THE ECONOMIC CRISIS THAT CAUSED THE BRONX TO BURN
The 1970’s proved to be a very devastating decade throughout New York City, especially in the Bronx. The city was plagued by and suffered long-lasting changes due to the 1970’s Fiscal Crisis. During this time, the South Bronx in particular experienced massive shifts in its demographics. “The already poor and working-class neighborhoods were further disadvantaged by the decreasing property value, in combination with increasing vacancy rates.” NY Times
The Bronx experienced a 57% decrease in population from 1970 to 1980. The stagnation of the economy and increase in unemployment led to an increased crime rate and police corruption which severely limited the economy. The unemployment in the Bronx was one full point higher than any other county, and was 1.4 percentage points higher than the city average.
With the increase of poor Blacks and Puerto Ricans, as a result of white flight and Manhattan slum clearing, the condition of the Bronx was steadily declining. Since the borough now consisted of only the poor, establishments within the Bronx were forced to shut down due to a lack of business. Landlords too, were greatly affected by the changing nature of the Bronx. The new residents of these tenements were unable to pay rent, and in turn, landlords earned a significantly lower income. As a result, and adding to the overall desolate atmosphere of the Bronx, landlords began to burn down buildings in order to collect insurance money, which at the time was of more value than rent collection.
With the the abandonment by landlords, business owners, and the white middle class, the Bronx began to embody the poor and the past. While other boroughs were also affected by the fiscal crisis, the Bronx had suffered the most loss and was at a greater disadvantage than the rest of the city. This in itself, set the the stage for wealth and income inequality.
In November 1976, Roger Starr wrote in The New York Times Magazine about the city’s shrinkage in the grim economy, especially in the South Bronx, where “block after block of apartment houses stand open to wind and sky.” Here, burned-out buildings are seen through the doorway of another, 490 St. Ann’s Avenue. Amid the rubble, men built a shack to live in.
Create line charts
This graph illustrates an increasing rate of poverty in the South Bronx, especially amongst single mothers and families with children, during the 1970’s.
“It was the poster child for blight and urban neglect and municipal incompetence in the 1970s. People don’t understand, but it takes decades to recover from that.” Bronx Resident, Mr. Breslau
The downfall of the Bronx’s economy during the 1970’s branded it with an image of urban decay that would last a lifetime. Residents are still trying to shed this image of themselves as the lesser side of the income disparity, while trying to regain a place on the economic ladder.
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN THE SOUTH BRONX
“Mott Haven” or “Piano District”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQo_1O4BXa0
Slideshow depicts current scene in the Mott Haven district (Source:YouTube)
There is an ongoing issue raging in the Mott Haven area of the South Bronx that illustrates not only gentrification, but the absurdly large disparity in the wealth of the residents of New York. The Somerset partners and the Chetrit group have collaborated to rebrand the already named area as the trendier sounding “Piano District” – referencing the fact that the area was once home to many piano factories. They are currently trying to turn the South Bronx Harlem River waterfront into something, in their own words, “between [Brooklyn’s] Williamsburg and Dumbo”.
A billboard at the start of the Mott Haven district welcomes visitors to the “South Bronx Piano District”, boasting “luxury waterfront living”against a backdrop of graffiti and old buildings. (Photo: Google Images)
The developers have already spent $58 million on waterfront property, where they have plans to build two 25 story towers that will offer, as they state on a large billboard onsite, “luxury waterfront living – world class dining, fashion, art + architecture”, all of which will not be remotely affordable to the majority of Mott Haven’s current residents. While the area is undeniably in need of some form of restoration, the present plans are a textbook example of for-profit redevelopment that will displace, rather than assist, current residents and their existing culture.
Macabre Suite Exhibition
Only a few months ago, on October 31st, 2015, a specific event occurred that seemed almost designed to flaunt the embarrassingly extreme wealth imbalances of NYC. The developers of the new “Piano District” held a ‘Macabre Suite’ exhibition/party that many argued made light of the South Bronx’s painful history of arson and extreme poverty by turning it into a Halloween party theme. Decorations included garbage can fires, bullet ridden cars, rubble, etc., with A-list celebrities taking pictures and casually tweeting the hashtag: #theBronxisburning. The phrase was used to reference the constant instances of arson that devastated South Bronx neighborhoods in the 1970s.
A grand piano decorates the ‘Macabre Suite’ exhibition, symbolizing the attempt to rebrand an already socially and historically established district. Trashcans, a wire fence, and graffiti are tossed in by the party hosts for aesthetic appeal.
(Photo: Angela Pham and Matteo Prandoni/BFA)
And despite any outer-borough phobias, thousands of people came in, the same crew that one would see on a night at openings in Manhattan airlifted to the Harlem Riviera, with a VIP section swollen with models in leather jackets and club promoters and movie stars and Knicks point guards and – very incongruously – a suited up Per Skarstedt, who shouted at a reporter, “I love it all, and I’ve never been to the Bronx before!”
– Nate Freeman, “Art News”
Essentially, the wealthy (predominantly white) Manhattan downtowners came up for the night, appropriated and romanticized unfortunate South Bronx events, and then advertised their plans to throw out its real history in order to clear out the place for a less gritty “Piano District”. As Ed García Conde of Welcome2TheBronx noted, ‘income inequality couldn’t have had a better show’ than this event, which brought many one-percenters to an area that remains one of NYC’s poorest.’”
Left: Revelers inside the decorated S. Bronx warehouse
Right: Homeless man seeks shelter in a cardboard box only feet away from the party location (Photo: Welcome2theBronx)
Income comparison of Manhattan and Bronx neighborhoods by age and household. The Mott Haven district hosts 57,678 people/square mile as opposed even to other areas in the Bronx, which average 31,709 people/square mile.
The Moral Issue
This event points to a very deep underlying moral issue in our society and our city, supposedly the greatest in the world. Wealth inequality is not necessarily inherently evil; the problem lies in whether the playing field is level for all the players struggling to live and succeed in NYC. It is undeniable that in New York City, just the same as in other “less developed” areas of the country, each resident does not receive the same, equal opportunities in life. The above diagram displays the extreme disparity in the incomes of residents of the Mott Haven area as opposed to those of the affluent Upper East Side, from which many of the partygoers likely came.The astoundingly huge wealth gap is caused by various factors: education costs (see below), race, language fluency/barriers, one’s neighborhood, inherited wealth, etc.
A comparison of education statistics for Upper East Side, Manhattan (top) and Mott Haven, South Bronx (bottom). Factors such as these contribute greatly to the large income gap between such neighborhoods.
These imbalances affect not only the immediate disadvantaged people, but our society as a whole.
John W. Schoen notes that “No society can expect to thrive if it doesn’t fully tap the talent and ability of its entire workforce — including those who happen to be born poor.”
Read on: Tale of Two Boroughs
