controlled properties implemented by the government during the war and low-income residents disincentivized landlords from maintaining the properties. They began selling their aging buildings to federal public housing. Landlords “cut down on maintenance, rented to welfare and problem families, induced tenant turnover, failed to pay taxes, and then either walked away or sold the building for another round of slum clearance,” which further aggravated the cycle of displacement and decay. (Gonzalez, 98)
The post-WWII era brought about the decline of manufacturing, further devastating Bronx businesses and neighborhoods. By the 1940s, Crotona Park East was deteriorating and the area moved into a period of obsolescence. The once attractive, functional tenements of the South Bronx were becoming less desirable compared to the new developments in burgeoning areas. Many white residents began to flood outwards, especially as the concept of the ideal american suburb was popularized. The urban middle class was moving out of cities in search of prosperity in the suburbs. The implementation of public housing projects would “solidify the low-income character of the area for decades to come.” (Gonzalez, 107) The South Bronx was in decline–real estate prices rapidly decreased, crime sky-rocketed, and racial change was creating conflict between new waves of residents.
The 1950s brought a new wave of urban policies and slum clearance initiatives. Robert Moses, a New York City Construction Coordinator at the time, began demolishing buildings in Spanish Harlem–thereby displacing tenants into the Bronx–to develop public housing in the efforts of eradicating slums. Public housing cropped up in the Bronx, creating more over-crowding, segregation, and dilapidation. Due to the post-war housing shortage and a lack of options for low-income housing, Puerto Ricans and Southern Blacks moved into the South Bronx.Moses’ attempt to spur urban renewal ultimately failed and pitted the white community against lower-income Puerto Ricans and Blacks. White flight ensued.
According to Gonzalez, “In the postwar years, white ethnic New Yorkers were concerned with sharing in the American Dream, not with sharing their jobs and housing with darker or non-English speaking groups.” (114)
The Mitchell-Lama law was passed in 1955. The legislation aimed to build state-subsidized, middle-income housing. Co-op city caused White Jewish residents to leave the Grand Concourse Neighborhood, leaving vacancies and worsening slums in their wake. The Mitchell Lama policies also had an enclavizaton effect on the urban poor by siphoning off more affluent residents out of disenfranchised neighborhoods.
The Cross Bronx Expressway was another urban development put in place by Moses which also had deleterious effects on the Bronx. The highway cut straight through well-established neighborhoods and resulted in the eviction and displacement of thousands of tenants, as well as the loss of jobs and local businesses.
By 1960, a quarter of the families in the South Bronx were receiving welfare. Urban poverty and racial strife were exacerbated by the flight to the suburbs, rising crime in segregated neighborhoods, and social tensions between immigrant groups. The South Bronx was becoming increasingly unstable and neglected.
As the neighborhoods faced blight and violence through the 1960s into the 1970s, the social and physical fabric of the area also began to unravel. Bronx landlords turned to abandonment, destruction and arson in response to their undesirable and unprofitable properties. Between 1970 and 1980, the Bronx lost more than ⅕ of its housing units.
In the 1960s, The Model City program and other welfarist policies aimed to combat poverty and housing shortages. But these plans were carried out haphazardly and inconsistently, often marked by fraud and exploitative developers. This discredited welfare legislation and gave the urban renewal initiative a reputation for waste and inefficiency. Later in the 70s, Mayor Koch and Herman Badillo struggled to come up with an effective plan to save the area. Racial tensions between Blacks and Puerto Ricans were unmitigated; enclaves of poverty were further established in the South Bronx. Drugs and crime in the 50s and 60s, particularly street crime between Blacks and Hispanics in particular, reinforced a kind of victim-blaming and racial stereotyping. Many white residents viewed these groups as a drain on city resources. The future of the South Bronx looked bleak.
The BMHC is situated right near Charlotte Street, notorious for Jimmy Carter’s visit in 1977. His visit brought national attention to the devastation of the neighborhood by presenting images of vacant blocks and burned buildings. This was a call to action for new legislation. The South Bronx needed to be saved before the blight spread any further.
The visit also shed light on local activists and community organizers who were reclaiming their city and fighting urban neglect from a local level. Bureaucratic agencies and urban renewal initiatives continued to fail the urban poor. By the early 1970s, grassroots organizations and a sentiment to rebuild the area from the ground up were developing. The Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association and the People’s Development Corporation were two examples of these kinds of groups founded in the late 1970s. They adopted a hands-on approach to urban renewal. Urban homesteading groups and local community initiatives paired with new city government tactics and funding began to yield results and pave the way for change
The stage was set for real political support and tangible improvement. The idea was to bring buildings back down to scale and make them inviting for homeowners. One of the most notable developments in Crotona Park East that arose from these urban renewal initiatives are the Charlotte Gardens. Edward Logue, of the South Bronx Development Organization, built a cluster of ranch style houses reminiscent of a suburban neighborhood in 1983.
In 1987, Mayor Koch presented a billion dollar plan to produce affordable housing. By the 1990s, community organizers were working alongside private investors to not only address housing problems, but also social problems entrenched in the South Bronx. In 1997, the Bronx won the All-America City Award in 1997. Organizations like ACORN, Banana Kelly, and SOBRO created palpable change in the neighborhood through the establishment of rehabs, day-care centers, clinics, and English classes. Their resourceful and creative solutions paired with grants and political support brought on a new wave of local businesses and residents.
My next blog post will discuss the current state of the South Bronx and assess how some of these policies have played out in the 21st century. I will also look at the history of WHEDco and their role in community development in this area.
Very well-written and comprehensive summary of how the South Bronx became what it is today, along with all the turmoil it has endured in recent decades. Interestingly while I was on the 4 train coming back to NYU from WHEDco yesterday, I heard an older woman explaining to a younger woman who was not from New York what the Bronx looked like in the 1970s. She credited Jimmy Carter for reinvesting in the community, while I would probably give credit to a lot of other people for revitalizing the area. It’s interesting how the narratives of history are entwined with what seems most important for us to remember now. Often we look at history as we would a horoscope — we hope somehow it will tell us something about ourselves that will help us live in the here and now. So my question: how do you think this context ought to set the scene for the Bronx now and in the future? (Separate note: Always good to clarify beginnings and endings. The Bronx’s history began long before the railroad — and even before the Dutch!)