I Still Love The Bronx But...

Okay, so I’m a Bronx girl—born, raised, and lived there until my 41st birthday. I learned to speak Spanish from my babysitters and the guys in the bodegas. Everything lower than Harlem to me is “the city.” I saw Fat Joe frequently pass by my aunt’s salon on Westchester Ave because his store was nearby. Me and almost all my siblings and cousins were born in Jacobi. I’ve never walked down those stupid ass “Joker” stairs… because por qué?? I ate Nick’s Pizza and Circle Pizza. I went to Kingston Bakery to get chicken patties (I never ate a lot of beef), cocoa bread, and hard dough bread. I can go on and on about growing up in The Bronx, but I’ll stop here.

Coming off the 6 train back in the day in Parkchester!

Nowadays, thanks to social media, there is so much being said about The Bronx that, in my opinion, isn’t completely accurate, or at least not for the entire Bronx. The main thing is that people are under the impression that there are no nice areas of The Bronx, that everyone and everything in The Bronx is dirty, that there are no safe areas in The Bronx. Now I’m a Black woman of small stature, there isn’t a place on earth that is 100% safe to me. However, I can point out the areas that I feel safer in than others. I can also point out areas where the sidewalks and stores are clean. Where people are actually taking care of their community.
I recently moved to a “borough” in Jersey, outside of Hackensack so my commute to my job in The Bronx has changed significantly. When I lived and worked in The Bronx, I noticed the difference between my neighborhood and where my job is because gradually my neighborhood has become like the one where my job is. I couldn’t wait to get to that certain part of Tremont Ave where things seemed to calm down.
One day in September after parking in the job parking lot, I got out of my car and took a breath. There seemed to be a stench in the air. Later, I stepped out of work to go to the store and smelled the same stench. I said to my best friend later, “Is it me or does The South Bronx stink? I mean like, did it always stink or is it just starting to stink?”
She said, “Both. It was stink before and now its getting worse. It’s more noticeable.”
Lately, I dread walking down the street near my job more than I did before. It smells, the sidewalks look filthy… and then the people. I feel horrible for saying this because I am well aware of the affects of poverty and drugs. I lived through the crack era. But damn, the people in The South Bronx depress me. Everybody looks like the Gross Sisters from The Proud Family.
For a while I was afraid the North Bronx would be subject to the same deterioration of the South. I get the feeling that those who own the private homes, 2-6 family units, and tenements are not going to let that happen. There’s also the development of the Metro North station in Parkchester. In fact, let me take a moment to talk about Parkchester. I’m not sure where people get it from that Parkchester is a project or NYCHA community. Initially, after the Civil War, part of Parkchester was an orphanage for misplaced children. Later, in 1938, that land and a great deal more was bought by Met Life, and by the early 1940s families began to move into newly built condominiums. White families, that is. Black people were not allowed in until around 1968. My own family was able to rent a two-bedroom condo in the North sometime in the 1970s. They left at the end of 1983, shortly after I was born, because the two-bedrooms would no longer suffice for my grandmother, her husband, her two almost-adult daughters, me, and a dog. While I was growing up, in the 80s and early 90s, Parkchester was a coveted place to live. The parks were and still are, pretty. The home that my grandmother bought wasn’t too far from there and so my mother could still take me for walks in the area. I loved the fountain and begged to swim in it because I thought the water was blue… the fountain is just painted blue on the inside though. I asked my mother why people threw pennies in the swimming pool. She explained, “It’s not a pool,” she explained. “It’s a fountain. People throw pennies in to make wishes.” Well why did she tell me that? I went from begging to frolic in the copper polluted water to begging for more change to throw in it. As a teenager, I did what my mother did when she was a teenager—I hung out at the park in the West. That’s when the neighborhood started to get a little shaky. Gangs seeped in and Parkchester started seeing it’s fair share of “hood crime.”

The lovely fountain in the middle of Parkchester.

Still, when I was in my twenties and friends bought or rented condos there, particularly in the North, Parkchester wasn’t the worst place to be. It wasn’t until after the pandemic in 2020, when I rented from a friend in the North that I started to see the deterioration for myself. The first week I moved in, I was on the elevator. A woman got on with her dog. I made a joke about having puppy fever, and she said, “Well you can’t have a dog here unless its a service or emotional support dog.”
I nodded, assuming her dog was for emotional support. It clearly wasn’t a service dog.
“You renting or you own here?” she asked.
“Uhh… renting from family,” I stated. “Oh. Then it might not be a big deal for you. They treat owners and renters differently here.” Her voice became resentful.
After that, she barely spoke to me when she saw me. For months, until more things opened back up in NYC, Parkchester maintenance was what I considered top notch. They cleaned the buildings at the same time every day from top to bottom. When I went back to work in person in 2021, it all stopped. People were urinating in the staircases and packing the trash chutes with way too much trash. It was crazy. I had never experienced living in NYCHA, but I felt like I was getting a taste for the three years I remained there. They broke ground for the new Metro North station directly after I moved out. Parking was already an issue in the area, and the gain of the train station meant the loss of an entire parking lot that most of the working community relied on. I was glad to get away, but I’m continuously curious about the possible improvements of the area, thanks to the train station.
Anyway, I’m not saying all this this to drag The South Bronx, but I do want to say this — there is a difference between the North and South Bronx. Honestly though, I wish there was something that could be done about The South Bronx. I know that there isn’t necessarily anything to be done because it starts with the mindset of the people who inhabit it. They can’t be forced to care if they don’t know that they should or that there’s a better way of living. All I got left is prayer.
Like the title of the blog, these are just my random thoughts. I post for commentary. If you’re from The Bronx or ever lived there, do you know the difference between the north and south? The east and the west? Have you experienced the slow decline, or was it always a raggedy hot mess to you? I’m curious to know what everyone else’s experience is. The way I see it, the bad parts have leaked into the good, but only where the community wasn’t strong enough to stop it. I think there will continue to be a distinct difference between the north and south, and I wish other’s knew about the differences before opening their mouths about it.