The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated. Located north of Manhattan and Queens, and south of Westchester County, the Bronx is the only borough that is located primarily on the mainland (a very small portion of Manhattan, the Marble Hill neighborhood, is physically located on the mainland, due to the rerouting of the Harlem River in 1897). The Bronx's population is 1,400,761 according to the 2010 United States Census.[1] The borough has a land area of 42 square miles (109 km2), making it the fourth-largest in land area of the five boroughs, the fourth most populated, and the third-highest in density of population.[2][3]
The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, closer to Manhattan, and the flatter East Bronx, closer to Long Island. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City (then largely confined to Manhattan) in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895.[4] The Bronx first assumed a distinct legal identity when it became a borough of Greater New York in 1898. Bronx County, with the same boundaries as the borough, was separated from New York County (afterwards coextensive with the Borough of Manhattan) as of January 1, 1914.[5] Although the Bronx is the third-most-densely-populated county in the U.S.,[2] about a quarter of its area is open space,[6] including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center, on land deliberately reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed northwards and eastwards from Manhattan with the building of roads, bridges and railways.
The Bronx River was named for Jonas Bronck, who created the first settlement as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639,[7][8][9][10][11] and eventually lent its name to the entire borough. The native Lenape were progressively displaced after 1643 by settlers. The Bronx received many Irish, German, Jewish and Italian immigrants as its once-rural population exploded between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. They were succeeded after 1945 by African Americans and Hispanic Americans from the Caribbean basin — especially Puerto Rico[12] and the Dominican Republic, but also from Jamaica. In recent years, this cultural mix has made the Bronx a wellspring of both Latin music and hip hop.
The Bronx contains one of the five poorest Congressional Districts in the U.S., the 16th, but its wide variety of neighborhoods also includes the affluent and middle to upper class Riverdale, Schuylerville and Country Club.[13][14] The Bronx, particularly the South Bronx, saw a sharp decline in population, livable housing, and the quality of life in the late 1960s and the 1970s, culminating in a wave of arson, but has shown some signs of revival in recent years.[15]
|
|
| Jurisdiction |
Population |
Land area |
| Borough of |
County of |
1 July 2011
Estimates |
square
miles |
square
km |
| Manhattan |
New York |
1,601,948 |
23 |
59 |
| The Bronx |
Bronx |
1,392,002 |
42 |
109 |
| Brooklyn |
Kings |
2,532,645 |
71 |
183 |
| Queens |
Queens |
2,247,848 |
109 |
283 |
| Staten Island |
Richmond |
470,467 |
58 |
151 |
|
|
8,244,910 |
303 |
786 |
|
|
19,465,197 |
47,214 |
122,284 |
| Source: United States Census Bureau[1][2][16] |
For generations a rural area of small farms supplying the city markets, the Bronx grew into a railroad suburb in the late 19th century. Faster transportation allowed for rapid population growth in the late 19th century, involving the move from horse-drawn street cars to elevated railways to the subway system, which linked to Manhattan in 1904. The great majority lived in rented apartments. The demographic history of the Bronx in the 20th century may be divided into four periods: a boom during 1900–29, with a population growth by a factor of six from 200,000 in 1900 to 1.3 million in 1930. The Great Depression and war years saw a slowing of growth. The 1950s were hard times, as the Bronx decayed 1950–79 from a predominantly middle-class to a predominantly lower-class area with high rates of crime and poverty. Finally the Bronx has enjoyed economic and demographic stabilization since 1980.[17]
The South Bronx was for many years a manufacturing center, and in the early part of the 20th Century was noted as a center of piano manufacturing. In 1919, the Bronx was the site of 63 piano factories employing more than 5,000 workers.[18]
At the end of World War I, the Bronx hosted the rather small 1918 World's Fair at 177th Street and DeVoe Avenue.[4][19]
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 Americans, Italian Americans and especially Jewish Americans settled here. In addition, French, German, and Polish immigrants moved into the borough. The Jewish population also increased notably during this time. In 1937, according to Jewish organizations, 592,185 Jews lived in The Bronx (43.9% of the borough's population),[20] while only 45,000 Jews lived in the borough in 2002. Many synagogues still stand in the Bronx, but most have been converted to other uses.[21]
In Prohibition days (1920–33), bootleggers and gangs were active in the Bronx. Irish, Italian and Polish gangs smuggled in most of the illegal whiskey.
After the 1930s, Irish Americans started moving further north, and German Americans followed suit in the 1940s, as did many Italian Americans in the 1950s and Jews in the 1960s. As the older generation retired, many moved to Florida. The migration has left an African American and Hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican) population, along with some Caucasian communities in the far southeastern and northwestern parts of the county.
In the 1970s, the Bronx became identified with a high rate of poverty and unemployment, which was mainly a persistent problem in the South Bronx. Some property owners committed arson on their own properties for insurance claims as it was more lucrative to get insurance money than to refurbish or sell a building in a severely distressed area. These Bronx fires and urban decay would paint a face of New York City in the 1970s as a down-and-out city in a state of decline. Indeed, out of 289 census tracts in the Bronx borough, seven different tracts lost more than 97% of their buildings to fire and abandonment between 1970 and 1980; while another 44 different tracts had more than 50% of their buildings meet the same fate. However, starting in the 1990s, many burned-out and run-down tenements were replaced by single- and multifamily housing.[22]
By 2000, the Bronx had a population of about 1.2 million, and its bridges, highways, and railroads were more heavily traveled than those of any other part of the United States.
Row houses now stand where there was once burnt rubble. The Bronx has seen an increase in revitalization in recent years.
Starting in the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the Bronx went into an era of sharp decline in the residents' quality of life. Historians and social scientists have put forward many factors. They include the theory (elaborated in Robert Caro's biography The Power Broker)[23] that Robert Moses' Cross-Bronx Expressway destroyed existing residential neighborhoods. Another factor in the Bronx's decline may have been the development of high-rise housing projects. Yet another may have been a reduction in the real-estate listings and property-related financial services (such as mortgages or insurance policies) offered in some areas of the Bronx — a process known as redlining. Others have suggested a "planned shrinkage" of municipal services, such as fire-fighting.[24][25] There was also much debate as to whether rent control laws had made it less profitable (or more costly) for landlords to maintain existing buildings with their existing tenants than to abandon or destroy those buildings.[26]
In the 1970s, the Bronx was plagued by a wave of arson. The burning of buildings was mostly in the South Bronx and in West Farms. The most common explanation of what occurred was that landlords decided to burn their low property-value buildings and take the insurance money as profit.[27] After the fiery destruction of many buildings in the borough, the arsons slowed by the turn of the decade, but the after-effects were still felt into the 1990s.
Since the mid-1980s, some residential development has occurred in the Bronx, stimulated by the city's "Ten-Year Housing Plan"[28][29] and community members working to rebuild the social, economic and environmental infrastructure by creating affordable housing. Groups affiliated with churches in the South Bronx erected the Nehemiah Homes with about 1,000 units. The grass roots organization Nos Quedamos' endeavor known as Melrose Commons[30][31][32] began to rebuild areas in the South Bronx. The ripple effects have been felt borough-wide. The IRT White Plains Road Line began to show an increase in riders. Chains such as Marshalls, Staples, and Target have opened stores in the Bronx. More bank branches have opened in the Bronx as a whole (rising from 106 in 1997 to 149 in 2007), although not primarily in poor or minority neighborhoods, while the Bronx still has fewer branches per person than other boroughs.[33][34][35][36]
Although not actually a city, 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 1980s in which pictures of potted plants and drawn curtains were placed in the windows of abandoned buildings."[37] 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 $4.8 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.[38]
The Bronx is almost entirely situated on the North American mainland.[40] The Hudson River separates the Bronx on the west from Alpine, Tenafly and Englewood Cliffs in Bergen County, New Jersey; the Harlem River separates it from the island of Manhattan to the southwest; the East River separates it from Queens to the southeast; and, to the east, Long Island Sound separates it from Nassau County in western Long Island. Directly north of the Bronx are (from west to east) the adjoining Westchester County communities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Pelham Manor and New Rochelle.
- (There is also a short southern land boundary with Marble Hill in the Borough of Manhattan, over the filled-in former course of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. Marble Hill's postal ZIP code, telephonic Area Code and fire service, however, are shared with the Bronx and not Manhattan.)
The New York Public Library maintains a Map Rectifier facility that reconciles old maps of the Bronx (and elsewhere) with current cartography.[1]
The Bronx River flows south from Westchester County through the borough, emptying into the East River; it is the only entirely freshwater river in New York City.[41] A smaller river, the Hutchinson River (named after the religious leader Anne Hutchinson, killed along its banks in 1641), passes through the East Bronx and empties into Eastchester Bay.
The Bronx also includes several small islands in the East River and Long Island Sound, such as City Island and Hart Island. Although it is part of the Bronx, Rikers Island in the East River, home to the large jail complex for the entire City, can be reached only by water, by air, or—since 1966—over the Francis Buono Bridge from Queens.
The Bronx's highest elevation 280 feet (85 m), is in the northwest corner, west of Van Cortlandt Park and in the Chapel Farm area near the Riverdale Country School.[42] The opposite (southeastern) side of the Bronx has four large low peninsulas or "necks" of low-lying land that jut into the waters of the East River and were once salt marsh: Hunt's Point, Clason's Point, Screvin's Neck and Throg's Neck. Further up the coastline, Rodman's Neck lies between Pelham Bay Park in the northeast and City Island.
† (New York City's last freshwater marsh was in Van Cortlandt Park until displaced in the 1930s by the junction of the Mosholu and Henry Hudson Parkways.)
Almost 27%,15.4 square miles (40 km2) of the Bronx's total area is water, and the irregular shoreline extends for 75 square miles (194 km2).[43][44]
Although, in 2006, it was the third most densely populated county in the United States (after Manhattan and Brooklyn),[2] about one-fifth of the Bronx's area, and one-quarter of its land area, is given over to park land: about 7,000 acres (28 km2).[6]
Woodlawn Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in New York City, sits on the western bank of the Bronx River near Yonkers. It opened in 1863, at a time when the Bronx was still considered a rural area.
The northern side of the borough includes the largest park in New York City - Pelham Bay Park, which includes Orchard Beach - and the fourth largest, Van Cortlandt Park, which is west of Woodlawn Cemetery and borders Yonkers.
Nearer the borough's center, and along the Bronx River, is Bronx Park. Its northern end houses the New York Botanical Gardens, which preserve the last patch of the original hemlock forest that once covered the entire city, and its southern end the Bronx Zoo, the largest urban zoological gardens in the U.S.[46]
Farther south is Crotona Park, home to a 3.3-acre (1.3 ha) lake, 28 species of trees and a large swimming pool.[47] The land for these parks, and many others, was bought by New York City in 1888, while land was still open and inexpensive, in anticipation of future needs and future pressures for development.[48]
Some of the acquired land was set aside for the Grand Concourse and Pelham Parkway, the first of a series of boulevards and parkways (thoroughfares lined with trees, vegetation and greenery). Later projects included the Bronx River Parkway, which developed a road while restoring the riverbank and reducing pollution, Mosholu Parkway and the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Just south of Van Cortlandt Park is the Jerome Park Reservoir, surrounded by 2 miles (3 km) of stone walls and bordering several small parks in the Bedford Park neighborhood. The reservoir was built in the 1890s on the site of the former Jerome Park Racetrack.[49]
In 2006, a five-year, $220-million program of capital improvements and natural restoration in 70 Bronx parks was begun (financed by water and sewer revenues) as part of an agreement that allowed a water filtration plant under Van Cortlandt Park's golf course. One major focus is on opening more of the Bronx River's banks and restoring them to a natural state.[50]
Wave Hill, the former estate of George W. Perkins — known for a historic house, gardens, changing site-specific art installations and concerts — overlooks the New Jersey Palisades from a promontory on the Hudson in Riverdale.
The number, locations and boundaries of the Bronx's neighborhoods (many of them sitting on the sites of 19th-century villages) have become unclear with time and successive waves of newcomers. In 2006, Manny Fernandez of The New York Times wrote,
"According to a Department of City Planning map of the city's neighborhoods, the Bronx has 49. The map publisher Hagstrom identifies 69. The borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., says 61. The Mayor's Community Assistance Unit, in a listing of the borough's community boards, names 68. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, lists 44."[51]
Notable Bronx neighborhoods include the South Bronx, Little Italy on Arthur Avenue in the Belmont section, and Riverdale.
(Bronx Community Boards 9 [south central], 10 [east], 11 [east central] and 12 [north central] )[52]
The neighborhood of
Co-op City is the largest cooperative housing development in the world.
East of the Bronx River, the borough is relatively flat, and includes four large low peninsulas, or 'necks,' of low-lying land which 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: Clason's Point, Harding Park, Soundview, Castle Hill, Parkchester (under Board 9), Throgs Neck, Country Club, City Island, Pelham Bay, Co-op City (Board 10), Westchester Square, Van Nest, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park (Board 11), Williamsbridge, Eastchester, Baychester, Edenwald and Wakefield (Board 12).
(Bronx Community Board 10)
City Island is located east of Pelham Bay Park 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 Rodman's Neck on the mainland by the City Island Bridge.
East of City Island is Hart Island which is uninhabited and not open to the public. It once served as a prison and now houses New York City's Potter's Field or pauper's graveyard for unclaimed bodies.
(Bronx Community Boards 1 to 8, progressing roughly from south to northwest)
The western parts of the Bronx are hillier 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 and Fieldston.[53] 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.
(Bronx Community Boards 7 [between the Bronx and Harlem Rivers] and 8 [facing the Hudson River] — plus part of Board 12)
Neighborhoods include: Fordham-Bedford, Bedford Park, Norwood, Kingsbridge Heights (Board 7), Kingsbridge, Riverdale (Board 8), and Woodlawn (Board 12). (Marble Hill, Manhattan is now connected by land to the Bronx rather than Manhattan and is served by Bronx Community Board 8.)
Main article:
South Bronx(Bronx Community Boards 1 to 6 plus part of Board 7 —— progressing northwards, Boards 2, 3 and 6 border the Bronx River from its mouth to Bronx Park, while 1, 4, 5 and 7 face Manhattan across the Harlem River)
Like other neighborhoods in New York City, the South Bronx has no official boundaries. The name has been used to represent poverty in the Bronx and applied to progressively more northern places so that by the 2000s Fordham Road was often used as a northern limit. The Bronx River more consistently forms an eastern boundary. The South Bronx has many high-density apartment buildings, low income public housing complexes, and multi-unit homes. The South Bronx is home to the Bronx County Courthouse, 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), Port Morris, Mott Haven (Board 1), Melrose (Board 1 & Board 3), Morrisania, East Morrisania [also known as Crotona Park East] (Board 3), Hunts Point, Longwood (Board 2), Highbridge, Concourse (Board 4), West Farms, Belmont, East Tremont (Board 6), Tremont, Morris Heights (Board 5), University Heights, and Fordham (Board 5 & Board 7).
Prominent shopping areas in the Bronx include Fordham Road, Bay Plaza (in Co-op City), The Hub, Riverdale/Kingsbridge Shopping center and Bruckner Boulevard. Shops are also concentrated on streets aligned underneath elevated railroad lines, including Westchester Avenue, White Plains Road, Jerome Avenue, Southern Boulevard and Broadway. The Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market contains several big-box stores, which opened in 2009 south of Yankee Stadium.
The Hub–Third Avenue Business Improvement District (B.I.D.) is the retail heart of the South Bronx, located where four roads converge: East 149th Street, Willis, Melrose and Third Avenues.[54] It is primarily located inside the neighborhood of Melrose but also lines the northern border of Mott Haven.[55] The Hub has been called "the Broadway of the Bronx."[56] It is the site of both maximum traffic and architectural density. In configuration, it resembles a miniature Times Square, a spatial "bow-tie" created by the geometry of the street.[57] The area is part of Bronx Community Board 1.
The renovated Prow Building, part of the original Bronx Terminal Market
The Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market is a shopping center in The Bronx that encompasses less than one million square feet of retail space, built on a 17-acre (69,000 m2) site that formerly held the Bronx Terminal Market, a wholesale fruit and vegetable market as well as the former Bronx House of Detention, south of Yankee Stadium.[58]
The $500 million shopping center, which was completed in 2009, saw the construction of new buildings and two smaller buildings, one new and the other a renovation of an existing building that was part of the original market. The two main buildings are linked by a six-level garage for 2,600 cars.[1] The center has earned itself a LEED "Silver" designation in its design.[59]
The Bronx street grid is irregular. Like the northernmost part of upper Manhattan, the West Bronx's hilly terrain leaves a relatively free-style street grid. Much of the West Bronx's street numbering carries over from upper Manhattan, but does not match it exactly; East 132nd Street is the lowest numbered street in the Bronx. This dates from the mid-19th century when the southwestern area of Westchester County west of the Bronx River, was incorporated into New York City and known as the Northside.
The East Bronx is considerably flatter, and the street layout tends to be more regular. Only the Wakefield neighborhood picks up the street numbering, albeit at a disalignment due to Tremont Avenue's layout. At the same diagonal latitude, West 262nd Street in Riverdale matches East 237th Street in Wakefield.
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, Sedgwick Avenue, Webster Avenue, and White Plains Road. Major east-west thoroughfares include Mosholu Parkway, Gun Hill Road, Fordham Road, Pelham Parkway, and Tremont Avenue.
Most 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).
The historic Boston Post Road, part of the long pre-revolutionary road connecting Boston with other northeastern cities, runs east-west in some places, and sometimes northeast-southwest.
Mosholu and Pelham Parkways, with Bronx Park between them, Van Cortlandt Park to the west and Pelham Bay Park to the east, are also linked by bridle paths.
Approximately 61.6% of all Bronx households do not have access to a car. Citywide, the percentage of autoless households is 55%.[60]
Several major limited access highways traverse the Bronx. These include:
Many bridges and tunnels connect the Bronx to Manhattan and Queens (3). 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 Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (which opened as the Triborough Bridge).
To Queens: the Bronx Whitestone Bridge and the Throgs Neck Bridge.
The Bronx is served by six lines of the New York City Subway with 70 stations in the Bronx:
Two Metro-North Railroad commuter rail lines (the Harlem Line and the Hudson Line) serve 11 stations in the Bronx. (Marble Hill, between the Spuyten Duyvil and University Heights stations, is actually in the only part of Manhattan connected to the mainland.) In addition, trains serving the New Haven Line stop at Fordham Road.
The United States Postal Service operates post offices in the Bronx. The Bronx General Post Office is located at 558 Grand Concourse.[61][62]
Racial concentrations within the Bronx, by block. (Red indicates Hispanic of any race; Blue indicates non-Hispanic White; and Green indicates non-Hispanic Black or African-American.)
According to the 2010 Census, 10.9% of the population was non-Hispanic White, 30.1% non-Hispanic Black or African American, 3.4% non-Hispanic Asian, 0.6% from some other race (non-Hispanic) and 1.2% of two or more races (non-Hispanic). 53.5% of Bronx's population was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (they may be of any race)
The U.S. Census considers the Bronx to be the most diverse area in the country. There is an 89.7 percent chance that any two residents, chosen at random, would be of different race or ethnicity.[63] The borough's formerly most populous ethnic group, white, declined from 98.3% in 1940 to 35.7% by 1990.[64]
The Bronx is the only New York City borough with a Hispanic majority, many of whom are Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. In 2000, The Bronx had some of the nation's highest percentages of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans with 24.0% and 10.0%, respectively.[65]
According to the 2009 American Community Survey, White Americans of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin represented over one-fifth (22.9%) of The Bronx's population. However, non-Hispanic whites formed under one-eighth (12.1%) of the population, down from 34.4% in 1980.[64] Out of all five boroughs, The Bronx has the lowest number and percentage of white residents. 320,640 whites called the Bronx home, of which 168,570 were non-Hispanic whites. The majority of the non-Hispanic European American population is of Italian and Irish descent. People of Italian descent numbered over 55,000 individuals and made up 3.9% of the population. People of Irish descent numbered over 43,500 individuals and made up 3.1% of the population. German Americans and Polish Americans made up 1.4% and 0.8% of the population respectively.
At the 2009 American Community Survey, Black Americans made the second largest group in the Bronx after Hispanics and Latinos. Blacks of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic origin represented over one-third (35.4%) of the Bronx's population. Blacks of non-Hispanic origin made up 30.8% of the population. Over 495,200 blacks resided in the borough, of which 430,600 were non-Hispanic blacks. Over 61,000 people identified themselves as "Sub-Saharan African" in the survey, making up 4.4% of the population.
Native Americans are a very small minority in the borough. Only some 5,560 individuals (out of the borough's 1.4 million people) are Native American, which is equal to just 0.4% of the population. In addition, roughly 2,500 people are Native Americans of non-Hispanic origin.
Asian Americans are a small but sizable minority in the borough. Roughly 49,600 Asians make up 3.6% of the population. Roughly 13,600 Indians call The Bronx home, along with 9,800 Chinese, 6,540 Filipinos, 2,260 Vietnamese, 2,010 Koreans, and 1,100 Japanese.
Multiracial Americans are also a sizable minority in the Bronx. People of multiracial heritage number over 41,800 individuals and represent 3.0% of the population. People of mixed Caucasian and African American heritage number over 6,850 members and form 0.5% of the population. People of mixed Caucasian and Native American heritage number over 2,450 members and form 0.2% of the population. People of mixed Caucasian and Asian heritage number over 880 members and form 0.1% of the population. People of mixed African American and Native American heritage number over 1,220 members and form 0.1% of the population.
In 2009, Hispanic and Latino Americans represented 52.0% of the Bronx's population. Puerto Ricans represented 23.2% of the borough's population. Over 72,500 Mexicans lived in the Bronx, and they formed 5.2% of the population. Cubans numbered over 9,640 members and formed 0.7% of the population. In addition, over 319,000 people were of various Hispanic and Latino groups, such as Dominican, Salvadoran, and so on. These groups collectively represented 22.9% of the population. At the 2010 Census, 53.5% of Bronx's population was of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin (they may be of any race).
| Historical populations |
| Census |
Pop. |
|
%± |
| 1790 |
1,781 |
|
—
|
| 1800 |
1,755 |
|
−1.5% |
| 1810 |
2,267 |
|
29.2% |
| 1820 |
2,782 |
|
22.7% |
| 1830 |
3,023 |
|
8.7% |
| 1840 |
5,346 |
|
76.8% |
| 1850 |
8,032 |
|
50.2% |
| 1860 |
23,593 |
|
193.7% |
| 1870 |
37,393 |
|
58.5% |
| 1880 |
51,980 |
|
39.0% |
| 1890 |
88,908 |
|
71.0% |
| 1900 |
200,507 |
|
125.5% |
| 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% |
| 2010 |
1,385,108 |
|
3.9% |
Sources: 1790–1990;[66]
2000–2010[1] |
Approximately 44.3% of the population over the age of 5 speak only English at home, which is roughly 570,000 people. The majority (55.7%) of the population speak non-English languages at home. Over 580,600 people (45.2% of the population) speak Spanish at home.[67][68]
According to the 2005–2007 American Community Survey Estimates, the borough's population was 23.0% White (13.0% non-Hispanic White alone), 34.5% Black or African American (30.6% non-Hispanic Black or African American alone), 0.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 3.8% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 40.4% from some other race and 2.4% from two or more races. 50.7% of the total population were Hispanic or Latino of any race (23.3% of Bronx's population were Puerto Ricans). [2] 31.7% of the population were foreign born and another 8.9% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas, or born abroad to American parents. 55.6% spoke a language other than English at home and 16.4% had a Bachelor's degree or higher. [3]
The Census of 1930 counted only 1.0% (12,930) of the Bronx's population as Negro (while making no distinct counts of Hispanic or Spanish-surname residents).[69]
Immigrants from Ghana have clustered along the Grand Concourse.[70]
Based on sample data from the 2000 census, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 47.3% of the population five and older spoke only English at home, while 43.7% spoke 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%), Kru, Igbo, or Yoruba [West Africa] (0.72%) and French (0.54%).
| Bronx residents born abroad or overseas, 1930 and 2000 |
| 1930 United States Census[69] |
2000 United States Census[71] |
| Total population of the Bronx |
1,265,258 |
|
Total population of the Bronx |
1,332,650 |
|
| |
|
|
All born abroad or overseas ‡ |
524,410 |
39.4% |
| |
|
|
Puerto Rico |
126,649 |
9.5% |
| Foreign-born Whites |
477,342 |
37.7% |
All foreign-born |
385,827 |
29.0% |
| White persons born in Russia |
135,210 |
10.7% |
Dominican Republic |
124,032 |
9.3% |
| White persons born in Italy |
67,732 |
5.4% |
Jamaica |
51,120 |
3.8% |
| White persons born in Poland |
55,969 |
4.4% |
Mexico |
20,962 |
1.6% |
| White persons born in Germany |
43,349 |
3.4% |
Guyana |
14,868 |
1.1% |
| White persons born in the Irish Free State † |
34,538 |
2.7% |
Ecuador |
14,800 |
1.1% |
| Other foreign birthplaces of Whites |
140,544 |
11.1% |
Other foreign birthplaces |
160,045 |
12.0% |
| † the 26 counties now within the Republic of Ireland |
‡ beyond the 50 states & District of Columbia |
Poverty concentrations within the Bronx, by Census Tract.
At the 2010 Census, there were, 1,385,108 people living in Bronx, a 3.9% increase since 2000. As of the United States Census[72] of 2000, there were 1,332,650 people, 463,212 households, and 314,984 families residing in the borough. The population density was 31,709.3 inhabitants per square mile (12,242.2/km²). There were 490,659 housing units at an average density of 11,674.8 per square mile (4,507.4/km²). 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 1999 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.
Since New York City's consolidation in 1898, the Bronx has been governed by the New York City Charter that provides for a mayor-council system. The centralized New York City government is responsible for all municipal functions.
The office of Borough President was created in the consolidation of 1898 with powers mostly derived from having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate. The 1989 Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris case declared the Board unconstitutional, and 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.
On February 18, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama appointed the former Bronx Borough President, Adolfo Carrión, Jr., to the position of Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy.[73]
On April 21, 2009, a special election was held to choose Carrión's successor. Democratic New York State Assembly member Rubén Díaz, Jr., running on the "Bronx Unity" ticket, won this election with 29,420 votes (86%) against 4,646 votes (14%) for the Republican Anthony Ribustello ("People First") and 11 votes for write-in candidates.[74][75][76] On May 1, 2009, Assemblyman Diaz was sworn in as the 13th Borough President of the Bronx (For his predecessors, see the List of Bronx Borough Presidents.)
Every currently-elected public official in the Bronx has first won the Democratic nomination (whether or not also nominated by other parties). 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 the alienation of parkland for new Yankee Stadium.
Since its separation from New York County on January 1, 1914, the Bronx, has had, like each of the other 61 counties of New York State, its own directly-elected District Attorney, the county's chief public prosecutor.[5] 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.[77]
Eight members of the New York City Council represent districts wholly within the Bronx, while a ninth represents a Manhattan district (8) that also includes a small area of the Bronx. (All of them were Democrats in 2008.) One of those members, Joel Rivera (District 15), has been the Council's Majority Leader since 2002.
The Bronx also has 12 Community Boards, appointed bodies that field complaints and advise on land use and municipal facilities and services for local residents, businesses and institutions. (They are listed at Bronx Community Boards).
In 2008, three Democrats represented almost all of the Bronx in the United States House of Representatives.
- José M. Serrano (first elected in March 1990) represents New York's 16th congressional district, which covers much of the South Bronx. It was, in 2000, the poorest of the nation's 435 districts (42.8% below the poverty line); it was also the most Hispanic of New York state's 29 congressional districts (62.8%) and the youngest (34.5% under 18 years old; 6.7% over 65).
- Eliot Engel (first elected in 1988) represents the 17th District which includes parts of the northwest Bronx as well as parts of Westchester and Rockland counties.
- Joseph Crowley (first elected in 1998) represents the 7th District which spans the East Bronx and includes Co-op City, City Island, Pelham Bay, Morris Park, Pelham Parkway, Parkchester, Castle Hill and Throgs Neck, as well as parts of northwest Queens.
- (Riker's Island, the city's main jail complex, is included in the 15th District, which covers Upper Manhattan and utilities facilities in Astoria, Queens. It is represented by Charles B. Rangel, first elected in 1970. In 2006, the Congressional election returns in this district included no votes from the Bronx or Queens.)
All of these Representatives won over 75% of their districts' respective votes in both 2004 and 2006. National Journal's neutral rating system placed all of their voting records in 2005 and 2006 somewhere between very liberal and extremely liberal.[13][14]
11 out of 150 members of the New York State Assembly (the lower house of the state legislature) represent districts wholly within the Bronx. Six State Senators out of 62 represent Bronx districts, half of them wholly within the County, and half straddling other counties. All these legislators are Democrats who won between 65% and 100% of their districts' vote in 2006.[78]
In the 2004 presidential election, Senator John F. Kerry (Democratic/Working Families) received 81.8% of the vote in the Bronx while President George W. Bush (Republican/Conservative) received 16.3%.
A year later, the Democratic former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer won 59.8% of the borough's vote against 38.8% for Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Republican/Independence) who carried every other borough in his winning campaign for re-election. In 2009, the Bronx voted slightly more strongly against the successful re-election of Mayor Bloomberg, who received 37% of the Bronx vote (as an independent supported by the Republican and Independence Parties) against 61.2% for New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson (Democratic and Working Families).
In 2006, successfully-reelected Senator Hillary Clinton (Democratic, Working Families & Independence) won 89.5% of the Bronx's vote against 9.6% for Yonkers ex-Mayor John Spencer (Republican and Conservative), while Eliot Spitzer (Democratic, Working Families & Independence) received 88.8% of the Borough's vote in winning the Governorship against John Faso (Republican & Conservative), who received 9.7% of the Bronx's vote.
In the Presidential primary elections of February 5, 2008, Sen. Clinton won 61.2% of the Bronx's 148,636 Democratic votes against 37.8% for Barack Obama and 1.0% for the other four candidates combined. At the same time, John McCain won 54.4% of the borough's 5,643 Republican votes, Mitt Romney 20.8%, Mike Huckabee 8.2%, Ron Paul 7.4%, Rudy Giuliani 5.6%, and the other three candidates 3.6% between them.[79]
In the Presidential general election of November 4, 2008, Sen. Obama won 87.8% of the Bronx's vote (338,261) on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines of the ballot, Sen. McCain won 10.8% (41,683) on the Republican, Independence and Conservative Party lines, and other candidates won 1.3% (1,342) between them. The Democratic candidate's percentage of the Presidential vote increased by 6% from 2004, while the Republican presidential candidate's percentage declined by 5.5%.
After becoming a separate county in 1914, the Bronx has supported only two Republican Presidential candidates. It voted heavily for the winning Republican Warren G. Harding in 1920, but much more narrowly on a split vote for his victorious Republican successor Calvin Coolidge in 1924 (Coolidge 79,562; John W. Davis, Dem., 72,834; Robert La Follette, 62,202 equally divided between the Progressive and Socialist lines).
Since then, the Bronx has always supported the Democratic Party's nominee for President, starting with a vote of 2–1 for the unsuccessful Al Smith in 1928, followed by four 2-1 votes for the successful Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Both had been Governors of New York, but the Bronx voted against two former Republican Governors who ran for President: Charles Evans Hughes in 1916 and Thomas E. Dewey in 1944 and 1948.)[80]
The Bronx has often shown striking differences from other boroughs in elections for Mayor. The only Republican to carry the Bronx since 1914 was Fiorello La Guardia in 1933, 1937 and 1941 (and in the latter two elections, only because his 30–32% vote on the American Labor Party line was added to 22–23% as a Republican).[81] The Bronx was thus the only borough not carried by the successful Republican re-election campaigns of Mayors Rudolph Giuliani in 1997 and Michael Bloomberg in 2005. The anti-war Socialist campaign of Morris Hillquit in the 1917 mayoral election won over 31% of the Bronx's vote, putting him second and well ahead of the 20% won by the incumbent pro-war Fusion Mayor John P. Mitchel, who outpolled Hillquit city-wide by 23.2% to 21.7%.[82]
see more: Economy of New York City
Education in the Bronx is provided by a large number of public and private institutions, many of which draw students who live beyond the Bronx. The New York City Department of Education manages public noncharter schools in the borough. In 2000, public schools enrolled nearly 280,000 of the Bronx's residents over 3 years old (out of 333,100 enrolled in all pre-college schools).[83] There are also several public charter schools. Private schools range from élite independent schools to religiously-affiliated schools run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Jewish organizations.
Educational attainment: In 2000, according to the U.S. Census, out of the nearly 800,000 people in the Bronx who were then at least 25 years old, 62.3% had graduated from high school and 14.6% held a bachelor's or higher college degree. These percentages were lower than those for New York's other boroughs, which ranged from 68.8% (Brooklyn) to 82.6% (Staten Island) for high school graduates over 24, and from 21.8% (Brooklyn) to 49.4% (Manhattan) for college graduates. (The respective state and national percentages were [NY] 79.1% & 27.4% and [US] 80.4% & 24.4%.)[84]
In the 2000 Census, 79,240 of the nearly 95,000 Bronx residents enrolled in high school attended public schools.[83]
Many public high schools are located in the borough including the élite Bronx High School of Science, DeWitt Clinton High School, High School for Violin and Dance, Bronx Leadership Academy 2, Bronx International High School, the School for Excellence, the Morris Academy for Collaborative Study, Wings Academy for young adults, The Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, Validus Preparatory Academy, Bronx Expeditionary Learning High School, Herbert H. Lehman High School and High School of American Studies. The Bronx is also home to three of New York City's most prestigious private, secular schools: Fieldston, Horace Mann, and Riverdale Country School.
High schools linked to the Roman Catholic Church include: Saint Raymond's Academy for Girls, All Hallows High School, Fordham Preparatory School, Monsignor Scanlan High School, St. Raymond High School for Boys, Cardinal Hayes High School, Cardinal Spellman High School, The Academy of Mount Saint Ursula, Aquinas High School, Preston High School, St. Catharine Academy, Mount Saint Michael Academy, and St. Barnabas High School.
The SAR Academy and SAR High School are Modern Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva coeducational day schools in Riverdale, with roots in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
In the 1990s, New York City began closing the large, public high schools in the Bronx and replacing them with small high schools. Among the reasons cited for the changes were poor graduation rates and concerns about safety. Schools that have been closed or reduced in size include John F. Kennedy, 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.
In 2000, 49,442 (57.5%) of the 86,014 Bronx residents seeking college, graduate or professional degrees attended public institutions.[83]
Several colleges and universities are located in the Bronx.
Fordham University, was founded as St. John's College in 1841 by the Diocese of New York as the first Catholic institution of higher education in the northeast. It is now officially an independent institution, but strongly embraces its Jesuit heritage. The 85-acre (340,000 m2) Bronx campus, known as Rose Hill, is the main campus of the university, and is among the largest within the city (other Fordham campuses are located in Manhattan and Westchester County).[46]
Three campuses of the City University of New York are in the Bronx: Hostos Community College, Bronx Community College (occupying the former University Heights Campus of New York University) and Herbert H. Lehman College (formerly the uptown campus of Hunter College), which offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees.
The College of Mount Saint Vincent is a Catholic liberal arts college in Riverdale 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. Its campus is also home to the Academy for Jewish Religion, a transdenominational rabbinical and cantorial school.
Manhattan College is a Catholic college in Riverdale which offers undergraduate programs in the arts, business, education, engineering, and science. It also offers graduate programs in education and engineering.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, part of Yeshiva University, is in Morris Park.
Two colleges based in Westchester County have Bronx campuses. The Catholic and nearly-all-female College of New Rochelle maintains satellite campuses at Co-op City and in The Hub. The coeducational and non-sectarian Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, founded by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy in 1950, has a campus near Westchester Square.
By contrast, the private, proprietary Monroe College, focused on preparation for business and the professions, started in the Bronx in 1933 but now has a campus in New Rochelle (Westchester County) as well the Bronx's Fordham neighborhood.[85]
The State University of New York Maritime College in Fort Schuyler (Throggs Neck)—at the far southeastern tip of the Bronx—is the national leader in maritime education and houses the Maritime Industry Museum. (Directly across Long Island Sound is Kings Point, Long Island, home of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and the American Merchant Marine Museum.)
The
Bronx Zoo is the largest zoo in New York City, and among the largest in the country.
The Bronx's P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club Steppers performing at the 2007
Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival in Brooklyn. (Note the T-shirts' inscription "I ♥ BX"
[Bronx], echoing the ubiquitous slogan "I ♥ NY"
[I Love New York] ).
[86]
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 around 1812, the cottage once commanded unobstructed vistas over the rolling Bronx hills to the shores of Long Island.[87]
The Bronx's evolution from a hot bed of Latin jazz to an incubator of hip hop was the subject of an award-winning documentary, produced by City Lore and broadcast on PBS in 2006, "From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale". 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 a starting point, where DJ Kool Herc presided over parties in the community room.[88][89]
On August 11, 1973, DJ Kool Herc was a D.J. and M.C. at a party in the recreation room of 1520 Sedgewick Avenue in the Bronx adjacent to the Cross-Bronx Expressway.[90] While it was not the actual "Birthplace of Hip Hop" – the genre developed slowly in several places in the 1970s – it was verified to be the place where one of the pivotal and formative events occurred.[90] Specifically, DJ Kool Herc:
extended an instrumental beat (
mixing or
scratching) to let people dance longer (
B-boying) and began MC’ing (
rapping) during the extended breakdancing. ... [This] helped lay the foundation for a cultural revolution.
Beginning with the advent of beat match DJ'ing, in which Bronx DJs (Disc Jockeys) 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 DJ 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 Lord Toriq and Peter Gunz, Camp Lo, Swizz Beatz, Drag-On, Fat Joe, Terror Squad and Corey Gunz.[91]
Hush Hip Hop Tours has established a sightseeing tour of the Bronx showcasing the locations that helped shape hip hop culture and has the pioneers of hip hop as tour guides. The recent recognition of the Bronx as an important center of African-American culture, led Fordham University to establish the ongoing "Bronx African-American History Project (BAAHP)".
The Bronx is the home of the New York Yankees, one of the leading baseball franchises. The original Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 on 161st Street and River Avenue, a year that saw the Yankeees bring home their first of 27 World Series Championships. With the famous facade, the short right field porch and Monument Park, Yankee Stadium has been home to many of baseball's greatest players including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez. The Stadium was the scene Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech in 1939, Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Roger Maris' record breaking 61st home run in 1961, and Reggie Jackson's 3 home runs to clinch Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. The original Yankee Stadium closed in 2008 to make way for a new Yankee Stadium in which the team started play in 2009; it's north-northeast of the 1923 Yankee Stadium, on the former site of Macombs Dam Park.
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.
Lorelei Fountain in Joyce Kilmer Park overlooking the original
Yankee Stadium.
The Bronx has also become home to a peculiar poetic tribute, in the form of the Heinrich Heine Memorial, better known as the Lorelei Fountain from one of Heine's best-known works (1838). After Heine's German birthplace of Düsseldorf had rejected, allegedly for anti-Semitic motives, a centennial monument to the radical German-Jewish poet (1797–1856), his incensed German-American admirers, including Carl Schurz, started a movement to place one instead in Midtown Manhattan, at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. However, this intention was thwarted by a combination of ethnic antagonism, aesthetic controversy and political struggles over the institutional control of public art. In 1899, the memorial, by the Berlin sculptor Ernst Gustav Herter (1846–1917), finally came to rest, although subject to repeated vandalism, in the Bronx, at 164th Street and the Grand Concourse, or Joyce Kilmer Park near today's Yankee Stadium. (In 1999, it was moved to 161st Street and the Concourse.) In 2007, Christopher Gray of The New York Times described it as "a writhing composition in white Tyrolean marble depicting Lorelei, the mythical German figure, surrounded by mermaids, dolphins and seashells."[92]
One national landmark in the Bronx is the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, overlooking the Harlem River and designed by the renowned architect Stanford White. The never–landmarked Yankee Stadium, the "House that Ruth Built" and home to the New York Yankees since 1923, has been replaced with a similar-looking ballpark just across 161st Street.
The peninsular borough's maritime heritage is acknowledged in several ways.The City Island Historical Society and Nautical Museum occupies a former public school designed by the New York City school system's turn-of-the-last-century master architect C. B. J. Snyder. The state's Maritime College in Fort Schuyler (on the southeastern shore) houses the Maritime Industry Museum.[93] In addition, the Harlem River is reemerging as "Scullers' Row" [4] due in large part to the efforts of the Bronx River Restoration Project [5], a joint public-private endeavor of the city's parks department. Canoeing and kayaking on the borough's namesake river have been promoted by the Bronx River Alliance. The river is also straddled by the New York Botanical Gardens, its neighbor, the Bronx Zoo, and a little further south, on the west shore, Bronx River Art Center.
Newspapers The Bronx has several local newspapers, including The Bronx News [6], Parkchester News, City News, The Riverdale Press, Riverdale Review, The Bronx Times Reporter, Inner City Press [7] (which now has more of a focus on national issues) and Co-Op City Times. Four non-profit news outlets, Norwood News, Mount Hope Monitor, Mott Haven Herald 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.
Radio and television One of New York City's major non-commercial radio broadcasters is WFUV, an National Public Radio–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, and the first in New York beyond Manhattan, to have its own cable television provider. The local Public-access television station BronxNet provides Government-access television (GATV) public affairs programming in addition to programming produced by Bronx residents.[94]
Middle 20th century movies set in the Bronx portrayed densely-settled, working-class, urban culture. Hollywood films such as From This Day Forward (1946), set in Highbridge, occasionally delved into Bronx life. Paddy Chayefsky's Academy Award-winning Marty was the most notable examination of working class Bronx life was also explored by Chayefsky in his 1956 film The Catered Affair, and 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 in danger of losing their bakery thanks to one brother's gambling debts.
The Bronx's gritty urban life had worked its way into the movies even earlier, with depictions of the "Bronx cheer", a loud flatulent-like sound of disapproval, allegedly first made by New York Yankees fans. The sound can be heard, for example, when Spike Jones sings "Der Fuehrer's Face" (from the 1942 Disney animated film of the same name), repeatedly lambasting Adolf Hitler with: "We'll Heil! (Bronx cheer) Heil! (Bronx cheer) Right in Der Fuehrer's Face!"[95]
Other movies have also used the term Bronx for comic effect, such as "Bronx", the character on the Disney animated series Gargoyles.
Starting in the 1970s, the Bronx often symbolized violence, decay, and urban ruin. The wave of arson in the South Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s inspired the observation that "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. Numerous fires had previously broken out in the Bronx prior to this fire. As the fire was captured on live television, announcer Howard Cosell stated, "There it is, ladies and gentlemen: the Bronx is burning". Historians of New York City frequently point to Cosell's remark as an acknowledgement of both the city and the borough's decline.[96] A new feature-length documentary film by Edwin Pagan called Bronx Burning is in production[97] in 2006, chronicling what led up to the numerous arson-for-insurance fraud fires of the 1970s in the borough.
Bronx gang life was depicted 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 out of the borough and get back to Coney Island in Brooklyn. The 2005 video game adaptation features levels called Pelham, Tremont, and "Gunhill" (a play off 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 city's serious financial woes and near bankruptcy, the arson for insurance payments, and the election of Ed Koch as mayor.
The 1981 film Fort Apache, The Bronx is another film that used the Bronx's gritty image for its storyline. The movie's title is from the nickname for the 41st Police Precinct in the South Bronx which was nicknamed "Fort Apache". Also from 1981 is the horror film Wolfen making use of the rubble of the Bronx as a home for werewolf type creatures. Knights of the South Bronx, a true story of a teacher who worked with disadvantaged children, is another film also set in the Bronx released in 2005.
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!" Many of the movie's scenes were filmed in Queens, substituting as the Bronx. Rumble in the Bronx was a 1995 Jackie Chan kung-fu film, another which popularised the Bronx to international audiences. Last Bronx, a 1996 Sega game played on the bad reputation of the Bronx to lend its name to an alternate version of post-Japanese bubble Tokyo, where crime and gang warfare is rampant.
Bronx born and reared Nancy Savoca's 1989 comedy True Love, explores two Italian-American Bronx sweethearts in the days before their wedding. The film, which debuted Annabella Sciorra and Ron Eldard as the betrothed couple, won the Grand Jury Prize at that year's Sundance Film Festival.
The CBS television sitcom Becker, 1998–2004, was more ambiguous. The show starred Ted Danson as Dr. John Becker, a doctor who operated a small practice and was constantly annoyed by his patients, co-workers, friends, and practically everything and everybody else in his world. It showed his everyday life as a doctor working in a small clinic in the Bronx.
Penny Marshall's 1990 film Awakenings, which was nominated for several Oscars, is based on neurologist Oliver Sacks' 1973 account of his psychiatric patients at Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx who were paralyzed by a form of encephalitis but briefly responded to the drug L-dopa. Robin Williams played the physician; Robert De Niro was one of the patients who emerged from a catatonic (frozen) state. The home of Williams' character was shot not far from Sacks' actual City Island residence. A 1973 Yorkshire Television documentary and "A Kind of Alaska", a 1985 play by Harold Pinter,[98] were also based on Sacks' book.
Gus Van Sant's 2000 Finding Forrester was quickly billed "Good Will Hunting in the Hood." Sean Connery is in the title role of a reclusive old man who 50 years earlier wrote a single novel that garnered the Pulitzer Prize. He meets 16 year old Jamal – actor Rob Brown – a gifted, Bronx reared basketball player and aspiring writer, and becomes his mentor. The movie includes stock footage of Bronx housing projects from 1990, as well as some other scenes shot in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The Bronx has been featured significantly in fiction literature. All of the characters in Herman Wouk's City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder (1948) live in the Bronx, and about half of the action is set there. Kate Simon's Bronx Primitive: Portraits of a Childhood is directly autobiographical, a warm account of a Polish-Jewish girl in an immigrant family growing up before World War II, and living near Arthur Avenue and Tremont Avenue.[99] In Jacob M. Appel's short story, "The Grand Concourse" (2007),[100] a woman who grew up in the iconic Lewis Morris Building returns to the Morrisania neighborhood with her adult daughter. Similarly, in Avery Corman's book The Old Neighborhood (1980),[101] an upper-middle class white protagonist returns to his birth neighborhood (Fordham Road and the 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)[102] portrays a wealthy, white protagonist, Sherman McCoy, getting lost off the Major Deegan Expressway in the South Bronx and having an altercation with locals. 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 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."[103]
Don DeLillo's Underworld (1997) is also set in the Bronx and offers a perspective on the decline of the area from the 1950s onwards. John Patrick Shanley's "Savage in Limbo" is set in a 1980s Bronx bar called 'Scales' where the frustrated characters feel they are unable to move.
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 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!"[37]
Passing through: The theme song to the 1960s U.S. television comedy series Car 54, Where Are You? begins "There's a holdup in The Bronx."[104] And the song "New York, New York" (by Betty Comden and Adolph Green from the 1940s musical comedy and film, "On the Town") explains that "The Bronx is up and the Battery's down." Another song, "Manhattan" (by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart for the 1925 musical "Garrick Gaieties"), declares "We'll have Manhattan,/The Bronx and Staten/Island too./It's lovely going through/the zoo."
Bronx Local: While hundreds of songs about New York City, Manhattan and Brooklyn can be found in Wikipedia's List of songs about New York City and also in Marc Ferris's 5-page, 15-column list of "Songs and Compositions Inspired by New York City" in The Encyclopedia of New York City (1995),[105] only a handful refer to The Bronx.
Ferris's extensive but selective 1995 list mentions only four songs referring specifically to The Bronx:
But Wikipedia's own list also currently mentions:
- ^ a b c d 2011 borough population estimates are taken from the annual database of county population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, specifically this Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for New York state's counties, Table 1. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties of New York: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011, retrieved on May 13, 2012
- ^ a b c d e U.S. Census Bureau, County and City Data Book:2007 Table B-1, Area and Population, retrieved on July 12, 2008. New York County (Manhattan) was the nation's densest-populated county, followed by Kings County (Brooklyn), Bronx County, Queens County and San Francisco, California.
- ^ While the Bronx has an area of only 42 square miles (109 km2), it has more residents than the 665,000 square miles (1,700,000 km2) of Alaska and Wyoming combined, according to Table 348 of the Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008 Ranked areas of the boroughs from U.S. Census Bureau, County and City Data Book:2007 Table B-1, Area and Population, retrieved on July 13, 2008.
- ^ a b Lloyd Ultan, Bronx Borough Historian, "History of the Bronx River," Paper presented to the Bronx River Alliance, November 5, 2002 (notes taken by Maarten de Kadt, November 16, 2002), retrieved on August 29, 2008. This 2½ hour talk covers much of the early history of the Bronx as a whole, in addition to the Bronx River.
- ^ a b On the start of business for Bronx County: Bronx County In Motion. New Officials All Find Work to Do on Their First Day. The New York Times, January 3, 1914 (PDF retrieved on June 26, 2008):
- "Despite the fact that the new Bronx County Court House is not completed there was no delay yesterday in getting the court machinery in motion. All the new county officials were on hand and the County Clerk, the District Attorney, the Surrogate, and the County Judge soon had things in working order. The seal to be used by the new county was selected by County Judge Louis D. Gibbs. It is circular. In the centre is a seated figure of Justice. To her right is an American shield and over the figure is written 'Populi Suprema.' ..."
- "Surrogate George M. S. Schulz, with his office force, was busy at the stroke of 9 o'clock. Two wills were filed in the early morning, but owing to the absence of a safe they were recorded and then returned to the attorneys for safe keeping. ..."
- "There was a rush of business to the new County Clerk's office. Between seventy-five and a hundred men applied for first naturalization papers. Two certificates of incorporation were issued, and seventeen judgments, seven lis pendens, three mechanics' liens and one suit for negligence were filed."
- "Sheriff O'Brien announced several additional appointments."
- ^ a b Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is blooming! by Beth J. Harpaz, Travel Editor of The Associated Press (AP), June 30, 2008, retrieved on July 11, 2008
- ^ "Jonas Bronx". Bronx Notables. Bronx Historical Society. http://www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/notebx.html. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
- ^ Wylie, Jonathon (1987), The Faroe Islands: Interpretations of History, University of Kentucky Press, p. 209, ISBN 978-0-8131-1578-8, http://books.google.nl/books?id=7kmEYtkttx4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:9780813115788&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false, "Jónas Bronck (or Brunck) was the son of Morten Jespersen Bronck.....Jónas seems to have gone to school in Roskilde in 1619, but found his way to Holland where he joined an expedition to Amsterdam."
- ^ van Laer, A. J. F. (October 1916), The American Historical Review, 22, n.1, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the American Historical Association, pp. 164–166, JSTOR 1836219, “… Jonas Bronck was a Dane …”
- ^ Burrows, Edwin G.; Wallace, Mike (Michael L.) (1999), Gotham, A History of New York City to 1898, 1, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 30–37, ISBN 0-19-511634-8 “…many of these colonists, perhaps as many as half of them, represented the same broad mixture of nationalities as New Amsterdam itself. Among them were Swedes, Germans, French, Belgians, Africans, and Danes (such as a certain Jonas Bronck)...”
- ^ Van Rensselaer, Mariana Griswold (1909), History of the city of New York in the seventeenth century, 1, New York: The Macmillan Company, p. 161, http://www.worldcat.org/title/history-of-the-city-of-new-york-in-the-seventeenth-century/oclc/649654938?title=&detail=&page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3Di9ET9y_FpgQC%26checksum%3D9a3e1cdde2061df1e906bed9b5c04bae&linktype=digitalObject
- ^ Braver (1998)
- ^ a b The Almanac of American Politics 2008, edited by Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen and Grant Ujifusa, National Journal Group, Washington, D.C., 2008 ISBN 978-0-89234-117-7 (paperback) or −116-0 (hardback), chapter on New York state
- ^ a b U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003, Section 31, Table 1384. Congressional District Profiles — 108th Congress: 2000
- ^ See the "Historical Populations" table in History above and its sources.
- ^ American Fact Finder (U.S. Census Bureau): New York by County - Table GCT-PH1. Population, Housing Units, Area, and Density: 2000 Data Set: Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF 1) 100-Percent Data, retrieved on February 6, 2009
- ^ Olmsted (1989); Olmsted (1998)
- ^ "Piano Workers May Strike". The New York Times. August 29, 1919. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F20712FE3B5910738DDDA00A94D0405B898DF1D3. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
- ^ Christopher Gray, "Streetscapes: The New York Coliseum; From Auditorium To Bus Garage to..." The New York Times, Real Estate section, March 22, 1992, retrieved on July 2, 2008
- ^ The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1943, page 494, citing the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Statistical Bureau of the Synagogue Council of America
- ^ Remembrance of Synagogues Past: The Lost Civilization of the Jewish South Bronx, by Seymour J. Perlin, Ed.D. (retrieved on August 10, 2008), citing population estimates in "The Jewish Community Study of New York: 2002", UJA [United Jewish Appeal] Federation of New York, June 2004, and his own survey of synagogue sites.
- ^ Gonzalez (2004)
- ^ Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1974; ISBN 0-394-72024-5
- ^ Roderick Wallace: "A synergism of plagues: 'planned shrinkage,' contagious housing destruction, and AIDS in the Bronx." Environmental Research, October 1988, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 1–33, and "Urban desertification, public health and public order: 'planned shrinkage', violent death, substance abuse and AIDS in the Bronx", Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 37, No. 7 (1990) pp. 801–813 — abstracts retrieved on July 5, 2008 from PubMed. One sentence in the abstract of the 1990 article reads, "Empirical and theoretical analyses strongly imply present sharply rising levels of violent death, intensification of deviant behaviors implicated in the spread of AIDS, and the pattern of the AIDS outbreak itself, have been gravely affected, and even strongly determined, by the outcomes of a program of 'planned shrinkage' directed against African-American and Hispanic communities, and implemented through systematic and continuing denial of municipal services—particularly fire extinguishment resources—essential for maintaining urban levels of population density and ensuring community stability."
- ^ Issues such as redlining, hospital quality and what looked like the planned shrinkage of garbage collection became the contentious issues that sparked the Puerto Rican activists known as the Young Lords. The Young Lords coalesced with similar groups fighting for neighborhood empowerment, such as the Black Panthers, to protest urban renewal and arson for profit with sit-ins and marches. See pages 6–9 of the guide to ¡Palante Siempre Palante! The Young Lords a "P.O.V." (Point of View) documentary on the Public Broadcasting Service.
- ^ For an example of this argument, as well as of several other theses mentioned here, see "When the Bronx was burning" City-data forum (blog), 2007, where rubygreta writes:"Rent control destroyed the Bronx, especially starting in the 1960s and 1970s, when oil prices rose through the roof, and heavily subsidized Coop City opened in the East Bronx. Essentially, tenants never moved out of their apartments because they had below-market rents thanks to rent control. The apartments deteriorated and common areas deteriorated because the landlords had no cash-flow. And no cash flow meant that they could not get mortgages for major repairs such as boilers, roofs and window replacement."
- ^ "Arson for Hate and Profit". Time. 1977-10-31. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945795-2,00.html. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ PERSPECTIVES: The 10-Year Housing Plan; Issues for the 90's: Management and Costs, The New York Times, January 7, 1990
- ^ Neighborhood Change and the City of New York’s Ten-Year Housing Plan Housing Policy Debate • Volume 10, Issue 4. Fannie Mae Foundation 1999.
- ^ NOS QUEDAMOS/WE STAY Melrose Commons, Bronx, New York Sustainable Communities Network Case Studies Sustainability in Action 1997, retrieved on July 6, 2008
- ^ David Gonzalez, Yolanda Garcia, 53, Dies; A Bronx Community Force, The New York Times, February 19, 2005, retrieved on July 6, 2008
- ^ Meera Subramanian, HOMES AND GARDENS IN THE SOUTH BRONX, Portfolio, November 8, 2005, New York University Department of Journalism, retrieved on July 6, 2008
- ^ Wealthy are drowning in new bank branches, says study, New York Daily News, Monday, September 10, 2007
- ^ Superintendent Neiman Addresses the Ninth Annual Bronx Bankers Breakfast June 15, 2007. Among the remarks of Richard H. Neiman, New York State's Superintendent of Banks, were these: "The Bronx was an economically stable community until the mid 60s when the entire South Bronx struggled with major construction, real estate issues, red-lining, and block busting. This included a thoroughfare that divided communities, the deterioration of property as a result of rent control, and decrease in the value of real estate. By the mid 70s, the South Bronx was considered one of the most blighted urban cities in the country, with a loss of 60% of the population and 40% of housing units. The entire area struggled during the 80s and 90s to recover from this damage. However, thanks to strong community leadership and the involvement of many of you, today, the Bronx is undergoing a resurgence, with new housing developments and thriving business. From 2000 to 2006, there was a 2.2% increase in population and home ownership rates increased by 19.6%. ... When I look at maps of the Bronx, it's not difficult to see the areas that don't have bank branches. These areas, which are prime locations for new bank branches, include Community districts 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 12."
- ^ New bank targets Latinos in South Bronx December 11, 2007
- ^ On June 30, 2005, there were 129 Federally-insured banking offices in the Bronx, for a ratio of 1.0 offices for every 10,000 inhabitants. By contrast the national financial center of Manhattan had 555 for a ratio of 3.5/10,000, Staten Island a ratio of 1.9, Queens 1.7 and Brooklyn 1.1. In New York State as a whole the ratio was 2.6 and in the United States, 3.5 (a single office can serve more people in a more-densely-populated area.) U.S. Census Bureau, City and County Data Book, 2007 Table B-11. Counties – Banking, Retail Trade, and Accommodation and Food Services For 1997 and 2007, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Summary of Deposits; summary tables Deposits of all FDIC-Insured Institutions Operating in New York: State Totals by County — all retrieved on July 15–16, 2008.
- ^ a b Williams, Timothy (2006-06-27). "Celebrities Now Give Thonx for Their Roots in the Bronx". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/nyregion/27bronx.html. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ Topousis, Tom (2007-07-23). "Bx is Booming". New York Post. http://www.nypost.com/seven/07232007/news/regionalnews/bx__is_booming_regionalnews_tom_topousis.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
- ^ FUTURE OF NEW WARDS; New-York's Possession in Westchester County Rapidly Developing. The New York Times, Wednesday, May 17, 1896, page 15 (The subheadlines continue "TROLLEY AND STEAM ROAD SYSTEMS Vast Areas Being Brought Close to the Heart of the City – Miles of New Streets and Sewers. BOTANICAL AND ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. Advantages That Will Soon Relieve Crowded Sections of the City of Thousands of Their Inhabitants.") This is a very useful glimpse into the state of the Bronx (and the hopes of Manhattan's pro-Consolidation forces) as parks, housing and transit were all being rapidly developed.
- ^ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
- ^ Berger, Joseph (2010-07-19). "Reclaimed Jewel Whose Attraction Can Be Perilous". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/nyregion/20river.html?ref=nyregion. Retrieved 2010-07-21.
- ^ Bronx High Point and Ascent of Bronx Point on 2008-6-24 at Peakbaggers.com, retrieved on July 22, 2008
- ^ a b U.S. Census 2000 Gazetteer Files retrieved n July 26, 2008
- ^ Waterfront Development Initiative, Bronx Borough President's office, March 19, 2004, retrieved on July 29, 2008
- ^ Last Section Of Macombs Dam Park Closes To The Public For Redevelopment On-site construction begins on Garage A and the New Macombs Dam Park, Press Release, November 1, 2007, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation retrieved on July 19, 2008
- ^ a b In September 2008, Fordham University and its neighbor, the Wildlife Conservation Society, a global research organization which operates the Bronx Zoo, will begin a joint program leading to a Master of Science degree in adolescent science education (biology grades 7–12).
- ^ Crotona Park New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, retrieved on July 20, 2008
- ^ Article on the Bronx by Gary D. Hermalyn and Lloyd Ultan in The Encyclopedia of New York City (1995 – see Further reading for bibliographic details)
- ^ Jerome Park (New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, retrieved on July 12, 2008).
- ^ Bronx Parks for the 21st Century, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, retrieved on July 20, 2008. This links to both an interactive map and a downloadable (1.7 MB PDF) map showing nearly every public park and green space in the Bronx.
- ^ As Maps and Memories Fade, So Do Some Bronx Boundary Lines by Manny Fernandez, The New York Times, September 16, 2006, retrieved on August 3, 2008
- ^ Most correlations with Community Board jurisdictions in this section come from Bronx Community Boards at the Bronx Mall web-site, and New York: a City of Neighborhoods, New York City Department of City Planning, both retrieved on August 5, 2008
- ^ FIELDSTON PROPERTY OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION, INC. BY-LAWS, by the FPOA, September 17, 2006
- ^ The Hub
- ^ Bronx Neighborhood Histories
- ^ Bronx Hub revival gathers steam
- ^ Bronx Hub
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Center_at_Bronx_Terminal_Market
- ^ "Chains of Silver: Gateway Center At Bronx Terminal Market Earns LEED Silver Bona Fides"
- ^ Bronx factsheet
- ^ "NYC Post Offices to observe Presidents’ Day." United States Postal Service. February 11, 2009. Retrieved on May 5, 2009.
- ^ "Post Office Location – BRONX GPO." ''United States Postal Service. Retrieved on May 5, 2009.
- ^ "Photos: Bronx Residents on Obama". Newsweek. Jan. 17, 2009. http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2009/01/17/photos-bronx-residents-on-obama.html. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
- ^ a b "New York - Race and Hispanic Origin for Selected Cities and Other Places: Earliest Census to 1990". U.S. Census Bureau. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/twps0076.html. Retrieved May 4, 2012.
- ^ Quick Table QT-P9. Hispanic or Latino by Type: 2000; Data Set: Census 2000 Summary File 1 (SF 1) 100-Percent Data; Geographic Area: Bronx County, New York drawn from U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Summary File 1, Matrix PCT11, retrieved on August 7, 2008
- ^ (1) Population 1790–1960: The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1966, page 452, citing estimates of the Department of Health, City of New York.
(2) Population 1790–1990: Article on "population" by Nathan Kantrowitz in The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson (Yale University Press, 1995 ISBN 0-300-05536-6), citing the United States Census Bureau
N.B., Estimates in (1) and (2) before 1920 re-allocate the Census population from the counties whose land is now partly occupied by Bronx County.
(3) Population 1920–1990: Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990, Compiled and edited by Richard L. Forstall, Population Division, US Bureau of the Census, United States Census Bureau, Washington, D.C. 20233, March 27, 1995, retrieved July 4, 2008.
- ^ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=05000US36005&-qr_name=ACS_2009_1YR_G00_DP5&-context=adp&-ds_name=&-tree_id=309&-_lang=en&-redoLog=false&-format=
- ^ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-context=adp&-ds_name=ACS_2009_1YR_G00_&-tree_id=309&-redoLog=true&-_caller=geoselect&-geo_id=05000US36005&-format=&-_lang=en
- ^ a b Historical Census Browser University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Data Center, retrieved on August 7, 2008, querying 1930 Census for New York State. "The data and terminology presented in the Historical Census Browser are drawn directly from historical volumes of the U.S. Census of Population and Housing."
- ^ Oscar Johnson, "Chilly Coexistence: Africans and African Americans in the Bronx", Race Anthology (Columbia University journalism program), Spring 2000, retrieved on August 7, 2008. According to this story, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service data show that in 1996, about two-thirds of those Ghanaians visiting the United States, and nearly three-fourths of those naturalized, arrived in New York City.
- ^ Quick Tables QT-P15 and QT-P22, U.S. Census Bureau, retrieved on August 10, 2008
- ^ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
- ^ Kappstatter, Bob, (2/18/09), Bronx Beep Bound for D.C., New York Daily News
- ^ Trymaine Lee, Borough Voters Elect Díaz as New Borough President, The New York Times, New York edition, April 22, 2009, page A24, retrieved on May 13, 2009
- ^ Kappstatter, Bob, (4/22/09), Ruben Diaz Cruises to Victory in Bronx Borough President Special Election, New York Daily News
- ^ Board of Elections in the City of New York, Bronx Borough President special election results, April 21, 2009 (PDF with details by Assembly District, April 29, 2009), retrieved on May 13, 2009
- ^ The Role of African American Males in Politics and Government. T.D. Snipe. Annals, 2000 - litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com
- ^ New York State Board of Elections: 2006 Results Page, retrieved on July 23, 2008.
- ^ Board of Elections in the City of New York Summary of Election Results (1999–2008), retrieved on July 21, 2008.
- ^ The World Almanac and Book of Facts for 1929 & 1957; Our Campaigns (New York Counties Bronx President History);The Encyclopedia of New York City (see Further reading below), article on "government and politics"
- ^ (The Republican line exceeded the ALP's in every other borough)
- ^ To see a comparison of borough votes for Mayor, see New York City mayoral elections#How the boroughs voted
- ^ a b c QT-P19. School Enrollment: 2000; Data Set: Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) – Sample Data; Geographic Area: Bronx County, New York, U.S. Census Bureau, retrieved August 22, 2008
- ^ U.S. Census Bureau, County and City Data Book:2007, Table B-4. Counties – Population Characteristics
- ^ Monroe College history (from the College's web site) retrieved on July 27, 2008.
- ^ 2007 Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival website. See also the Flickr.com photograph album of the 2007 Festival
- ^ Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, accessed October 9, 2006 Archived October 5, 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ David Gonzalez, "Will Gentrification Spoil the Birthplace of Hip-Hop?", The New York Times, May 21, 2007, retrieved on July 1, 2008
- ^ Jennifer Lee, "Tenants Might Buy the Birthplace of Hip-Hop", The New York Times, January 15, 2008, retrieved on July 1, 2008
- ^ a b c Tukufu Zuberi ("detective"), BIRTHPLACE OF HIP HOP, History Detectives, Season 6, Episode 11, New York City, found at PBS official website. Accessed February 24, 2009.
- ^ Johan Kugelberg, Born in the Bronx; New York: Rizzoli (Universe), 2007; ISBN 978-0-7893-1540-3.
- ^ Christopher Gray, "Sturm und Drang Over a Memorial to Heinrich Heine", The New York Times, May 27, 2007, retrieved on July 3, 2008. See also Public Art in the Bronx: Joyce Kilmer Park, from Lehman College
- ^ Maritime Industry Museum, retrieved on August 21, 2008
- ^ Its website showcases very short selections (less than 20 seconds and over 2 MB each in uncompressed AIFF format) from Bronx Music Vol.1, an out-of-press compact disc of the old and new sounds and artists of the Bronx.
- ^ David Hinkley, "Scorn and disdain: Spike Jones giffs Hitler der old birdaphone, 1942." New York Daily News,"March 3, 2004.http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2004/03/03/2004-03-03_scorn_and_disdain_spike_jone.html
- ^ Mahler, Jonathan (2005). Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-312-42430-2.
- ^ "Opportunities for Arts Organizations and Community Based Organizations". E-News Update. Bronx Council on the Arts. January 2006. http://www.bronxarts.org/newsletter/200601.html.
- ^ (ISBN 0-573-12129-X)
- ^ Kate Simon, Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood. New York: Harper Colophon, 1983.
- ^ The Threepenny Review, Volume 109, Spring 2007
- ^ Avery Corman, The Old Neighborhood, Simon and Schuster, 1980; ISBN 0-671-41475-5
- ^ Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1987 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-374-11535-7, Picador Books 2008 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-312-42757-3
- ^ Anne Barnard, Twenty Years After 'Bonfire,' A City No Longer in Flames, The New York Times, December 10, 2007, retrieved on July 1, 2008
- ^ Car 54, Where Are You?#Theme song
- ^ The Encyclopedia of New York City, edited by Kenneth T. Jackson (Yale University Press and The New-York Historical Society, New Haven, Connecticut, 1995 ISBN 0-300-05536-6), pages 1091–1095
- Barrows, Edward, and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (1999)
- Baver, Sherrie L. "Development of New York's Puerto Rican Community", Bronx County Historical Society Journal 1988 25(1): 1–9
- Briggs, Xavier de Souza, Anita Miller and John Shapiro. 1996. "CCRP in the South Bronx." Planners' Casebook, Winter.
- de Kadt, Maarten. The Bronx River: An Environmental and Social History. The History Press (2011)
- DiBrino, Nicholas. The History of the Morris Park Racecourse and the Morris Family (1977)
- Federal Writers' Project. New York City Guide: A Comprehensive Guide to the Five Boroughs of the Metropolis: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Richmond (1939) online edition
- Gonzalez, Evelyn. The Bronx. (Columbia University Press, 2004. 263 ISBN 0-231-12114-8), scholarly history focused on the slums of the South Bronx online edition
- Goodman, Sam. "The Golden Ghetto: The Grand Concourse in the Twentieth Century", Bronx County Historical Society Journal 2004 41(1): 4–18 and 2005 42(2): 80–99
- Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. The Encyclopedia of New York City, (Yale University Press and The New-York Historical Society, (1995) ISBN 0-300-05536-6), has entries, maps, illustrations, statistics and bibliographic references on almost all of the significant topics in this article, from the entire borough to individual neighborhoods, people, events and artistic works.
- Jonnes, Jull. South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City (2002) online edition
- McNamara, John History In Asphalt: The Origin of Bronx Street and Place Names (1993) ISBN 0-941980-16-2
- McNamara, John McNamara's Old Bronx (1989) ISBN 0-941980-25-1
- Olmsted, Robert A. "A History of Transportation in the Bronx", Bronx County Historical Society Journal 1989 26(2): 68–91
- Olmsted, Robert A. "Transportation Made the Bronx", Bronx County Historical Society Journal 1998 35(2): 166–180
- Rodríguez, Clara E. Puerto Ricans: Born in the U.S.A (1991) online edition
- Samtur, Stephen M. and Martin A. Jackson. The Bronx: Lost, Found, and Remembered, 1935–1975 (1999) online review, nostalgia
- Twomey, Bill and Casey, Thomas Images of America Series: Northwest Bronx (2011)
- Twomey, Bill and McNamara, John. Throggs Neck Memories (1993)
- Twomey, Bill and McNamara, John. Images of America Series: Throggs Neck-Pelham Bay (1998)
- Twomey, Bill and Moussot, Peter. Throggs Neck (1983), pictorial
- Twomey, Bill. Images of America Series: East Bronx (1999)
- Twomey, Bill. Images of America Series: South Bronx (2002)
- Twomey, Bill. The Bronx in Bits and Pieces (2007)
- Ultan, Lloyd. The Northern Borough: A History Of The Bronx (2009), popular general history
- Ultan, Lloyd. The Bronx in the frontier era: from the beginning to 1696 (1994)
- Ultan, Lloyd. The Beautiful Bronx (1920–1950) (1979), heavily illustrated
- Ultan, Lloyd. The Birth of the Bronx, 1609–1900 (2000), popular
- Ultan, Lloyd. The Bronx in the Innocent years, 1890–1925 (1985), popular
- Ultan, Lloyd. The Bronx: It Was Only Yesterday, "The Bronx: It Was Only Yesterday 1935–1965 (1992), heavily illustrated popular history
- East Bronx History Forum
- Museum of Bronx History
- The Bronx County Historical Society
- The Bronx: A Swedish Connection
- Report of the Bronx Parkway Commission, December 31, 1918, retrieved on July 24, 2008
- Remembrance of Synagogues Past: The Lost Civilization of the Jewish South Bronx by Seymour Perlin, retrieved on August 10, 2008
- Forgotten New York: Relics of a Rich History in the Everyday Life of New York City
- Bronx Nostalgia, photos, narratives, personal accounts, school alumni, videos
Coordinates: 40°50′14″N 73°53′10″W / 40.8373°N 73.8860°W / 40.8373; -73.8860
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![The giraffe preserve in the Bronx Zoo, the world's largest metropolitan zoo.[128]New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120908234532/http://cdn3.wn.com/pd/fe/50/2feca6317c3a5fcc2c61a423c953_medium.jpg "The giraffe preserve in the Bronx Zoo, the world's largest metropolitan zoo.[128]New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.")
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